According to Gayatri Chakravority Spivak, Gary Gutting is part of a wider Anglo-American trend who want to "save [Foucault] for Philosophy... One feels the tension of making Foucault fit for the consumption of American students and colleagues; the will to regularize him, normalize him, disciplinarize him." Gutting is one of a select few philosophers -alongside Christopher Norris- who seem fairly at ease both with Anglo-American Philosophy and its Continental counterpart. Like Norris's attempts to utilise and explain Derrida in Epistemology and Philosophy of Science, Gutting attempts to 'save' Foucault from the many common misconceptions of his work, including the common charge that he is an epistemic relativist or a moral nihilist. Indeed, whilst there is some truth in Spivak's charge that the American appropriation of Foucault and Derrida (thanks in no small part to the works of Stanley Fish and Richard Rorty) have misrepresented their wider projects, Gutting himself manages the deft trick of showing that, while there can be multiple 'readings' of Foucault -of his life and his work- there are still ways to read him against the grain of his intentions. As such, Gutting offers a frank discussion of Foucault's life and work, and teases out the contradictions, difficulties and strengths of a brilliant but opaque individual. And he does a wonderful job, giving the limits of the format and the obtuseness of much of Foucault's work.



Gutting doesn't get it pitch-perfect. This book often requires a little background knowledge from the reader- a section on a discussion about limit-experiences and the public/private dichotomy that involves a critique from Richard Rorty moves too fast for the uninitiated. Similarly, readers more familiar with Continental Philosophy might find Gutting's discussion of whether or not Foucault commits the Genetic Fallacy a tad too analytical. But these are small blips in a book that is lucid, honest, and open.



In the end, I think Spivak's charge against Gutting is unfair and possibly even ignorant. Simplicity and clarity can be political tools just as easily as obscurantism and multiplicity, and if this book exposes people to the 'toolbox' that Foucault attempted to provide to allow them to resist oppression then so much the better. (On the topic of Foucault's often difficult prose, Daniel Dennett recounts a discussion between John Searle and Michel Foucault: 'John Searle once told me about a conversation he had with the late Foucault: 'Michel, you're so clear in conversation; why is your written work so obscure?" To which Foucault replied "That's because, in order to be taken seriously by French Philosophers, twenty-five percent of what you write has to be impenetrable nonsense."I have coined a term for this tactic, in honor of Foucault's candor: eumerdification.') This book is not impenetrable nonsense, but learned, scholarly, and a worthwhile read, both for the uninitiated and the Foucault scholar.