Madness, Dissidence and Transduction

Madness

here are clouds in the painting, of course. Almost any one of us would have included those clouds, thick with electricity and rainwater. And there is the wheat field, smudged out like an empty palm, orange beneath the storm-stricken sun. Surely, many of us would have insisted on the wheat as well. Through the middle of the wheat, a rutted road slices to the horizon and disappears beneath the cl...

Wisdom, Madness and Folly

Madness and Civilisation

main theme a fascinating topic. In Renaissance Europe the insane were frequently at large. The Age of Enlightenment, coinciding with the increased growth of cities, seems to have led to their confinement?and to intensified ill-treatment. The account of these developments enables Dr. Foucault to imply that the role of the doctor as a magician and as the protagonist of society's attitudes to the ...

Madness, Disorder, and Society

Listening to Unreason: Foucault and Wittgenstein on Reason and the Unreasonable Man

Culture and Madness

it is often a problem to distinguish between actual psychiatric illness and behaviour which is unfamiliar, but conventional in the person's own society. This includes customs such as seeing visions, hearing voices and belief in magic. Not knowing the cultural context of what seems to be bizarre behaviour could cause misunderstanding, and the setting up of Inand OutGroups. An Out-Group would con...