Foucault and Information Theory: On 'Message or Noise?' (1966)

“Message or Noise?” is a short but highly suggestive essay, in which Michel Foucault takes up the question of medical thought and practice through the frame of information-theory – one of the few occasions throughout his enormous oeuvre in which he directly engages with the question of the computational. Despite being included as text 44 of the Dits et Écrits,2 the piece has not before been translated into English, and has led a somewhat subterranean life within Foucault’s reception. Amidst a renewed interest in the impact of cybernetics and information theory on French structuralist and post-structuralist thought, and indeed within something of a neocybernetic turn in critical theory tout court, the significance of the piece comes into focus – even if Foucault’s analysis is perhaps conducted in an ambiguous or somewhat ironic frame. Here I establish the context of its publication, reception, and place in contemporary debates surrounding information theory in the French academy, especially in relation to the more anxious critique of information theory offered by Foucault’s mentor Georges Canguilhem. I also consider the significance of new archival resources which show Foucault was an attentive reader of developments in information theory and cybernetics from even very early in his career, and suggest some potential future research paths regarding Foucault and information theory towards which “Message or Noise?” gestures.