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Foucault and the Ship of Fools

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MICHEL FOUCAULT & THE SHIP OF FOOLS TERM PAPER - WESTERN PHILOSOPHY

Submitted by, Meera M Panicker 1st yr Integrated MA

Introduction

When I started reading Foucault’s madness and Civilization, i had no idea about what i was going to do for the term paper. I was just fascinated by how his ideas on all of it, madness and normality sounded. When i started reading, it was at first not easy to understand, but slowly i started understanding little by little. Foucaults works have little reiews from the west and more reviews from the French. The French had cut and dissected the book in no way the western world has, and this actually made reading harder because there were very little available on the subject. So, i have relied on more of a personal understanding of what i have read. The narrenschiff or the ship of fools, like it had fascinated Foucault also fascinated me. I was fascinated by how renaissance exalted madness and gloricised it in its artworks, but how event then it was excluded at the same time.
While reading I felt that Foucault in some ways favoured and saw that the ship of fools was a profounder concept and that it was more humane way of exclusion over civilizations. Here I have tried to see the whatsand how of this, whether Foucault actually saw the narrenschiff as a better way or not?

THE SHIP OF FOOLS

It is commonly understood

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