Categorising and positioning the subjects in philosophy: the controversy between Derrida and Foucault from a sociopragmatic point of view

Philosophers like to deal with theoretical and conceptual problems. Yet by entering the philosophical debate, they also use language for social purposes. Philosophy, in other words, needs to be seen as a discourse where philosophers position and categorise each other as members of a community. To flesh out what it means to participate in philosophical discourse as a social practice, I will have a closer look at a controversy between Jacques Derrida and Michel Foucault. In a theoretical exchange over how to understand Descartes's philosophy in his time, both address each other in specific ways, namely as "disciple" and "teacher", as "philosopher" or not ... within a scene of intellectual relationships. Hence, the contribution reveals the social dimensions of their controversy by pointing out the role of their subject positions in the Parisian intellectual community of the 1960s and 1970s.