From Husserl to Artaud 1963–1964 131
deadly too – which is why whatever conceals this task protects
me and reassures me at the same time): a type of philosophical
writing in which I can say ‘I’, tell my story without shame and
without the delights of the Journal métaphysique.^12Jean Wahl had invited Derrida to speak at the prestigious Collège
Philosophique on the subject of his choice. Derrida decided to talk
about the History of Madness, which had made a powerful impres-
sion on him, even though, on his fi rst reading, he had not concealed
from Foucault ‘at bottom, a rather muted protest, unformulatable
or as yet unformulated’, giving him a desire to write ‘something like
a paean to reason that would be faithful to [his] book’.^13 A year later,
he very cautiously sketched out to Foucault the plan of a text that
would later become famous, completely transforming his relation-
ship with his old teacher. He had re-read Foucault’s book over the
Christmas break, he told him, ‘with an ever-renewed joy’ and was
now trying to ‘put together a paper’ that would focus on the pages
devoted to Descartes: ‘I think I’ll try to show – basically – that your
reading of Descartes is legitimate and illuminating, but at a deep
level that in my view cannot be the level of the text you are using and
that, I think, I will not read altogether the same way that you do.’^14
The postscript of the letter is somewhat barbed, too. Derrida
thanked Foucault for the radio broadcasts he gave every Monday
evening. He had been particularly struck by the one on Antonin
Artaud, the previous week: ‘I have long shared everything you say
and seem to think about Artaud. He’s another I’d need to re-read,
or to read better and more patiently... .’
On Monday, 4 March 1963, at 6.30 pm, at the Collège Philosophique,
44, rue de Rennes, opposite the church of Saint-Germain-des-Prés,
Derrida gave his fi rst major paper in Paris. It was called ‘Cogito
and the history of madness’. Foucault was present in the audi-
ence. Derrida began by hailing the History of Madness. He had
been Foucault’s pupil, and found himself in the delicate position
of the ‘admiring and grateful disciple’ just as he was about, if not
to ‘dispute’, at least ‘to engage in dialogue with the master’. But
Derrida soon showed his true colours:
My point of departure might appear slight and artifi cial. In this
673-page book, Michel Foucault devotes three pages – and,
moreover, in a kind of prologue to his second chapter – to a
certain passage from the fi rst of Descartes’s Meditations. In this
passage, madness, folly, dementia, insanity seem, I emphasize
seem, dismissed, excluded, and ostracized from the circle of
philosophical dignity, denied entry to the philosopher’s city,
denied the right to philosophical consideration, ordered away