Between 1967 and 1968. Louis Althusser and some of his students delivered a course at the ENS pitched as philosophy for scientists or non-philosophers.

Some parts of the course have been published, including Alain Badiou’s Le concept du modèle in 1969 and Michel Fichant and Michel Pécheux, Sur L’histoire des sciences shortly afterwards. Badiou’s text was reissued by Fayard in 2007 and translated as The Concept of Modelby re:press that same year.

These early volumes indicate others to follow, including an Introduction by Althusser, Expérience et Expérimentation by Pierre Macherey and Etienne Balibar, and a Conclusion provisoire.

Between Badiou’s book and the Fichant/Pécheux one the structure of the series changed, with François Regnault withdrawing his contribution, and the third and fifth volumes being merged. Of the second plan, only Althusser’s Introduction was published, as Philosophie et philosophie…

Louis Althusser and Materialist Reading – online seminar, 18 January, 6-9pm

My optimistic idea of having a complete, even if very rough, draft of The Archaeology of Foucault before Christmas didn’t happen. I’d liked the idea of having a complete text, which I could then print and leave for a while when on holiday, and return to edit before term started again. But end of term stuff, a pile of marking, and some home renovation work which meant I couldn’t work properly derailed that plan. In addition, I was given access to some lectures which I didn’t know still existed, and that took up a lot of time – valuable, certainly, but unexpected.

I did have a good break over Christmas, without looking at the files or Foucault books, and returned to work for two weeks either side of the New Year before the start of term. The break helped get the momentum to complete the draft of the chapter on