Woah the Marx references were fascinating. The connection between madness and the work house + beastiality really shines in a fresh light on phrases such as - "works like a mad man" or a spectacle described as "insane" in a positive way, some one who's a "beast" marking his high achievements or strengths. any other key texts aside from "in praise of folly" that you'd say symbolizes the renaissances period movement towards "radical enlightenment"? texts "in praise of reason" sort of? . "in praise of folly" is somewhat problematic for it does from what I understand insists on categorising madness as a shared common of us humans ( a "human all too human" trait) . more so, knowledge "loses its way in the dust of books and in idle debate; learning becomes madness through the very excess of false learning. " (PG 25 where he quotes Erasmus). I want to get a sense the obsession about "reason" at the renaissance, or maybe it is just that categorising of "unreason" that is being obsessed by the renaissance people?
As a sociologist, the archaeology of institutions of confinement and social control is more interesting to me than Foucault's archaeology of unreason. Reason and unreason are not central categories in my own sociology, and I have found Weber's writings on bourgeois rationality to be more profound. Weber emphasizes rational means-ends calculation (Weber) rather than reason as such, as the decisive cultural innovation that unleashed the modern world. Perhaps the best place to begin would be Weber's Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism? My recordings on that book are here: ua-cam.com/video/xHyoS13OJIQ/v-deo.html
Woah the Marx references were fascinating. The connection between madness and the work house + beastiality really shines in a fresh light on phrases such as - "works like a mad man" or a spectacle described as "insane" in a positive way, some one who's a "beast" marking his high achievements or strengths.
any other key texts aside from "in praise of folly" that you'd say symbolizes the renaissances period movement towards "radical enlightenment"? texts "in praise of reason" sort of? . "in praise of folly" is somewhat problematic for it does from what I understand insists on categorising madness as a shared common of us humans ( a "human all too human" trait) . more so, knowledge "loses its way in the dust of books and in idle debate; learning becomes madness through the very excess
of false learning. " (PG 25 where he quotes Erasmus). I want to get a sense the obsession about "reason" at the renaissance, or maybe it is just that categorising of "unreason" that is being obsessed by the renaissance people?
As a sociologist, the archaeology of institutions of confinement and social control is more interesting to me than Foucault's archaeology of unreason. Reason and unreason are not central categories in my own sociology, and I have found Weber's writings on bourgeois rationality to be more profound. Weber emphasizes rational means-ends calculation (Weber) rather than reason as such, as the decisive cultural innovation that unleashed the modern world. Perhaps the best place to begin would be Weber's Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism? My recordings on that book are here: ua-cam.com/video/xHyoS13OJIQ/v-deo.html