Arnold Davidson

Arnold I. Davidson is the Robert O. Anderson Distinguished Service Professor in the Department of Philosophy, the Department of Comparative Literature, the Committee on the Conceptual and Historical Studies of Science, and the Divinity School. Executive Editor of Critical Inquiry, he is also a director of the France-Chicago Center. His major fields of research and teaching are the history of contemporary European philosophy, the history of moral and political philosophy, the history of the human sciences, and the history and philosophy of religion. He teaches regularly in Europe, and his main publications are in French and Italian as well as in English.

CV (PDF)


Contact

office: Stuart Hall, Room 228
office phone: 773/702-9849
email: cehobbs@uchicago.edu

Selected Publications

  • Co-editor of Michel Foucault:Philosophie. Gallimard, 2004 (A 940-page anthology of the writings of Foucault).
  • The Emergence of Sexuality: Historical Epistemology and the Formation of Concepts. Harvard University Press, 2001. (Translation into Spanish and French with a new preface, forthcoming in Italian).
  • La philosophie comme manière de vivre (Co-authored with Pierre Hadot and Jeannie Carlier). Albin Michel, 2001. (Translation into Italian and English)
  • Editor of Pierre Hadot. Exercices spirituels et philosophie antique. Albin Michel, 2002. (Italian Edition with expanded preface; Spanish, Dutch, and Chinese editions forthcoming).
  • Editor of Foucault and His Interlocutors. The University of Chicago Press, 1997.
  • Editor of Pierre Hadot. Philosophy As a Way of Life: Spiritual Exercises from Socrates to Foucault. Basil Blackwell Press, 1995.
  • Co-editor of Questions of Evidence: Proof, Practice, and Persuasion. The University of Chicago Press, 1995.
  • Co-editor of Reconstructing Individualism. Stanford University Press, 1986.
  • Sex and the Emergence of Sexuality
    Critical Inquiry, Vol. 14, No. 1 (Autumn, 1987), pp. 16-48 (Link)
  • Introductory Remarks
    Critical Inquiry, Vol. 21, No. 2 (Winter, 1995), pp. 275-276 (Link)
  • Ethics as ascetics
    in The Cambridge Companion to Foucault Ed. Gary Gutting (Link)
  • How to Do the History of Psychoanalysis: A Reading of Freud's "Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality"
    Critical Inquiry, Vol. 13, No. 2, The Trial(s) of Psychoanalysis (Winter, 1987), pp. 252-277 (Link)
  • Styles of Reasoning, Conceptual History, and the Emergence of Psychiatry
    in The Science Studies Reader, Ed. Mario Biagioli (Link)
  • Spiritual Exercises and Ancient Philosophy: An Introduction to Pierre Hadot, Critical Inquiry, Vol. 16, No. 3 (Spring, 1990), pp. 475-482 (Link)
  • Questions concerning Heidegger: Opening the Debate
    Critical Inquiry, Vol. 15, No. 2 (Winter, 1989), pp. 407-426 (Link)
  • Foucault, Psychoanalysis and Pleasure
    in Homosexuality and Psychoanalysis by Tim Dean, Christopher Lane (Link)

Please see my CV (PDF) for a complete list of publiucations.

Selected Reviews of Arnold Davidson's Work

  • The Emergence of Sexuality: Historical Epistemology and the Formation of Concepts (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2001) (Link)

Selected Translations

  • The Conditions of the Question: What Is Philosophy? By Gilles Deleuze (Trans. Daniel W. Smith, Arnold I. Davidson)
    Critical Inquiry, Vol. 17, No. 3 (Spring, 1991), pp. 471-478 (Link)
  • The Final Foucault and His Ethics by Paul Veyne (Trans. Catherine Porter, Arnold I. Davidson) Critical Inquiry, Vol. 20, No. 1 (Autumn, 1993), pp. 1-9 (Link)

Recent Courses

21202/31202. Spiritual Exercises & Moral Perfectionism

Open to college and grad students. A number of philosophers have recently proposed a new way of approaching ethics (and of reconceiveing the task of philosophy) that focuses on exercises of self-transformation and ideals of moral perfection (sometimes conceived of as forms of wisdom). A distinctive set of notions, such as spiritual exercises, practices of the self, ways of life, the aesthetics of existence, the care of the self, conversion, and moral exemplarity, is meant to displace the picture of morality as primarily a code of good conduct. We shall study three contemporary authors who are central to reviving this way of thinking about ethical practice - Pierre Hadot, Michel Foucault, and Stanley Cavell. Their work will be read against the background of some classic texts in the history of philosophy in an attempt to uncover the historical tradition and the contemporary significance of this conception of the moral life. (A) Autumn 2006.

21401/31401. Philosophical Thought and Expression in Twentieth-Century Europe

Open to college and grad students. Prerequisites: One prior course in philosophy.. An examination of some principal philosophical themes and figures in twentieth-century European (especially French) thought. Attention is given to the relation of philosophy, to theology, the human sciences, literature, and music. Winter 2003.

24800. Foucault and the History of Sexuality

Open to college students. Prerequisites: Prior philosophy course or consent of instructor. This course centers on a close reading of the first volume of Michel Foucault's The History of Sexuality, with some attention to his writings on the history of ancient conceptualizations of sex. How should a history of sexuality take into account scientific theories, social relations of power, and different experiences of the self? We discuss the contrasting descriptions and conceptions of sexual behavior before and after the emergence of a science of sexuality. Other writers influenced by and critical of Foucault are also discussed. Autumn 2005, Autumn 2007.

25401/35401. History, Philosophy and Politics of Psychoanalysis

Open to college and grad students. A reading of some central texts of Freud (both early and late) in the context of a study of the role of psychoanalysis in contemporary European philosophy. Other authors to be read may include Foucault, Deleuze and Guatteri, Marcuse, and Derrida. Winter 2002, Winter 2008.

25901/39501. Topics in Contemporary European Thought

Open to college and grad students. A study of selected authors and texts that have played a significant role in contemporary European thought. Special attention to questions of aesthetics, ethics, and politics. Winter 2006.

51101. Practices of the Self

Open to grad students. Prerequisites: Reading knowledge of French. This seminar will consist primarily of a study of Michel Foucault's 1981-82 course at the Collège de France, "L'Herméneutique du sujet," in which Foucault develops his notions of ethics and practices of the self on the basis of an interpretation of ancient, especially Hellenistic, philosophy. This text will be read against the background of the essays by Foucault, texts by Pierre Hadot, etc. Autumn 2002.

52000. Foucault: Technologies of Power

Open to grad students. Prerequisites: PQ: Reading knowledge of French. A study of Foucault's 1977-78 course Securite, Territoire, Population and the opening lecture of his 1978-79 course Naissance de la biopolitique. Securite, Territoire, Population is an analysis of the history of technologies of power from the Christian pastoral to reason of State. A crucial aspect of these courses is the development of the notion of "governmentality." Autumn 2005.

58500. French Philosophy

Open to grad students. Prerequisites: Reading knowledge of French required.. A close reading in French of Emmanuel Lévinas's Totalité et Infini. Some supplementary texts will be considered, but primarily as a way of situating Totalité et Infini within the corpus of Lévinas's work and within the history of 20th century European philosophy. Winter 2007, Autumn 2007.

58600. Workshop: Continental Philosophy

Open to grad students. Meets over three quarters. Autumn 2006, Winter 2006, Spring 2006, Autumn 2004, Winter 2007.

58702. Topics in Contemporary European Thought

Open to grad students. Prerequisites: Reading knowledge of French required. This course will focus on Pierre Hadot's Le voile d'Isis. Essai sur l'histoire de l'idée de nature. This book studies the idea of nature, from Heraclitus to Heidegger, in philosophical, theological, scientific and aesthetic contexts. At the end of the course we will read Merleau-Ponty's discussion of scientific and aesthetic perceptions of nature in Causeries, as well as a number of texts on related topics. Throughout the class we will raise methodological issues about how to write the history of philosophy. Autumn 2004.