In "Response to a question", a Michel Foucault's paper in which he answers questions sent by the journal Esprit, a paragraph concerning the relationship between the formation of clinical medicine and the French Revolution seems to be, even today, paradigmatic of the Foucaultian way of thinking. This essay is based on that paragraph, in order to distinguish Foucault's perspective from the History of Mentalities and the Sociology of Knowledge. The essay uses the same paragraph as a tool to analyze a recent controversy, linked to an investigation that intends to map the brains of "juvenile delinquents". We think that the aforementioned paragraph allows us to understand in a unique way the rejection that a parcel of the intellectuality and the militancy directed to that research project. In this sense, "Response to a question" is extended to answers to many questions, especially to the way one can understand the defense of Human Rights in the field of knowledge and regimes of truth.
Foucault; Human Rights; politics; scientific discourses