"There is hardly a philosophy which has not invoked something like the will or desire to know, the love of truth, etcetera. But, in truth, very few philosophers—apart, perhaps, from Spinoza and Schopenhauer—have accorded it more than a marginal status; as if there was no need for philosophy to say first of all what the name that it bears actually refers to. As if placing at the head of its discourse the desire to know, which it repeats in its name, was enough to justify its own existence and show—at a stroke—that it is necessary and natural: All men desire to know. Who, then, is not a philosopher, and how could philosophy not be the most necessary thing in the world?"
Quote Details
Added by wikiquote-import-bot
Unverified quote
0 likes
Atheists from FranceAcademics from FrancePhilosophers from FranceHistorians from FranceSociologists from France
Original Language: English
Available Languages (1)
Sources
pp. 4-5
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Michel_Foucault
Revision History
No revisions have been submitted for this quote.
Categories
Michel Foucault
1926 – 1984
französischer Philosoph
192 quotes on TrueQuotesView all quotes by Michel Foucault →
Related Quotes
"Sometimes, because my position has not been made clear enough, people think I'm a sort of radical anarchist who has a…"
"Marxism exists in nineteenth-century thought as a fish exists in water; that is, it ceases to breathe anywhere else."
"Quand j’étudie les mécanismes de pouvoir, j’essaie d’étudier leur spécificité… Je n’admets ni la notion de maîtrise n…"
"We should admit rather that power produces knowledge (and not simply by encouraging it because it serves power or by …"
"[L]'âme, prison du corps."
"Do not ask who I am and do not ask me to remain the same: leave it to our bureaucrats and our police to see that our …"
"Is it surprising that prisons resemble factories, schools, barracks, hospitals, which all resemble prisons?"
"[T]ruly to escape Hegel involves an exact appreciation of the price we have to pay to detach ourselves from him. It a…"
"The problem is not to discover in oneself the truth of one's sex, but, rather, to use one's sexuality henceforth to a…"
"I don't feel that it is necessary to know exactly what I am. The main interest in life and work is to become someone …"