Descartes and Foucault: A Contrastive Introduction to Philosophy

M. Morgan Holmes teaches English at McGill University.

As Prado notes in his study, René Descartes and Michel Foucault occupy
radically antithetical positions on the spectrum of philosophy. That a
single book should attempt to discuss the two might at first sound
unlikely at best and absurd at worst, for what relation can there be
between a Renaissance essentialist and a postmodern constructivist? This
book explores the connection by examining each author’s central
tenets, not so much in order to create a guidebook to their thought as
to get at the underlying assumptions concerning epistemology and the
search for truth that motivate their work.

In direct, jargon-free language and through clearly delineated
step-by-step arguments, Prado takes us through Descartes’s Meditations
on First Philosophy and the first volume of Foucault’s History of
Sexuality in a way that ultimately valorizes Foucauldian perspectives
without trivializing the ideas of Descartes. Prado emphasizes in his
analysis of Foucault how this 20th-century philosopher demonstrated that
the central ideas of his predecessor had “ossified into articles of
faith, and how their touted objectivity was actually only a favored
perspective.” While not overburdening the reader with extraneous
material, Prado contextualizes his investigation by judiciously
referencing philosophical luminaries such as Locke, Hume, Nietzsche,
Derrida, and Rorty, something that enables his work to demonstrate what
Foucault would call a “genealogy” of ideas.

Prado’s book is written primarily as an introductory text for someone
he calls a “novice”; indeed, this would be a particularly useful
work in an undergraduate philosophy or literary studies class. The
secondary audience for Prado’s work is the “expert,” someone
familiar with Western philosophy. In my experience, however, this
“expert” readership is far less committed to Cartesian objectivism
than Prado makes out, a fact that could dissuade a potential reader from
what is in fact an enlightening inquiry. A glossary of philosophical
terms at the end is an especially worthwhile feature, and is
written—as is Prado’s study in general—to be useful beyond the
confines of Descartes and Foucault.