Michel Foucault
“What is most human about man is his history”
Michael Foucault was born
in October of 1926, in Poitiers, France. He is best known for his theories about
the relationships between power and knowledge. He believes that both the knowledge
that humans retain, and their overall existence are “profoundly historical”.
Foucault was very adamant
about the relationships of power. He believed that you could find power in
every single relationship that you have had whether it be teacher and student, parent
and child, or owner and worker, there is power in everything. The power in
relationships are essentially to maintain social structure, according to Foucault.
For example, your boss has power over you because they are the ones that pay
you for the work that you do, and your parents have power over you because they
provide for you while you are under their care. He believes that we are made up
of our other interactions that we have with people.
In his most famous work “Discipline
and Punish: The Birth of the Prison” which you can find a preview of here,
he analyzes the modern changes that happened in the western prison systems during
the early 1970's. His argument is that the prisons did not become the number one
form of punishment because they were taking ideas from the reformists and
trying to use them to help out the criminals. He believes that the cultural
shifts that happened during the changes at the prisons can also be found in
other institutions such as schools and hospitals as well.
One unique trait that
Foucault possessed was his methods of investigation. Like in his book “Discipline
and Punish” he was able to trace patterns of change throughout different areas
of history. He did this with almost all of his other works and it is really
impressive to see the trails throughout every little subject.
Just two years before his
passing in 1984, he led the seminar “Technologies of the Self” and he told the
audience “My role is to show people that they are much freer than they feel.” This
means that people do not have to rely on things that they have heard to dictate
their lives and that can accept truth wherever they can find it.
Here I have included a
short video clip that features Foucault explaining his views on power.
here are the links to the blogs I have commented on:
Madelyn Goins
section 5
7 runs after the break, and I think that I had around 14 before the break.
I'd never heard of Goins before but it is really interesting how he explains the power-knowledge dynamic. The video you linked was very enlightening too.
ReplyDeleteSection 5
I think you mean you never heard of Foucault...
Delete"His argument is that the prisons did not become the number one form of punishment because they were taking ideas from the reformists and trying to use them to help out the criminals." Do you mean he thinks our vaunted modern reforms are really just a more subtle form of social control, less humane and progressive than we'd like to believe?
Delete“My role is to show people that they are much freer than they feel.” Interesting, for a philosopher who seems to be calling Enlightenment values to account. This "role" is fundamentally the same Kantian quest to think for oneself and be free of the imposition of social structures that limit one's felt autonomy.