Talk:Introduction to Kant's Anthropology

Latest comment: 8 years ago by 45.48.186.169

It makes no sense to refer to Foucault's work, "Folie et Déraison: Histoire de la folie à l'âge classique," with the English title "Madness and Insanity: History of Madness in the Classical Age." If there is going to be a literal (and accuate) translation of the French title, it should be "Madness and Unreason: History of Madness in the Classical Age."

First of all, there is no English translation with this title. There is the first English translation that appeared, as an abridged version of the full French text, under the title "Madness and Civilization: A History of Insanity in the Age of Reason," which is not a literal translation of the French title and not a particularly good translation either. And there is the much later English translation of the full text, under the simple title "History of Madness," which accurately renders part of the French title and leaves the rest out.

Second, if one is going to provide a accurate translation of the French title, for the link in this article, even though there is no English translation with this name, the word "déraison" in the first part of the French title ("Folie et déraison") simply does not mean "insane." This is a completely inaccurate translation of "déraison." More importantly the distinction between "madness" (folie) and "unreason" (déraison) that appears in the French title is central to the entire thesis of the work. "Insanity" merely repeats the same concept as "madness" with a different word, whereas, Foucault is distinguishing from "madness" in a pre-classical sense the idea of "unreason" as merely the opposite of "reason" and not the same thing as "madness" (as something which is outside of and beyond both reason and unreason). Further the term "déraison," which is used over and over throughout the work, is accurately translated in the English versions of the work as "unreason." It makes zero sense to have the only place "déraison" is mistranslated is in the title itself of the work.

Whoever thinks "déraison" in the title should be translated as "insanity" either has not actually read Foucault's "Folie et Déraison" (in French or English) or has completely missed the most basic point of his argument. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.60.55.211 (talk) 23:26, 11 October 2015 (UTC)Reply

If the work has never appeared in English as "Madness and Unreason", there is little sense in using that as its title here. Better to simply give the title in French. FreeKnowledgeCreator (talk) 03:28, 12 October 2015 (UTC)Reply
I'm fine with that. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 45.48.186.169 (talk) 07:57, 12 October 2015 (UTC)Reply