Understanding and Misunderstanding Foucault Sociology 250

April 9, 2013

Sociology 250 ()

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Michel Foucault 1926–1984

Born 1926, Poitiers, French countryside ´ 1946–50: Ecole Normale Sup´erieure, Paris Discovers own homosexuality Along with many French intellectuals, joins the Communists Sociology 250 ()

1953: Leaves the Communist Party . . . becomes a crucial French intellectual, finishes career at Coll`ege de France (1969–84) 1984: Dies from complications of AIDS

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1968 in Modern History Chicago

Sociology 250 ()

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1968 in Modern History New York

Sociology 250 ()

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1968 in Modern History Prague

Sociology 250 ()

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1968 in Modern History Paris

“My work had nearly no echo with the exception of a very small circle, before 1968” Sociology 250 ()

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1968 in Modern History

How to be a Radical: 1848–1968: Critique within modernism (Marx) 1968–present: Critique of modernism (Althusser → Foucault → postmodernism)

Sociology 250 ()

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Connaissance vs. Savoir

Both translate as “knowledge” Connaissance: objectified knowledge; materialized and communicable, e.g., mathematical, linguistic, philosophical, etc. Savoir: a more intimate direction of the subject towards the object considered. One speaks about self-knowledge, of knowledge of a given subject, which implies the experiment, the intimisation, which is impossible to formulate. Savoir is a relation of intimacy to the object.

Sociology 250 ()

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Foucault’s Life Project

The problem is to determine what the subject must be, to what condition he is subject, what status he must have, what position he must occupy in reality or in the imaginary, in order to become a legitimate subject of this or that type of knowledge [connaissance].

Sociology 250 ()

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Michel Foucault Major Works

1965: Madness and Civilization: A History of Insanity in the Age of Reason 1970: The Order of Things: An Archaeology of the Human Sciences 1972: The Archaeology of Knowledge and the Discourse on Language 1973: The Birth of the Clinic: An Archaeology of Medical Perception 1975: I, Pierre Riviere, having slaughtered my mother, my sister, and my brother ...: A Case of Paracide in the 19th Century 1978: Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison 1978: The History of Sexuality, Vol. 1: An Introduction 1985: The Use of Pleasure: The History of Sexuality, Vol. 2 1986: The Care of the Self: The History of Sexuality, Vol. 3 Sociology 250 ()

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The Birth of the Clinic

Historical connection between science, social reform, and technological prowess An institution for the knowledge of the human body An institution for the reform of the human body An institution for the discipline of the human body Medicine is not sinister or underhanded; it is discursive and historically contingent

Sociology 250 ()

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Madness

Modernization is about the enforcement of a discourse of reason Madness is the resistance to this enforcement The asylum/hospital is the institutional expression of this resistance

Sociology 250 ()

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“I, Pierre Riviere. . . ”

The extraordinary story of a brutal crime in a small nineteenth-century French village is movingly and strikingly told in the first half of the book, through the actual documents of the case, and in the words of its participants and observers–witnesses, judges, doctors, lawyers, peasants.

Sociology 250 ()

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The Birth of the Prison

18th–19th century prison reform movements bring Reason to punishment Note the three meanings of discipline: 1

2

3

The treatment suited to a disciple or learner; education; development of the faculties by instruction and exercise; training, whether physical, mental, or moral. Subjection to rule; submissiveness to order and control; habit of obedience; severe training, corrective of faults; instruction by means of misfortune, suffering, punishment, etc. The subject matter of instruction; a branch of knowledge.

Prison reform brings the rational gaze and control of the body to crime control

Sociology 250 ()

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The Panopticon Perfection of the rational disciplinary gaze

Sociology 250 ()

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The Panopticon Perfection of the rational disciplinary gaze

Sociology 250 ()

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The History of Sexuality

Does sexuality really have a history? The transformation of sex into discourse. . . the dissemination and reinforcement of heterogeneous sexualities, are perhaps two elements of the same deployment: they are linked together with the help of the central element of a confession that compels individuals to articulate their sexual peculiarity—no matter how extreme.. . . it is in the confession that truth and sex are joined, through the obligatory and exhaustive expression of an individual secret.

Sociology 250 ()

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Power and Sexuality

Sex is placed by power in a binary system: licit and illicit, permitted and forbidden. (The 20th-century “reformist” view of the regulation of sex)

Sociology 250 ()

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The Paradox of Reform (Perrin)

Social systems characterized by more “freedom” may not actually provide greater individual autonomy Present in some classical social theory, e.g., Marx and Weber Foucault explores and expands this idea Because power infuses everything—even reform—reform rearranges power but does not overcome it

Sociology 250 ()

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Foucault’s Grand Project Central metaphors

Genealogy

Sociology 250 ()

Understanding and Misunderstanding Foucault

Archaeology

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Foucault’s Grand Project Example: The Practice of Opining

What is expected of the modern citizen? Sociology 250 ()

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The Production of Discourse

Problems ⇐⇒ Discourse

Sociology 250 ()

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Foucault on Governmentality

I think people in both [the Western and socialist] worlds are feeling more and more discomfort, difficulty, and impatience with the way they are “led.”. . . We are, I believe, at the beginning of a huge crisis of a wide-ranging reevaluation of the problem of ”government.” ...[And] the political parties, for sample, don’t seem to grasp the generality of the questions at stake.

Sociology 250 ()

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Misunderstanding Foucault

Foucault is not a postmodernist Foucault is not a grand theorist Some of Foucault’s insights and claims underwrite grand and postmodern theory Sociology’s approach to Foucault needs to improve!

Sociology 250 ()

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Performativity An interesting extension to Foucault

Sociologists don’t think economics’s idea of human nature is true, but. . . Economics seems pretty good at predicting how people behave, at least economically. Why?

Sociology 250 ()

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Performativity An interesting extension to Foucault

People learn how to behave from economic theory The Black-Scholes-Merton story Foucauldian idea: powerful discourses and systems evoke the kinds of subjects they need

Sociology 250 ()

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