Although Foucault did not address the question of the animal, he asserted the assessment of whether a new politics of truth can be constituted as "the essential political problem" (1980, p. 134). Though the "essential political problem" may be considered as it relates to the politics of truth about animals, a Foucaultian perspective does not allow a prediction in response, other than the recognition that change may occur. What is understood to be "true" about animals may change if the relationships between events that exist at a given time ("conditions") require the emergence of a different way of knowing. This Foucaultian critique of thought about animals examines "truth" about animals as an historical contingency, variable according to the conditions that have allowed its production. This project contributes to the development of a theoretical context of the politics of truth about animals. The politics of truth about animals is understood to be the push and pull of knowledge generated and perpetuated about them, together with concurrent power apparatuses in support of that knowledge as well as the ever present resistance to that power. By applying and extending Foucault's theory of power -that is, that knowledge is a carrier of power, power is a perpetuator of knowledge, and all power relations have resistances - this work employs Foucault's archaeological method to uncover dominant and subjugated discourses about animals and to describe power-knowledge associated with statements about animals that are understood to convey true things. This project describes the changeable nature of "truth" about animals and, necessarily, the politics of it, since the politics of truth is understood to be propelled by whichever knowledge and associated power are then dominant. Statements in "error" are also examined as resistance to power-knowledge about animals. The project describes subjugated discourses about animals that have been understood in various times and places to have truth-telling powers or, at least, to have been understood as "error," which provided points of resistance to the dominant discourse. It describes the partial derivation of discourse about animals by examining dominant discourses (e.g., the discourse of law and the discourse of lines) and subjugated discourses (e.g., animals are not personal property, karmic discourse, transmigration of souls discourse, rational animal discourse). Additionally, it describes like disperse statements among different referents (i.e., slave, animal, woman) that comprise various discursive formations that have been understood at various times to have truth-telling power about different referents. Subjugated discourse sometimes emerges as new "truth," though no such prediction can be made. To illustrate the point, the project describes the emergence of the new academic field related to the question of the animal, which resurrects or draws from some subjugated discourse (e.g., animals are not personal property).

Partant d'un questionnement sur la logique de la pratique comme enjeu central de la vie intellectuelle française des années 1960, ce travail propose d'articuler une rencontre entre les pensées de Foucault et de Sartre. Sans minimiser leurs divergences, par quoi on a coutume de les opposer dans le cadre de la querelle de l'humanisme, il s'agit de faire apparaître un enjeu commun aux deux auteurs : la proposition d'une mise en intelligibilité de la pratique, entée sur un matériau historique dûment circonscrit. Cette rencontre permet de revisiter les notions de praxis, de généalogie, de politique de la vérité. Cela implique tout un renouvellement du geste théorique du côté d'une pensée en situation commune à l'intellectuel universel et à l'intellectuel spécifique, d'une pratique « historico-philosophique » soucieuse de saisir à bonne distance son objet – les « ensembles pratiques » – sans le déréaliser ni le surplomber, dans un rapport complexe entre passé et présent. L'espace théorique ainsi ouvert entre Foucault et Sartre sur cette question de l'intelligibilité de la pratique est également l'occasion d'une confrontation avec Marx et les marxismes (Althusser principalement), ainsi qu'avec les sciences sociales (Bourdieu surtout). / By questioning the logic of practice as the main topic of intellectual life in France in the 1960s, we shall undertake a confrontation between the ideas of Foucault and Sartre. Without playing down their differences of opinion, which have often been emphasized by the humanist dispute, we shall endeavor to bring forward a topic these two authors share: the proposal of an attempt at the intelligibility of practice, based on a duly defined historic material. Such a confrontation will enable us to examine thoroughly the notions of praxis, genealogy, and the politics of truth. This will entail radically new theories about a “situated thought” shared by both the universal intellectual and the specific intellectual, about a “historic and philosophical” practice which will not hold its object – the “practical ensembles” too close and will not derealize or overhang it, in a complex relation between past and present. The theoretical space which is open in this manner between Foucault and Sartre on the question of the intelligibility of practice also permits a confrontation with Marx and marxisms (Althusser mainly), as well as with social sciences (Bourdieu mostly).