The Politics of Truth

An all together excellent collection of essays and interviews by the late Foucault. This gathering of philosophy revolves around Kant's 'What is Enlightenment' essay, (which is included in the book), and provides Foucault's complex and well reasoned response. The Kantian notion of Enlightenment was contingent on a form of political freedom which enabled man to free himself from external authority and think rationally. Foucault traces the historicity of this mode of thought, and ultimately argues that the Enlightenment was a system of connectivity between power relations, and that humans were not truly "mature" intellectually in the Kantian sense. This volume also has excellent discussions on revolution, the development of critique in philosophical discourse, and Christianity and Confession. An excellent presentation of his thought, and somewhat clearer than his published books.