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The first English translation of Foucault’s previously lost master’s thesis, itself an original contribution to the study of Hegel’s philosophy.

On June 11, 1949, a twenty-three-year-old Michel Foucault defended his master’s thesis in philosophy at the Sorbonne entitled The Constitution of a Historical Transcendental in Hegel’s “Phenomenology of Spirit.” Long considered a lost holy grail of French philosophy, the thesis was only recently rediscovered, and it is presented here in English for the first time. 

In his master’s thesis, Foucault offers an original reading of Hegel that understands “absolute knowing,” the famous but enigmatic final figure of experience in the Phenomenology, as inextricably bound to time, language, and historical experience. Indeed, readers will discover how many of Foucault’s famous later concepts—the historical a priori, the episteme, and the limit-experience—are intimately rooted in his early, intense engagement with Hegel’s philosophy.

An introduction and critical apparatus provided by Hegel scholar Christophe Bouton traces previously unknown connections between the thesis and Foucault’s later masterpieces, particularly History of Madness and The Order of Things. Introducing a fundamental shift in our understanding of Foucault’s intellectual trajectory, this book is an essential text for anyone interested in Foucault, Hegel, and the dramatic evolution of twentieth-century continental philosophy.