What does Foucault say about subjectivity?

Foucault defines subjectivity as ‘the way in which the subject experiences himself in a game of truth where he relates to himself’ (2000a: 461).

What is Foucault’s theory?

Foucault’s theories primarily address the relationship between power and knowledge, and how they are used as a form of social control through societal institutions. Foucault subsequently published The Archaeology of Knowledge (1969).

What are the main ideas of Foucault?

In his 1975 book Discipline and Punish, Foucault argued that French society had reconfigured punishment through the new “humane” practices of “discipline” and “surveillance”, used in new institutions such as prisons, the mental asylums, schools, workhouses and factories.

What is another word for subjectivity?

What is another word for subjectivity?

What is Foucault theory of power?

Foucault challenges the idea that power is wielded by people or groups by way of ‘episodic’ or ‘sovereign’ acts of domination or coercion, seeing it instead as dispersed and pervasive. ‘Power is everywhere’ and ‘comes from everywhere’ so in this sense is neither an agency nor a structure (Foucault 1998: 63).

How power is understood in the theory of Michel Foucault?

Foucault uses the term ‘power/knowledge’ to signify that power is constituted through accepted forms of knowledge, scientific understanding and ‘truth’: In fact power produces; it produces reality; it produces domains of objects and rituals of truth.

Who is the father of post structuralism?

Jacques Derrida
Post-structuralism is a late-twentieth-century development in philosophy and literary theory, particularly associated with the work of Jacques Derrida and his followers. It originated as a reaction against structuralism, which first emerged in Ferdinand de Saussure’s work on linguistics.

What does Foucault mean by Episteme?

episteme. This term, which Foucault introduces in his book The Order of Things, refers to the orderly ‘unconscious’ structures underlying the production of scientific knowledge in a particular time and place.

How does Foucault’s view of power relate to subjectivity?

Foucault’s position on power and subjectivity tie in closely to one another and both of these two themes are interdependent. Throughout the text ‘The Subject and Power’, power is discussed in a variety of ways but focuses on demonstrating the ways in which this power and power relations develop and relate to human subjects and their subjectivity.

What does Michel Foucault mean by assujettissement?

In French, the key term Foucault uses to capture the emergence of subjectivities (or subject-positions: particular spaces for being a subject) is assujettissement.

What are some examples of power struggles in Foucault?

These power struggles arise from resistance in power relations, as Foucault uses a series of oppositions to power as examples such as men over women and parents over children. These six power struggles influence the way in which individuals think and feel.

Why was discipline and punish important to Michel Foucault?

These terms are especially philosophically important for Michel Foucault, who, in his middle works Discipline and Punish and The History of Sexuality, Volume I, develops a theoretical-historical account of the emergence of the modern subject in the context of what he calls “disciplinary power”.