Michael foucault philosophy
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This approach encourages a reevaluation of what might often be considered “natural” or “unchangeable.” By doing so, it opens the door for alternative interpretations and frameworks of understanding reality. Discipline through imposing precise and detailed norms, “normalization,” is quite different from the older system of judicial punishment, which merely judges each action as either allowed or not allowed by the law and does not indicate whether those judged are “normal” or “abnormal.” This idea of normalization is pervasive in our society: e.g., national standards for educational programs, for medical practice, for industrial processes and products.
The examination (for example, of students in schools, of patients in hospitals) is a method of control that combines hierarchical observation with normalizing judgment.
Not, however, produced by the mind as a natural or psychological reality, but as belonging to a special epistemic realm, transcendental subjectivity. Translation from Foucault Live, 203-206. However, some philosophers believe this view does not leave sufficient space for human agency or resistance. For Foucault, power and resistance are constantly shaping and reshaping each other, creating the conditions for change in society and within individuals.
This idea can be demonstrated through the following example.
Like many students at the École normale supérieure at the time, Foucault had briefly been a card-carrying member of the French Communist Party in the years 1950, but the years 1970 were those of concrete commitments, through petitions, public declarations of support for activists, and above all the Groupe d'information sur les prisons (Prison Information Group), set up in collaboration with historian Pierre Vidal-Naquet and resistance fighter Jean-Marie Domenach.
In 1976, the publication of La Volonté de savoir continued his earlier work.
His critics reflect a wide range of perspectives, showing their concern for preserving concepts like individual agency and ethical standards.
Significance
These are some of the main reasons why grasping the concept of subjectivity is essential to comprehending Michel Foucault's philosophy.
- Understanding Power Relations
Subjectivity is crucial for understanding how individuals perceive themselves within power structures.
Meanwhile, Torricelli's philosophy is grounded in observing and describing the natural world through empirical science and experimentation.
But this objection has weight only if we can think of this “more real” mind as having the self as an object in some sense other than representing it. It also encourages critical thinking about whose voices are heard in shaping societal norms and why.
Contrast with Friedrich Nietzsche's Philosophy
Michel Foucault's concept of genealogy was greatly influenced by Friedrich Nietzsche, but he used it in a way that marked a distinct departure from Nietzsche's philosophy.
His later career saw him rise to global fame as a philosopher, historian, and social theorist whose work continues to resonate across disciplines.
Sponsored Link Foucault attended the Lycée Henri-IV in Paris and was later admitted to the École Normale Supérieure (ENS) in 1946, establishing himself as a gifted student.
While Foucault highlights mechanisms of control and domination, Habermas seeks to understand how free, rational discourse can foster democracy and mutual understanding.
The two philosophers differ in their views on the structure of society. The aim is the effective administration of bodies and the calculated management of life through means that are scientific and continuous.
This understanding opens up the possibility for change because it shows that identities are not permanent but can evolve based on new circumstances and discourses. His writing style and theoretical framework are often described as complex and open to multiple interpretations, which can lead to confusion about what his concepts actually entail.
Foucault wrote a second volume (Les aveux de la chair) that dealt with the origins of the modern notion of the subject in the practices of Christian confession, but he never published it. Nevertheless, his intellectual contributions were deeply rooted in the broader shifts in French philosophy during his lifetime, as he sought to challenge conventional narratives and explore the complexities of social and historical processes.
Throughout the 1970s and early 1980s, Foucault continued to publish groundbreaking works and engage in political activism.
Deductive and violent sovereign power has been gradually complemented and partly replaced by biopower, a form of power that exerts a positive influence on life, “that endeavors to administer, optimize, and multiply it, subjecting it to precise controls and comprehensive regulations” (1976 [1978: 137]).
Where Sartre sees freedom as an inherent part of individual existence, Foucault sees it as something negotiated within systems of power. He was the son of Paul-André Foucault, a prominent surgeon, and Anne Malapert. The notion of man, on the other hand, is epistemological in the Kantian sense of a transcendental subject that is also an empirical object.
It is the instrument through which modern discipline has been able to replace pre-modern sovereignty (kings, judges) as the fundamental power relation.
Foucault’s genealogy follows Nietzsche as well as existential phenomenology in that it aims to bring the body into the focus of history. The focus of his questioning is the modern human sciences (biological, psychological, social).