What’s this historiographic method of argumentation used by Foucault?

What is Foucault’s methodology?

At the core of Foucault’s picture of modern disciplinary society are three primary techniques of control: hierarchical observation, normalizing judgment, and the examination. To a great extent, control over people (power) can be achieved merely by observing them.

What is Foucault theory of power?

Foucault uses the term ‘power/knowledge’ to signify that power is constituted through accepted forms of knowledge, scientific understanding and ‘truth’: ‘Truth is a thing of this world: it is produced only by virtue of multiple forms of constraint. And it induces regular effects of power.

What is Michel Foucault known for?

Michel Foucault began to attract wide notice as one of the most original and controversial thinkers of his day with the appearance of The Order of Things in 1966. His best-known works included Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison (1975) and The History of Sexuality, a multivolume history of Western sexuality.

How does Foucault define statement?

Foucault begins by writing that the term ‘statement’ has been used. both to speak of a ‘population’ of statements and as a point of contrast. to discourse considered ‘whole’. He then presents the following quali- fied description, which immediately raises the question of the relation.

What are the two main types of power according to Foucault?

As modes of power in democracies, Foucault explicitly identified:

  • Sovereign power.
  • Disciplinary power.
  • Pastoral power.
  • Bio-power.

What was Foucault’s philosophy?

Foucault was interested in power and social change. In particular, he studied how these played out as France shifted from a monarchy to democracy via the French revolution. He believed that we have tended to oversimplify this transition by viewing it as an ongoing and inevitable attainment of “freedom” and “reason”.

What does Foucault mean by force relations?

In Foucault’s The History of Sexuality, he states that power is “the multiplicity of force relations immanent in the sphere in which they constitute their own organization”(92). Power itself can relate to the hierarchy of a boss to his employees or even the more traditional teacher-student scenario among others.

What is discipline according to Foucault?

Discipline for Foucault is a type of power, a modality for its exercise. It comprises a whole set of instruments, techniques, procedures, levels of application, targets. It is a “physics” of power, an “anatomy” of power, or a technology of power.

What is Foucault’s main argument in Discipline and Punish?

Foucault’s argument is that discipline creates “docile bodies”, ideal for the new economics, politics and warfare of the modern industrial age – bodies that function in factories, ordered military regiments, and school classrooms.

What does Foucault argue in Discipline and Punish?

The relationship between power and knowledge is central to Foucault’s work. Discipline and Punish essentially charts the reorganization of the power to punish, and the development of various bodies of knowledge (the human sciences) that reinforce and interact with that power.

What did Foucault say in discipline and punish?

Foucault’s book provides analysis of the historical development of the modern penal system and its move from execution to incarceration and total control of criminals. Foucault demonstrates the ways in which strict discipline and morals have transformed the agency of punishment from the corporeal to the spiritual.

What is the function of punishment according to Foucault?

As Foucault stated, the system is designed ‘to punish less, perhaps; but certainly to punish better‘, arguing that it has resulted in a greater degree of authority among the powerful institutions.