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DISSOLUTION OF THE SPEAKING SUBJECT IN PHILOSOPHY OF M. FOUCAULT

KALBANČIO SUBJEKTO IŠNYKIMAS M. FOUCAULT FILOSOFIJOJE

Author(s): Kristina Karvelytė / Language(s): Lithuanian / Issue: 79/2011

Keywords: „kalbos būtis“1; subjektas2; teiginys3; Foucault4; Deleuze5;

The focus of this article is the idea of dissolution of the speaking subject in Foucault’s philosophy. The main purpose of the article is to extract the essential presuppositions of such attitude and to answer the question: whose voice is speaking from the thinker’s books? The problem can be observed by invoking the structural analysis of “language-being”, “statement” and “subject”. It can also be exercised ontologically when distinguishing between absolute and historical dimensions of being. the interplay of all these ele¬ments reveals Foucault’s fundamental insights about language and helps to define general principles of postmodern thinking. this also permits to think of ethical outcomes related to the question of the subject’s death. The paper invokes not only Foucault and his “ontology of history”, but also Deleuze’s phi¬losophy of difference, which gives preference to the principle of difference over the principle of the Same and implementation of the former in the historical field of immanence. Keywords: “language-being”, statement, subject, Foucault, Deleuze.

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Michel Foucault and the Ontology of Politics: E Pluribus Unum?

Michel Foucault and the Ontology of Politics: E Pluribus Unum?

Author(s): Krešimir Petković / Language(s): English / Issue: 03/2010

Keywords: Foucault; ontology; discourse; power; self; governmentality; political theory; political science; aleatory; politics; genealogy

The problem of ontology in the work of Michel Foucault is discussed. First, ontology is defined as the layer of a social theory, encompassing the essential building blocks of the social world presupposed by that social theory. Second, three different ontologies in Foucault’s work are identified, which roughly correspond to the chronological phases of his theorizing: the ontology of discourse (1960s), the ontology of power (1970s), and the ontology of the self (1980s). While it is not easy to bring these different ontologies together, an attempt at ontological synthesis is made via the concepts of productivity of power and governmentality. A single “un-ontology” of aleatory power-politics is constructed as a result of that theoretical operation. Finally, some basic guidelines for political theorizing and research are drawn from that ontological world picture attributed to Foucault’s theory.

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Figures of the People in Foucault: The People as a Power Object

Figures of the People in Foucault: The People as a Power Object

Author(s): Momchil Hristov / Language(s): English / Issue: 40/2012

Keywords: Foucault; the people; object; power relations; target; social reality, resistances

The concept of ‘the people’ is accompanied by constant debate on the genesis, structure and real dimensions of its supposed referent. The standard deconstructionoriented critique of ‘the people’ focuses mostly on the constructed character of this fi gure, omitting its status as a ‘reality’. By contrast, this paper offers a symptomatic reading of some texts by Michel Foucault, which starts from his analytical uses of ‘the people’ (and the related ‘plebs’, ‘popular classes’, ‘population’). It thus offers a different perspective, which focuses on the multiplicity, heterogeneity and constant mobility of the reality called ‘the people’, as well as on the inevitable interrelation and confrontation of power relations and resistances that both generate ‘the people’ and keep it in permanent motion and displacement vis-à-vis itself. The implicit ambition of such a reading is to show that this type of analysis could tell us more about the concrete functioning of ‘the people’ than a critique that sees ‘the people’ merely as a fi ction of a defi nite political imaginary.

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Genealogy as critique: Habermas vs. Foucault

Genealogia jako krytyka : Habermas vs . Foucault

Author(s): Lotar Rasiński / Language(s): Polish / Issue: 39/2015

Keywords: Michel Foucault; Jürgen Habermas; social criticism; genealogy; archeology of knowledge

The aim of this paper is to respond to the objections raised by Jürgen Habermas in his work The Philosophical Discourse of Modernity against Michel Foucault’s concept of genealogical critique. In my response I draw primarily on Foucault’s methodological texts and I demonstrate the strong connections of his ideas to the French historical epistemology of Gaston Bachelard and Georges Canguilhem. This connections concern mainly the ideas of the „recurrent method” and the „history of error” developed in this tradition. I argue that these ideas refute Habermas’ allegations against Foucault’s view of history (presentism) as well as his approach to the problem of truth (relativism). At the concluding part of my paper I focus on Foucault’s concept of freedom, emphasizing the practical and „anti‑romantic” character of this concept and its connection to the Marxian idea of emancipation (the objection of cryptonormativism).

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FOUCAULT AND PARRHESIA: THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN PHILOSOPHY AND POLITICS

FOUCAULT AND PARRHESIA: THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN PHILOSOPHY AND POLITICS

Author(s): Cristian Zagan / Language(s): English / Issue: 07/2015

Keywords: Foucault; parrhesia; philosophy; truth; politics

In the final stage of his life, Foucault devoted himself to a project of a genealogy of critique. This genealogy of critique made him focus on the Greek notion of parrhēsia as a form speaking the truth. This paper aims at analyzing the notion of parrhesia as well as the various aspects of the parrhesiastic attitudes and functions. Tracing the tensions and connections in the act of parrhesia I try to emphasize the relationship between the will of truth that constitutes philosophy and the will of power that mainly represents politics by following the last courses held by Michel Foucault at the Collége de France.

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Cogito and the Problem of Madness. Derrida vs. Foucault

Cogito and the Problem of Madness. Derrida vs. Foucault

Author(s): Alexandru Liciu / Language(s): English / Issue: 2/2016

Keywords: Descartes;Foucault;Derrida;cogito;madness;epistemology;spiritual exercise;

The present article represents an attempt to argue in the favor of the thesis that, in the First Meditation, in the fragment where the problem of madness is spoken of, Descartes’ view aims to exclude the possibility that the knowing subject, the Cogito, could be insane, and not only to avoid the problem of madness because of various reasons or to replace the madness-example with a dreaming-example. In other words, this research aims to expose and to argue for Michel Foucault’s point of view regarding the Cartesian problem of madness, and also to argue against Jacques Derrida’s view on the same issue. More broadly speaking, beyond the highlight of a possible different approach to Descartes’ text or the analysis of the Derrida-Foucault controversy, the main aim of this article is to emphasize a problem maybe less discussed of the act of knowing:beyond the proper usage of a wrong method, the misusage of a correct method or the poor practice of some spiritual exercises, the errors in the act of knowledge could as well follow from a deficiency in the knowing subject itself.

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Foucault, the History of Truth and the Genealogy of the Modern Subject

Foucault, the History of Truth and the Genealogy of the Modern Subject

Author(s): Daniele Lorenzini / Language(s): English / Issue: 3-4 EN/2016

Keywords: History of Truth; Genealogy of the Subject; Subjection/Subjectivation; Governmentality; Critique

This article explores the articulation between two of the main projects that characterise Michel Foucault’s work in the 1970s and the 1980s: the project of a history of truth and the project of a genealogy of the modern subject. After addressing the meaning and ethico-political value of Foucault’s history of truth, focusing above all on the shape it takes in 1980 (namely, a genealogy of a series of “regimes of truth” in Western societies), it offers an analysis of the related project of a genealogy of the modern (Western) subject, and more precisely of Foucault’s account of the processes of subjection (assujettissement) and subjectivation (subjectivation) within the Christian and the modern Western regimes of truth. It eventually argues that the essential political and moral issue that Foucault raises is not whether the subject is autonomous or not, but rather whether he or she is willing to become a subject of critique by opposing the governmental mechanisms of power which try to govern him or her within our contemporary regime of truth and striving to invent new ways of living and being.

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Beyond Ideology: Althusser, Foucault and French Epistemology

Beyond Ideology: Althusser, Foucault and French Epistemology

Author(s): Massimiliano Simons / Language(s): English / Issue: 1/2015

Keywords: Foucault; Althusser; French poststructuralism;

How is it possible that Althusser is forgotten while Foucault seems to be more popular than ever? Is Althusser simply outdated due to his Marxist terminology and concepts? Does Foucault still remain relevant because he, in contrast with Althusser, never was a Marxist and started from a radically different conceptual background? To find answers to these questions, it is necessary to clear out the difference between these two authors.To begin, I will briefly describe Foucault’s position and the apparent critique one can give, based on his philosophy, of the philosophy of Althusser. However, if one looks at what Althusser himself has to say, this critique seems not to be the most profound critique of Foucault, because Althusser seems to be more in line with Foucault than at first sight. To understand what really is at stake, it is necessary to go back to the tradition in which both authors intellectually grew up: the French epistemology or épistémologie. Only by keeping that tradition in mind can the most pertinent divergence between Althusser and Foucault be seen.

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Historiosophy by Michel Foucault as a Critical Project

Michelio Foucault istoriosofija kaip kritinis projektas

Author(s): Kęstutis Šapoka / Language(s): Lithuanian / Issue: 12/2017

Keywords: Michel Foucault; historiography; historiosophy; historical a priori; archaeology of Knowledge; critical thinking, philosophy of science; dilemma of transcendence;

The article discusses the specific notion of philosophical historicism of Michel Foucault. The interaction between historiography and historiosophy is based on the paradoxical dualism of historicism versus transcendentalism in the philosophical system or “archeology of thinking” of Foucault. In the paper, the main historiographical and philosophical influences on Foucault’s philosophical historiosophy are gradually exposed. It could be agreed that Foucault’s historiosophy or archeology was influenced by the French Historical Method known as The Annales Paradigm, by some concepts of the philosophy of science and philosophical anthropology of Gaston Bachelard, Georges Canguilhem, and Georges Bataille, and also by some phenomenologists such as Edmund Husserrl. The philosophical interpretation and especially critical interpellation of the course of history and historical events could be assimilated to Foucault’s archeological method. Moreover, Foucault’s philosophical historiosophy could be perceived not only as pure philosophical theorization, but rather as “a critical theorizing practice” capable to denounce those clichés of historical narratives which are generally considered as “natural historical processes” or so called “historical transcendentalism.” In conclusion, one can say that, in Foucault’s archaeology or historiosophy, several types of regimes of methodological thinking could be spelled out, balancing between neo-Kantian anthropology and neo-Hegelian historical transcendentalism while attempting to contradict these modes of thinking at the same time.

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Theoretical Frame of Michel Foucault’s “Biopolitics” Concept

Michel Foucault’nun “Biyopolitika” Kavramının Teorik Çerçevesi

Author(s): Altuğ Koç / Language(s): Turkish / Issue: 2/2018

Keywords: Power;Subject;Discipline;Governmentality;Biopolitics;

In the works which Michel Foucault debated power, he didn’t try to answer whatthe power is. For him, power is already in everywhere. He seeks how the powers isapplied to individuals and subjects. The relation between power and subject, andgovernance problematic are main course of his works. The surveillance devices of thestates, closure devices, punishment transformations and Panopticon concept whichhe started to examine with The Birth of the Clinic, Discipline and Punish: The Birthof the Prison, transformed into biopolitics concept with the History of Sexuality. Theaim of this study is to analyze the Michel Foucault’s biopolitics concept and draw itstheoretical frame

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The Right of the Governed: Foucault’s Theoretical Political Turn

The Right of the Governed: Foucault’s Theoretical Political Turn

Author(s): João Leite Ferreira-Neto / Language(s): English / Issue: 1-2/2017

Keywords: Michel Foucault; Governmentality; Subjectivity; Neoliberalism; Welfare State;

This paper aims to understand the theoretical-political turn of Foucault constructed from 1978, which led him to a distancing from the Maoist left and to a return to the notion of subjectivity within a perspective of liberty, in the context of his governmentality studies. The historical-institutional aspects relating to his theoretical and political shift will be discussed, with basis on biographical sources and texts by the author published at that time. The conclusion is that Foucault used both Marxist and neoliberal contributions, avoiding reducing the politics to a confrontation between two projects, but considering it a complex field of plural strategies. He also began to theorize about the rights historically known as the ‘right of the governed,’ led by the question: ‘how to become subject without being subjected?’.

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ANALYSING THE CONCEPTS OF EPISTEME AND DISCONTINUITY IN MICHEL FOUCAULT

MICHEL FOUCAULT’DA EPİSTEME VE SÜREKSİZLİK KAVRAMLARININ İNCELENMESİ

Author(s): Göksel Yıkmış / Language(s): Turkish / Issue: 16/2018

Keywords: Michel Foucault; episteme; discontinuity; archaeological analysis; knowledge;

In this work, concepts of “episteme” and “discontinuity”, which have an important place in the terminology of Foucault, were studied in the framework of Foucault’s philosophy. With the consideration of the concept of episteme in this direction; Foucault’s insights into why archaeological settlements of historical periods have different knowledge bases in each era will provide insight. In addition to this, from the concept of discontinuity, the views and reasons why Foucault sees the necessity of separating the history, such as the Renaissance Period, the Classical Period and the Modern Period, will be examined. As seen in this context, the concept of episteme and discontinuity in terms of the idea that Foucault puts forth is a structure which needs to be considered together in terms of understanding rather than concepts which can be examined and understood by separating them from each other.

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The Triad Power, Body and Subject in Foucault

Foucault’da İktidar, Beden ve Özne Üçlüsü

Author(s): Orhan Bingöl / Language(s): Turkish / Issue: 2/2019

Keywords: Foucault; Power; Body; Subject;

Michel Foucault (1926-1984), one of the most important and original figures of the 20th century, worked on the issues that are almost exclusively mentioned with his name in contemporary sociology. These include medicine, madness, discipline, punishment and sexuality. In almost all his writings, Foucault placed variables such as power, discourse, knowledge, language, subject and body in an unchangeable center. When examined as a whole, one of the main components of Foucault's sociology is to disclose and criticize power that intends to create a subject through bodies. In other words, one of the main themes of Foucault's extensive and detailed writing is the interconnection of the triad power, body and subject. Therefore, this short article has the problem of summarizing Foucault from such a perspective.

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FOUCAULT’S HETEROTOPIA IN DELANY’S NEVÈRŸON CYCLE

FOUCAULT’S HETEROTOPIA IN DELANY’S NEVÈRŸON CYCLE

Author(s): Ivana Gilić,Brian Willems / Language(s): English / Issue: 8/2016

Keywords: Samuel Delany; Nevèrÿon cycle; Michel Foucault; heterotopia; slavery;

This article analyzes the four books of Samuel R. Delany’s Nevèrÿon cycle: Tales of Nevèrÿon (1979), Nevèrÿona, or: The Tale of Signs and Cities (1983), Flight from Nevèrÿon (1985) and Return to Nevèrÿon (1987). Michel Foucault’s concepts of heterotopia, genealogy, biopolitics and reverse discourse are used to show how a sign of slavery in the novels, the slave collar, is used to create a heterotopia in which dominant discourse is reversed. This thesis starts by taking Foucault’s concepts heterotopia and biopolitics to show how they relate to discourse and illustrate that certain notions we see as inherent are anything but. It continues by putting them in context with Delany and his work in order to demonstrate their correlation to discourse and how these concepts are involved in shaping discourse itself. We outline the dominant sexual discourse of our time better to understand Delany’s need for subverting such discourse and the revolutionary stance he takes in his work by reversing it in a Foucauldian manner. Reading their work together shows that the key step in creating a heterotopia in fiction is not so much distancing oneself from universal thought, but rather, embracing a universal multiplication of discourses, which must be done with caution so as not to fall into the trap of binary oppositions.

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On Platform of Foucault and Agamben: Bio-Politics

Foucault ve Agamben Düzleminde Biyo-Politika

Author(s): Didem Dutlu,Mehmet Ari / Language(s): Turkish / Issue: 1/2020

Keywords: Foucault; Bio-politics; Power; Governmentality; Agamben; Bare Life; State of Exception;

This article, by reseaching what “bio-politics” is and by discussing its position in political area over the effects of bio-political practices on “life and death”, tries to provide to establish ideational transmissions among different intellectual frameworks instead of approaching in a consuming attitude towards the concept often mentioned recently and to eliminate its ambiguity. For this purpose, this article scrutinizes “bio-politics” with its comprehensive structure articulated to highly-charged current issues by concentrating on two central names who light the fuse of this dynamism: Michel Foucault and Giorgio Agamben. In this context, it is valid to analyse the bio-political adventure of Foucault by using especially “power” and “governmentality” and of Agamben by focusing “bare life” and “state of exception”. Within this framework, it compares these philosophers through the transformation of “right over life and death”. In this regard, the principal purpose of this article is to try to position “bio-politics” in political area by analysing different thinking efforts around it and examining the changing borders between “life and death”.

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Power, Justice and the Role of Intellectuals in the Chomsky-Foucault Debate

Power, Justice and the Role of Intellectuals in the Chomsky-Foucault Debate

Author(s): Hanna Liebiedieva / Language(s): English / Issue: 15/2021

Keywords: power; justice; debate; civil disobedience; citizens and government; social institutions;

The modern Ukrainian society is currently in the process of establishing a dialogue between citizens and government. The government’s expectations and degree of public confidence are in a deep crisis, which is revealed in numerous acts of civil disobedience that Ukraine has faced during the last decades. In this context, it is important to refer to the similar experience of other countries. When in the late 1960s, France was rocked by the events of civil disobedience, and the United States saw the protests against the Vietnam War, the leading philosophers of those times and those countries, Noam Chomsky and Michel Foucault, reflected and shared their opinions on these events. Their positions clashed in 1971 at the Justice vs. Power debate. The discussion demonstrates two opposing approaches, thus making it possible to explore the relationship between power and justice as a whole. The intellectuals play a key role in this relationship.

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Similitude Through Metonymy: Foucault, Magritte and That Pipe

Similitude Through Metonymy: Foucault, Magritte and That Pipe

Author(s): Carl Haddrell / Language(s): English / Issue: 2/2021

Keywords: metonymy; similitude;

This article explores our understanding of visual imagery through an analysis of Foucault’s examination of Magritte’s famous painting Les deux Mystères. Foucault details how the interplay between word and image are firstly perceived and then understood by the viewer. This analysis of Foucault’s text, serves to illuminate and hopefully clarify the often ambiguous relationship between image and text, whilst at the same time demonstrate that the vary same ambiguity is revelled in by those creating and those words and images.

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NIETZSCHEAN INFLUENCES IN THE LOSS OF THE SUBJECT IN FOUCAULT

FOUCAULT’DA ÖZNENİN YİTİMİNDEKİ NİETZSCHECİ ETKİLER

Author(s): Ufuk Bircan / Language(s): Turkish / Issue: 97/2022

Keywords: Genealogy; history; Nietzsche; Foucault; subject;

Michel Foucault rejects an understanding of history based on progress, continuity, objectivity and reason. As a result of the genealogical analysis of history, Foucault claims that each period is shaped around an epistem of its own, as vulnerabilities, unrelated events and emerging arbitrariness. In this study, it is aimed to reveal that Foucault's studies on subject, power and history were influenced by Nietzsche's concept of genealogy and criticism of western metaphysics. Nietzsche's thesis of history has displaced the understanding of subject and truth, which has a central position in western metaphysics. Using the genealogy method, Foucault criticized the search for origins and claimed that the subject-object relationship in the Cartesian philosophy tradition collapsed and lost its value. Nietzsche argues that philosophy, science and moral understanding in rationalist western culture should be reconsidered with the death of God. Since the classical idea of truth disappeared with the death of God, man in the modern epistemology is deprived of all his teleological origin. Foucault by criticizing the understanding of the subject, which is the continuation of the classical idea of truth and built in the 20th century, asserts that modern society does not have an originary bond, and that the individual is assumed to be an identity presented by power.

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THE ENCOUNTER OF PSYCHIATRY AND RACISM IN THE PHILOSOPHY OF MICHEL FOUCAULT

THE ENCOUNTER OF PSYCHIATRY AND RACISM IN THE PHILOSOPHY OF MICHEL FOUCAULT

Author(s): Maja Vasiljević / Language(s): English,Serbian / Issue: 41/2022

Keywords: racism; psychiatry; mental disorder; Foucault; race; abnormal; internal racism

The subject of this article is the encounter of race, racism, and psychiatry in the philosophy discourse of the French philosopher Michel Foucault. Although he is admired for development of the concept of power relations, and nontraditional approach to history and philosophy, in this article focus will be on Foucault as an intellectual who was also trained and had affinity in psychology and psychiatry. In this respect, the novelty of his approach to historical roots of psychiatry and its social importance in modern times will be accessed, as well as relations between racism and psychiatry. With this article, Foucault will be presented not only as a philosopher of anti-psychiatry, but also as a representative of critical discourse of power that psychiatry has on racism and modern society. In that respect, his discourse on relations between race and psychiatry will be accessed as suitable for application in humanities, social and medical sciences.

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On/Regarding Michel Foucault. On Human Nature

Despre/cu privire la Michel Foucault. Despre natura umană

Author(s): Viorella Manolache / Language(s): Romanian / Issue: 1/2023

Keywords: Michel Foucault; Noam Chomsky – Michel Foucault Debate; On Human Nature; Confronting Governments: Human Rights;

The present article approaches the significant presence of the preposition on/regarding, in three contexts with particular meaning. The first one is dedicated to the relation on human nature – on Michel Foucault, deepening the dialogue Noam Chomsky/Michel Foucault, On Human Nature, which allows to see the profile coordinates, the positioning and the particular problematization that Foucault cultivates, all these becoming an additional argument for re-positioning the debate as…on Michel Foucault. The second one is interested in the construction made with the prepositional structure regarding Foucault, in the sense in which through the debate On Human Nature, on and regarding converge towards the same pole of interest. The third one uses the translation of the Chomsky-Foucault debate, published at The New Press, New York, 2006, to highlight the position (with current accents) of Michel Foucault on Human Rights (“Confronting Governments: Human Rights”, in Libération, June 1984).

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