symploke

Lambert, Gregg, 1961-
Sapere Aude?
symploke - Volume 14, Numbers 1-2, 2006, pp. 55-67

University of Nebraska Press

Gregg Lambert - Sapere Aude? - symploke 14:1/2 symploke 14.1/2 (2006) 55-67 Muse Search Journals This Journal Contents Sapere Aude? Gregg Lambert Syracuse University Every now and then it is useful to survey the course one has taken in order to chart one's progress -- even if only to answer a question made famous by David Byrne, "well, how did I get here?" Occasionally, we turn around and take in the view and to get a sense of how far one has traveled. In order to achieve this, we usually require what is commonly called a "landmark," one that is clearly visible in order for the vista of the way taken to emerge against the profile of the past. On this occasion, and in response to the question of how we got here, I will choose for my landmark a small brief that was written some twenty years ago by Foucault shortly before his death. I think many will be familiar with this text; it has the advantage of being visible at some point in the last twenty years, and this is why I have chosen it for this exercise. In 1984 Foucault himself was engaged in very much the same survey I have just described and chooses for his landmark a text written by Kant two hundred years earlier in 1784. Here, from our current vantage point, we might imagine that we are standing on this peak and looking back at Foucault on some distant peak, who has his back to us and is looking arrears at Kant; who, in turn, is not perceivable to us from where we are now. Between ourselves and Kant...