"In 1954, The Dream and Existence by the Swiss psychiatrist Ludwig Binswanger was published in a French translation with an introduction by Michel Foucault. In his introduction Foucault announced that there would be a subsequent work that "will endeavor to situate existential analysis in the development of contemporary reflection on man". Foucault never published this book but he did write a manuscript, which was never published. This is that manuscript. In Binswanger and Phenomenology Foucault carries out a systematic examination of "Daseinsanalysis ", comparing it to the approaches of psychiatry, psychoanalysis and phenomenology, and champions its ambition to understand mental illness. With this approach we see the beginnings of Foucault's quest to rethink the treatment of mental illness, its ambiguities and weaknesses, and his moves in the direction of metaphysical speculation. This work will lead Foucault towards the radically new perspective that we will encounter in the History of Madness and the History of Sexuality . As Foucault will say in that latter volume, "studying forms of experience in their history is a theme that came to me from an older project: that of making use of the methods of existential analysis in the field of psychiatry and in the field of mental illness.""-- Provided by publisher.