Young Foucault's phenomenology: “A science of madmen and of genius”

Abstract The article shows that young Foucault's interest in phenomenology should not be understood as a more or less orthodox adherence to a singular philosophical program. Emphasis is given to the variety of contexts, meanings, and uses (or appropriations) of German phenomenology in France at the time when Foucault was interested in it at the beginning of his intellectual career. In particular, the article proves the theoretical affinities between, respectively, the phenomenological anthropology of Ludwig Binswanger, the biological thinking of Georges Canguilhem, and Gaston Bachelard's perspective on the issue of imagination. It is argued that the methodological approach used here allows us to account for the transformations, and sometimes contradictions, that characterize the intellectual trajectory of a philosopher, as Foucault defines himself in the first edition of Folie et déraison , who “turned to psychology, and from psychology to history.”