Who gives the more convincing interpretation of Descartes' First Meditation, Derrida or

Foucault?

In the First Meditation of the Meditations on the First Philosophy (hereafter MFP)
Descartes embarks upon a voyage of the most radical doubt, one might even say the
maddest doubt. A journey of mad doubting that Descartes hopes will, when it ends, if it
ends, arrive at the foundation of certain knowledge. It is no more than a few paragraphs
into the First Meditation when, according to Michel Foucault, Descartes excludes the
mad from participating in the pursuit of epistemological certainty. Contrary to this
interpretation is one proposed by Jacques Derrida, who argues that "Descartes never
interns madness, neither at the stage of natural doubt nor at the stage of metaphysical
doubt. He only claims to exclude it during the first phase of the first stage, during the
non-hyperbolic moment of natural doubt." After we carefully consider each of the
1

interpretations I hope to demonstrate that Derrida gives the more convincing

interpretation of the First Meditation.

Derrida is right to say that Descartes only seems to exclude madness just after the
First Meditation has begun. What he observes in the passage where, according to
Foucault, Descartes excludes the mad, is "the astonished objection of an imaginary non-
philosopher who is frightened" by Descartes' sceptical argument concerning knowledge
2

of sensory origin. Descartes, argues Derrida, feigns this objection by making a

comparison between his sceptical argument and the hallucinations of mad people. He
then complements this comparison he proposed to the non-philosopher with the
disingenuous remark "But they are mad, and I should not be any the less insane were I to
follow examples so extravagant." However, "the popular notion of insanity" that
3 4

Descartes evokes is really not mad enough. 'I'll show you a sceptical argument that is
madder than the mad.' Descartes says to himself, as he introduces the dreaming
hypothesis. Derrida argues that "the dreamer, insofar as concerns the problem of
knowledge which interests Descartes here, is further from true perception than the
madman." Thus, it is in dreams "and not in that of insanity, that the absolute totality of
ideas of sensory origin becomes suspect, is stripped of 'objective value'[Derrida's
italics]". Once the dreaming hypothesis has served its purpose, Descartes yet again
5

reassures the non-philosopher that there "are the certainties and truths of a non-sensory
and non-imaginative origin"; the certainties and truths of arithmetic and geometry. Here,
6

Derrida argues, "is discontinuity and a transition to another order of reasoning." A 7

transition from knowledge of sensory origin to knowledge of intelligible origin.

Within the order of natural doubt, the "example of madness" that Descartes names,
"is only a particular case...of the sensory illusion which interests Descartes at this point.
[my italics]" Furthermore, the whole movement, beginning with the initial sceptical
8

hypothesis that since the senses have deceived me once before I cannot trust any
knowledge of sensory origin, to the second epistemological order of mathematics, is
according to Derrida is of a pedagogical nature. At this point of the meditation Descartes
is only introducing the non-philosopher to philosophical argumentation. Thus the
seeming exclusion of madness.
Now it is only for the simplicity of the central tenet of Derrida's thesis that one
cannot help but be convinced by his interpretation of the First Meditation. Derrida is
only pointing out what is obvious in the MFP. The order of reasoning which concerns
arithmetic, geometry and mathematics, along with the ideas of sensory origin, is now
subjected "to the fiction of the evil genius" A skeptical hypothesis that does not name
9

madness, although in Descartes' eyes epitomizes madness. In this "new phase of

doubt...everything that was previously set aside as insanity is now welcomed in to the
most essential interiority of thought." Derrida writes "We are thus quite far from the
10

dismissal of insanity made above." It is in the Second Meditation "Confronted with the
11

critical experience of the Cogito" that we can understand Derrida's argument, for it is
here that "insanity...is irremediably on a plane with scepticism." In fact, argues Derrida,
12

Descartes' project "acknowledges madness as its liberty and its very possibility." The 13

foundation of certain knowledge, for Descartes the Cogito, could only have been
discovered in madness, in the mad thoughts of scepticism. For the Cogito "is valid even
if I am mad, even if my thoughts are completely mad" and "is attained and ascertained
within madness itself[Derrida's italics]" Clearly, it follows from this that "Madness is
14

therefore, in every sense of the word, only one case of thought (within thought).
[Derrida's italics]" Thus Derrida's claim that Descartes does not, or more to the point,
15

cannot exclude madness in the First Meditation.

It is Derrida's characterization of madness as an example of thought that is contrary
to Foucault's conceptualization of madness and of its role in the First Meditation. In My
Body, This Paper, This Fire, Foucault both defends his interpretation of the First
Meditation and attacks Derrida's criticisms of his book Historie de la folie.
Throughout the First Meditation, argues Foucault, Descartes is weaving together,
on the one hand, a series of demonstrative arguments with, on the other hand, a series of
exercises which continually craft a subject who "passes from darkness to light, from
impurity to purity, and so on." Dreams fulfill both the criterion of demonstrative
16

argument, and of subject modifying exercise. First, dreams "are capable of giving rise to
the extravagances which equal or sometimes exceed those of madness" such that
"everything which madness could make me doubt can also be rendered uncertain by
dreams." Second, the "accessibility" of dreams is used "as an exercise" to qualify a
17

meditating subject. Thinking about dreams can effect within the meditating subject the
indifference between two perceptual states, one dreaming the other being awake.
However, "thinking about dreams does not disqualify" the meditating subject "as
meditating subject." Madness satisfies only the criterion of demonstrative argument. It
18

is disqualified from the First Meditation since a mad subject is incapable of meditating,
of reasoning. In other words, "a philosopher cannot reason whilst mad". Foucault writes
19

"If one uses the example of madness...it is impossible to remain qualified as a subject
conducting rationally his meditation through doubt to an eventual truth." 20

Foucault sees the exclusion of the mad concretized by Descartes' use of three Latin
terms for madness. First, the term insanus is used to characterize a person who "takes
oneself to be what one is not, to believe in fancies, to be the victim of illusions." 21

Insanus corresponds to "were it not perhaps that I compare myself to certain persons,
devoid of sense" Amens and demens "are in the first place juridical" and signify a group
22

of people who are "incapable of certain religious, civil and judicial acts" According to
23

Foucault, when Descartes employs these terms, "They are amentes(mad); and I should be
no less demens(insane) if I were to apply their examples to myself." , he excludes the
24

mad on account of their incapacity to search for truth. However, Roy Boyne points out
that Foucault's "appeal to the realm of the juridical is slightly weakened by the fact that
Descartes does not use the term, furiosus, used in Roman law to designate the legally
incompetent by virtue of madness." Aside from this remark concerning the use of
25

certain Latin words for madness, Foucault does not waiver from the claim that Descartes
excludes the mad subject from engaging in the search for epistemological truth.
We are now familiar with the readings of the First Meditation by both Derrida and
Foucault. However, more needs to be said if we are to be convinced by either
interpretation of the First Meditation. What sense can we make of Derrida's claim that
"Whether mad or not, Cogito, sum. Madness...is one case of thought (within thought)"? 26

What sense can we make of Foucault's claim that madness is excluded from thought?
These two questions, I think, go to the heart of what Descartes attempted to do in the
MFP. What point would there be in interpreting the MFP in the first place? In his
response to Derrida, Foucault never articulates the context within which his
interpretation of Descartes is couched. However, in Historie de la folie Foucault argued
that Descartes' discussion of madness was "a sign" of the internment of the mad during
27

the seventeenth century. In other words, the MFP was evidence of the exclusion of
insanity in the age of classical reason. Apart from this there is no inquiry into the
relationship between madness and stage of hyperbolic metaphysical doubt, the Cogito,
and/or God. For Foucault to treat Descartes' statement "But they are mad, and I should
not be any the less insane were I to follow examples so extravagant." in the way that he
28

did, is in my opinion to literal an interpretation.

I think, therefore, that Derrida's flirtation with the MFP moves us in the general
direction of the relationship between madness and thought or, between sense and non-
sense, meaning and non-meaning. No matter how enigmatic Derrida's language is let us
attempt to decipher what, in Derrida's opinion, Descartes attempted to do in the MFP
Could it be that Descartes, like all the philosophers that preceded him, attempted rid
knowledge, reason, language of non-meaning, non-sense, madness? But this, Derrida
argues, can be done when one evokes "madness from the interior of thought...in the
realm of the possible and in the language of fiction and the fiction of language." 29

However, the relationship between thought and madness is subsumed within the general
meaning of Being, whose meaning is indeterminate and whose origin is indeterminate
(the main charge that Derrida makes against Foucault is that he attempted "to write a
history of the division" between classical reason and madness.) This relationship
30

between madness and reason "is a self-dividing action, a cleavage and torment interior to
meaning in general, interior to logos in general, a division within the very act of
sentire." You see, according to Derrida, Descartes does exclude madness, excludes
31

madness after the Cogito has been established, that is, Descartes excludes madness
within thought. Descartes desires to establish through the Cogito certainty, knowledge,
meaning, sense antithetical to non-meaning, non-sense, scepticism, madness. Therein we
have, however crudely I have schematized it, the project that Descartes undertook in the
MFP according to Derrida.
We are, however, far from resolving the issues concerning Descartes, Foucault and
Derrida. Commenting upon Derrida's claim "that madness is found again...mixed up with
the extravagance of painters" Foucault does agree with Derrida that madness "is not
32

excluded as an object of reflection and knowledge." However, this reference to the

33

extravagance of painters is problematic since, argues Foucault, the word extravagance

did not appear in the Latin text but is "an addition by the [French] translator." But back
34

to the point of madness "as an object of reflection and knowledge." Is there a difference
between one who is mad(substantive) and one who has mad(adjective) thoughts, the
latter being an implicit description of scepticism by Descartes? This is the contentious
issue that arises out of the two interpretations offered to us by Derrida and Foucault,
"could there be anything anterior or exterior to philosophical discourse?" Although this
35

disagreement takes us far beyond the interpretations of the First Meditation we have
already touched upon it in our discussion of Derrida's resituation of the Cartesian project.
The problem with Foucault's response to Derrida is that one would be hard pressed to
find an admission which explicitly states that "The exclusion of madness [is] to be seen
within madness." And if he did make such an admission would it not undermine his
36

argument that throughout the First Meditation Descartes' discourse is constituting a

certain subjectivity? In the context of the MFP the point that Derrida makes clear is that
Descartes does not wish to constitute a rational subject during the course of the First
Meditation. As Derrida sees it, Descartes does confront madness, confronts madness as
non-meaning, non-sense, non-certainty, scepticism. It seems that on this account of the
two interpretations the exegesis proposed by Derrida is more convincing.

What I have tried to do in this essay, "and do not well", is to analyse the
interpretations of Descartes' First Meditation in the MFP by Derrida and Foucault.
During the course of the investigation I have come to the conclusion that Derrida offers
the more convincing interpretation of the First Meditation. Why does Descartes not
exclude madness in the First Meditation? Madness, using this term in the broadest sense,
was the only motivation for Descartes' project. The Cogito stands in relation to the
infinite noise that is non-meaning, non-sense, non-certainty, madness, scepticism. It is
this "the most classical, banal reading, even if not the easiest one" of the First
37

Meditation which I believe is the most convincing.

Notes

1. Derrida, Jacques. 'Cogito and the History of Madness.' in Writing and Difference.
(1978) trans. Alan Bass, Routledge, London, p 56

2. Ibid., p 50

3. Macquarie University, PHIL 245. Philosophy 245 Early Modern Philosophy. (1998)
Macquarie University, Sydney, p 7

4. Derrida, Jacques. 'Cogito and the History of Madness.' in Writing and Difference.
(1978) trans. Alan Bass, Routledge, London, p 51

5. Ibid., p 51

6. Ibid., p 48

7. Ibid., p 50

8. Ibid., p 50

9. Ibid., p 52

10. Ibid., p 53

11. Ibid., p 53

12. Ibid., p 55

13. Ibid., p 56

14. Ibid., p 55

15. Ibid., p 56
16. Foucault, Michel. 'My Body, This Paper, This Fire.', trans. Geoff Bennington,
Oxford Literary Review. vol. 4, no. 1, p 19

17. Ibid., p 11

18. Ibid., p 13

19. Boyne, Roy. Foucault and Derrida: the other side of reason. (1990) Unwin Hyman,
Boston, p 72

20. Foucault, Michel. 'My Body, This Paper, This Fire.', trans. Geoff Bennington,
Oxford Literary Review. vol. 4, no. 1, p 21

21. Ibid., p 16

22. Macquarie University, PHIL 245. Philosophy 245 Early Modern Philosophy. (1998)
Macquarie University, Sydney, p 7

23. Foucault, Michel. 'My Body, This Paper, This Fire.', trans. Geoff Bennington,
Oxford Literary Review. vol. 4, no. 1, p 16

24. Ibid., p 16

25. Boyne, Roy. Foucault and Derrida: the other side of reason. (1990) Unwin Hyman,
Boston, p 89

26. Derrida, Jacques. 'Cogito and the History of Madness.' in Writing and Difference.
(1978) trans. Alan Bass, Routledge, London, p 56

27. Ibid., p 47-48

28. Macquarie University, PHIL 245. Philosophy 245 Early Modern Philosophy. (1998)
Macquarie University, Sydney, p 7

29. Derrida, Jacques. 'Cogito and the History of Madness.' in Writing and Difference.
(1978) trans. Alan Bass, Routledge, London, p 54

30. Ibid., p 43

31. Ibid., p 38-39

32. Foucault, Michel. 'My Body, This Paper, This Fire.', trans. Geoff Bennington,
Oxford Literary Review. vol. 4, no. 1, p 16

33. Ibid., p 18

34. Ibid., p17

35. Ibid., p18

36. Boyne, Roy. Foucault and Derrida: the other side of reason. (1990) Unwin Hyman,
Boston, p 79

37. Derrida, Jacques. 'Cogito and the History of Madness.' in Writing and Difference.
(1978) trans. Alan Bass, Routledge, London, p 33

Bibliography

Boyne, Roy. Foucault and Derrida: the other side of reason. (1990) Unwin Hyman,
Boston.

Derrida, Jacques. 'Cogito and the History of Madness.' in Writing and Difference. (1978)
trans. Alan Bass, Routledge, London.

Foucault, Michel. 'My Body, This Paper, This Fire.', trans. Geoff Bennington, Oxford
Literary Review. vol. 4, no. 1, p 9-28

Macquarie University, PHIL 245. Philosophy 245 Early Modern Philosophy. (1998)
Macquarie University, Sydney.

Smith, Nick. Lecture 2 Interpretations of the First Meditation (I). (1998) Macquarie
University, Sydney.