what does foucault mean by knowledge

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What does Foucault say about knowledge and power?

For Foucault, power and knowledge are not seen as independent entities but are inextricably related—knowledge is always an exercise of power and power always a function of knowledge. Perhaps his most famous example of a practice of power/knowledge is that of the confession, as outlined in History of Sexuality.

Which of the following describes Foucault's views on knowledge?

According to Foucault's understanding, power is based on knowledge and makes use of knowledge; on the other hand, power reproduces knowledge by shaping it in accordance with its anonymous intentions.

What is the difference between knowledge and power?

Knowledge is not the power. Power is power. The ability to act on knowledge is power. Most people in most organizations do not have the ability to act on the knowledge they possess.

What according to Foucault is subjugated knowledge?

Sharing this poet's vision, postmodern French philosopher Michel Foucault (1980) has taught us that knowledge and power are one, that ''we are subjugated to the production of truth through power and we cannot exercise power except through the production of truth'' (p. 93).

What is Foucault's epistemology?

Foucault's work on knowledge is primarily critical rather than normatively reconstructive. The most important and influential of his ideas was Foucault's claim that power and knowledge are co-constituting: “that power and knowledge directly imply one another ”.

What were Foucault's main ideas?

Foucault's entire philosophy is based on the assumption that human knowledge and existence are profoundly historical. He argues that what is most human about man is his history. He discusses the notions of history, change and historical method at some length at various points in his career.

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

We discuss this relationship between power and resistance by drawing on Foucault's 'triangle': (I) sovereign power; (II) disciplinary power; and (III) biopower.

Why is knowledge known as power?

Knowledge is power means that a person has education and a complete control on his life by using that knowledge. Educated persons can easily handle the things in life. Knowledge is the strongest tool providing power to the people and knowledge cannot be defeated by any other power on the earth.

What is the good example of knowledge is power?

For example, when we have knowledge on self-defense, although something physical, we instantly have power over those with the intention to harm us. The idea of using one's own knowledge for encouraging the goodness in society to thrive, has not gone unnoticed.

Why did Foucault believe in an archeology of knowledge?

Archaeology was an essential method for Foucault because it supported a historiography that did not rest on the primacy of the consciousness of individual subjects; it allowed the historian of thought to operate at an unconscious level that displaced the primacy of the subject found in both phenomenology and in ...

What does situated knowledge mean?

knowledge that is embedded in, and thus affected by, the concrete historical, cultural, linguistic, and value context of the knowing person.

What is Foucault's theory called?

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. Though often cited as a structuralist and postmodernist, Foucault rejected these labels....Michel FoucaultDoctoral advisorGeorges Canguilhem17 more rows

What is Foucault's theory called?

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. Though often cited as a structuralist and postmodernist, Foucault rejected these labels....Michel FoucaultDoctoral advisorGeorges Canguilhem17 more rows

What is the Foucault theory in education?

Foucault, regarding the complex of power- knowledge-subject, analyzes school examinations and marks and interprets them as normalization procedures which bring power to play. In the examinations, power exercises on subjects through knowledge networks, “disciplines,” and scientific “discourses” that produce truths.

What kind of philosophy was Foucault's?

Michel Foucault (1926–1984) was a French historian and philosopher, associated with the structuralist and post-structuralist movements. He has had strong influence not only in philosophy but also in a wide range of humanistic and social scientific disciplines.

What is Foucault's social theory?

In Discipline and Punish, Foucault argues that modern society is a “disciplinary society,” meaning that power in our time is largely exercised through disciplinary means in a variety of institutions (prisons, schools, hospitals, militaries, etc.).

How does Foucault relate to education?

How can Foucault be related to education? The majority of work that uses Foucault draws, in particular, upon Discipline and Punish, and explores schools as power houses, as apparatuses working through mechanisms of discipline, visibility and surveillance, and correct training. In Discipline and Punish, Foucault himself contributes to this vision of school as a machine of discipline in which power is literally made visible and invisible, is written onto bodies. Power is represented and executed in architecture and in space, and in the multiple practices of division and exclusion that actually constitute modern school. Power plays a role in organizing school as an analytic space, a cellular space that surrounds us, a ‘therapeutic space’ in terms of the ways in which teachers act toward students, a space of precision, a space of exclusion, a space of division. This has been very intriguing to researchers. It falls back into other kinds of traditions of analysis that sociologists use to think about school. It reproduces this vibrant, powerful, exhaustive language through which we can understand how school functions. In particular it brings into play the role of the gates and the representation of gates: in particular, in Discipline and Punish, through the form of the panopticon as the gates of power within which the learner is made visible and power itself is made invisible, where the learners see only the tasks and the tests which they must undertake as they become subjects in the ‘eye of power’, virtually made visible to the teacher.

What is the fundamental conception of freedom?

Foucault’s fundamental conception of freedom is the idea that it rests on our relationship to ourselves and the struggle to be different from what we are. Many problems in reading Foucault originate because we come to him with the whole framework of modernist social science, and we want to know where he fits, even though he spent plenty of energy avoiding fitting. This leads to another fundamental problem in reading Foucault, because he is studiedly anti-modernist and studiedly anti-humanist. He is not willing to accept any of the basic tenets of modernist philosophy, of modernist social theory. As Johanna Oksala (2005, p. 1) puts it:

What is Foucault's main interest in life and work?

Foucault’s theory – “The main interest in life and work is to become someone else that you were not in the beginning” – focuses on his conception that, throughout life, experiences will shape you as an individual and change your beliefs, mindset and persona.

What is the point of learning in Foucault's model of education?

In the Western model of education, the aim is the transmission of truth: the point of learning is the acquisition of knowledge, the acquisition of truth. In a different sense, Foucault has been addressing the relationship between knowledge and expertise, but we do not often operate with this in relation to education.

What is Foucault's theory of identity?

Foucault’s theory is focused not necessarily on knowing exactly who you are in terms of your first individual identity and persona, but that which you will become going through experiences in life and work.

What is Foucault's conceptual, ideological thinking?

Foucault’s conceptual, ideological thinking encompasses different perspectives that people go through at different stages in their lives. People progress as individuals in society, and therefore become different from the person they were at beginning of their lives.

Who is Neelam Shah?

By Neelam Shah. Neelam is a Kingston University Social Sciences and Psychoanalysis Masters Graduate. Please read her article and leave your thoughts and comments below.

Why did Foucault study the combination of forces?

Foucault also noted an effort by the power to patrol the body and spread them in space. This is to avoid what it costs the least disorder in society. So everyone should be in place according to his rank, function, strengths, etc.. Whether in the factory, at school, at the barracks, power must control the activity, reaching the interior of the same behavior, playing at the act in its materiality most intimate and must also combine bodies in order to extract maximum utility. This is what we may call the combination of forces. This leads Foucault to study the various techniques very careful pedagogy initiated by the government, and its rules very meticulous training of individuals in the various strata of society.

What is a micropénalité system?

The micropénalité disciplinary systems is supported by a device that broadcasts information and instills those standards up to this device as set forth truths of nature of conduct prescribed by the disciplinary authority. And micro-powers to be as restrictive or more political power.

What is a micro power?

The micro-power. If these micro-powers, which aims to standardize the behaviors are many, because they are at different levels: either the powers of certain individuals over others such as parents, teachers , doctors, etc.., some institutions such as asylums or prisons, or even some speeches.

What is Foucault's work on discipline?

A reading of Foucault, one realizes that all the work of the power to discipline its subjects takes place around a very fine body of political technique: to make docile, disciplining individuals without their naturally not noticing.

What is Foucault's definition of power?

Foucault, Power and Knowledge. Foucault’s definition of power is simple enough: power is a power struggle. Note that the term “force” here is not written in the singular. Indeed, for Foucault the balance of power is combined always in the plural. Precisely because, while the balance of power is necessarily a “power relationship”.

What is the brief literature called that shows that only free men can dominate the other?

To organize their thoughts, it is based on tracts of existence, conduct tests, the arts of life, a brief literature called “minor” when the subject is offered in lifestyle, and where s’ develop terms of experience. It shows that, because only free men can dominate the other, they must first master themselves.

How many investment by the power of the body are described in discipline and punishment?

Four investment by the power of the body are described in Discipline and Punish: the first investment as a piece of space as the second core behaviors third time as Internal, and last as a sum of forces.

How many epochs did Foucault think were there?

He believes there have been three distinct epochs during this period. First, the Renaissance, which ended about 1650. Then the “classical” epoch, from 1650 to 1800. Then the “modern” epoch, from 1800 to the present. Further, he thinks the modern episteme has about run its course and is due to be replaced by a new one (OT xxiv), a postmodern epoch.

What is the difference between Foucault and Kuhn?

The chief difference is that Foucault’s vision is considerably more grandiose than Kuhn’s. Kuhn restricts himself to the domain of scientific theories, and even that only in fields of science that are relatively well developed. Foucault on the other hand wants to cover all knowledge in any human culture.

What is the episteme of a theory?

The episteme is the “firm foundation” for general theories, that which provides the reference standard on which they are built and by which they are appraised, and which is more true than any theory. In conflicts between theory and empirical evidence, the evidence may have to be revised, but not the episteme.

What is Foucault's episteme?

Foucault on the other hand wants to cover all knowledge in any human culture. His concept of “episteme” is accordingly broader than “paradigm.”. Whereas a paradigm determines a particular theory, an episteme determines what theories are possible.

What are the problems with Foucault's vision?

The problems rather are three. First, the facts are constantly interpreted in terms that must seem bizarre to those who are not true believers in Foucault’s vision. Second, Halperin seems not really interested in any facts not relevant, pro or con, to his philosophical program.

Does Foucault talk about epistemes?

I say “apparently” because Foucault never talks about epistemes in HSI, and so I feel slightly uncomfortable speculating about their relation to power, which is the central concept of HSI. Foucault speaks of the mechanisms of power as “a grid of intelligibility of the social order” (HSI 93), which is tantalizing inasmuch as an episteme is also a grid of intelligibility. But doesn’t this conflate two separate issues? For I began by asking what determines a change of episteme, but now I am asking whether the field of power relations might not be the episteme. Of course, the answer to both questions could be the same. The field of power relations could comprise the episteme, and then perforce any reconstitution of that field would comprise a change of episteme.

Is the episteme built into our consciousness?

However, the episteme is not built into our consciousness like the Kantian categories. It is culturally and historically determined. It is said to be “constructed”--and Foucault’s view may be called “constructionism”--although the term is perhaps misleading inasmuch as the construction is neither conscious nor deliberate. Between different cultures, or between different epochs of the same culture, there may be radically different epistemes. Foucault is saying, therefore, that, for example, Borges’s Chinese taxonomy of animals is only impossible within our Western epistemological field and that it is entirely possible that a radically different culture would find the Chinese taxonomy not only possible but reasonable.

What did Foucault believe about the French Revolution?

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 did Foucault argue about the discipline and punishment?

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. These institutions produced obedient citizens who comply with social norms, ...

What did Foucault use as a metaphor for his point?

He used English philosopher Jeremy Bentham’s 1787 Panopticon as a metaphor to illustrate his point.

What is the power of Goodreads?

Goodreads. Every exercise of power depends on a scaffold of knowledge that supports it. And claims to knowledge advance the interests and power of certain groups while marginalising others. In practice, this often legitimises the mistreatment of these others in the name of correcting and helping them.

What has made Foucault so appealing to such a broad range of scholars?

What has made Foucault so appealing to such a broad range of scholars is that he didn’t just look at abstract theories of philosophy or of historical change. Rather, he analysed what was actually said. In his most important works, this included an analysis of texts, images and buildings in order to map how forms of knowledge change.

What did Foucault argue about power?

Foucault argued that knowledge and power are intimately bound up. So much so, that that he coined the term “power/knowledge” to point out that one is not separate from the other.

What did Foucault argue about mental illness?

Foucault argued that people with “mental illnesses” (formerly known as madness) were controlled by relentless efforts at correction to a scientifically determined “norm”.

Why did Foucault use discontinuity?

Foucault continually uses the principles of discontinuity, break and difference in his analyses, in order to undermine philosophical notions of unchanging essences in history. These essences include the ‘Man’ and ‘human nature’ and ‘great man’ of humanist philosophies. Discontinuity also challenges notions of cause, effect, progress, destiny, ...

How does Foucault argue that resistance is co-extensive with power?

He argues at one point that resistance is co-extensive with power, namely as soon as there is a power relation, there is a possibility of resistance. If there is no such thing as a society without relations of power, this does not mean that existing power relations cannot be criticized. It is not a question of an ‘ontological opposition’ between power and resistance, but a matter of quite specific and changing struggles in space and time. There is always the possibility of resistance no matter how oppressive the system.

What is Foucault's apparatus?

apparatus (dispositif) Foucault generally uses this term to indicate the various institutional, physical and administrative mechanisms and knowledge structures, which enhance and maintain the exercise of power within the social body. The original French term dispositif is rendered variously as ‘dispositif’, ‘apparatus’ and ‘deployment’ in English ...

What is Foucault's term for the collection of all material traces left behind by a particular historical?

It designates the collection of all material traces left behind by a particular historical period and culture. In examining these traces one can deduce the historical a priori of the period and then if one is looking at science, one can deduce the episteme of the period. None of these concepts has predictive value – they are all descriptions of limited historical orders.

What is Foucault's approach to writing history called?

archaeology. ‘Archaeology’ is the term Foucault used during the 1960s to describe his approach to writing history. Archaeology is about examining the discursive traces and orders left by the past in order to write a ‘history of the present’.

What is the author in Foucault's book?

The author is a category or way of organising texts which has a history and needs to be challenged. For example, the psychological entity of the author and the use of the author as a way of organising texts are two different things and need to be treated separately.

What is the difference between archaeology and genealogy?

But, if archaeology addresses a level at which differences and similarities are determined, a level where things are simply organized to produce manageable forms of knowledge, the stakes are much higher for genealogy. Genealogy deals with precisely the same substrata of knowledge and culture, but Foucault now describes it as a level where the grounds of the true and the false come to be distinguished via mechanisms of power.

What is Foucault's method of punishment?

The method was a kind of “public corporal punishment” that is in Foucault’s Discipline and Punish the public execution, the public torture. (Appelrouth and Edles, 2008: 646 Table 15. 2) In addition this torture took place in public. Later on among so many changes torture as a public spectacle disappeared. (Foucault, 1975) The second phase of punishment emerged in the 19th-20th Century when the basis of power was a decentralized institution. Methods were based on surveillance and discipline like in Bentham’s Panopticon or in the plague-stricken town. Appelrouth and Edles, 2008: 646 Table 15. 2) Today, in the 21th Century we are in the third stage of punishment where there are multiple principles about the authority of the penalty system, multiple self-regulations exist and power is diffusive. The trend of the second phase is intensified in the third. “Power has become destructed and individualized”, “disciplinary individuals” turned up. “No longer are social structures and specific institutions necessary for the exercise of power and the meting out of punishment. (Appelrouth and Edles, 2008: 646) In Discipline and punish Foucault analyses the ways how the offender is disciplined in different punishment regimes. In early times punishments were crude, “prisons were places into which the public could wander”. (Wheterell et al. , 2001: 78) The latter form of regulation and power became private. Inmates were closed into prisons with an invisible system. Public could not see into these institutions anymore. Punishment became individualized and “the body has become a site of a new kind of disciplinary regime.

What is the basis of Foucault's idea of knowledge and power?

That is the basis of Foucault’s idea about knowledge and power as oneness and the reason for why is important to think other about the “power is knowledge” and “knowledge is power” correspondence. Discipline and Punish (1975) is Foucault’s best genealogical investigation. Appelrouth and Edles, 2008: 643) At the beginning he describes a public torture which was a totally accepted from of punishment in the 18th century. Dramatically introduces the whole process without attitudinizing as those days public execution was a common event, the illustrated torture was as real as he presents it. As norms and attitudes changed in latter centuries public tortures has become not popular anymore, people were sentenced to go to prison where a completely different penalty system has been running. Foucault describes typical activities and every day life of the inmates.

What is power in sociology?

Accordingly it can be defined as a kind of strength or as an authority. There are various theorisations about the meaning of this term in sociology thus it would be hard to give a comprehensive definition. Is power a relationship? What kind of outcome does it produce? Can it modify behaviour and can it reduce the power of others? (Waters, 1994: 217) All of these questions can be answered in a different way. The point might be over whom and upon what can this power be exercised. Foucault frequently uses power and knowledge together in the phrase power/knowledge. He claims these two are inseparable.

What does Foucault describe in his presentation?

The point of these two presentations is to show that the changes of methods of punishment correlate with cultural and social changes in the all-time society.

What happens if punishment does not take place?

If once punishment does not take place the individual can take under consideration the fact of being always watched thus disciplined behaviour is not guaranteed anymore. Foucault’s genealogical investigation is about to look on how power/knowledge and forms of punishment changed during the past few centuries. “Until turn of the nineteenth century criminal deviance was controlled by public attacks on the offender’s body. ” (Waters, 1994: 231) Public execution was quite common in the 18th Century (although it is still ongoing even today in some countries), “Foucault identifies such punishments as political rituals”. Waters, 1994: 231) Torture was the expression of power, presented how the offender is punished if commits an offence against the only sovereign power. This sovereign power was one “centralized authority, like a king”. (Appelrouth and Edles, 2008: 643) According to Foucault punishment went through another two stages since public tortures (which is the first stage). This form of punishment is considered unacceptable nowadays, but not because it goes too far, “rather it is because punishment and the power that guides it have taken new, more acceptable forms. (Appelrouth and Edles, 2008: 643) Punishment became invisible and kinder to the body, to be disciplined was the point rather than to be punished. The second stage of penal practices was based on surveillance and discipline what was aimed to harm the mind. (Appelrouth and Edles, 2008: 644) Public execution can be considered as a terrible kind of punishment, but torture of the mind is the worst. Physical pain could have been unbearable during these public tortures but psychical pain over years and years is tougher as it has no end.

What is the Panopticon metaphor?

The idea of the Panopticon is a metaphor for the general presence of a new penalty system which is called the disciplinary society by Foucault. (Appelrouth and Edles, 2008: 644) This society is disciplined by being constantly watched and punished by excluded them from normal society.

How can knowledge and power be independently from each other?

Thus knowledge and power can not exist independently from each other. Benthams laid down two principles about power relating to the Panopticon: it must be visible and unverifiable. The inmates will constantly have before their eyes the tall outline of the central tower from which they are spied upon and must never know whether they are being looked, but they must be sure that they may always be so. (Calhoun et al. , 2007: 210) These two principles give the opportunity to exercise power over the prisoners. The other very important thing is that this system is not only successful in prison but in every kind of institutions.

What does discourse do?

n Discourse transmits and produces power, but it also undermines and exposes it.

How does discourse affect power?

Discourse transmits and produces power; it reinforce s it, but also undermines and exposes it, renders it fragile and makes it possible to thwart it.”. According to Foucault, right-wing social scientists always perceive power in terms of sovereignty and law. And Marxists see power in terms of the state apparatus.

What is power according to Foucault?

Power according to Foucault is a multiplicity of force relations immanent in the sphere in which they operate and which constitute their own organization. Here, Foucault is not referring to a group of institutions that ensure the subservience of citizens of a state, a mode of subjugation as a set of rules, or a system of domination in which there ...

Why does Foucault oppose the concept of repression?

He opposes the concept of repression because this concept is only about the effect of power as repression, that is, “power that says no,” that prohibits. It is a juridical conception of power. For Foucault, repression is a negative conception of power. And as such, it is incomplete. *What makes power hold good, what makes people accept it, ...

What is the relationship between power and resistance?

n Relations of power are immanent in other types of relations. n Power comes from below – there is no binary opposition between the ruled and the ruler. n Where there is power, there is always resistance. Resistance is never exterior to power. n One is always inside power.

What did Marx say about the ruling class?

As Marx said, “in every epoch, the ideas are the ideas of the ruling class.”. Marx and Marxist thought seeks to unravel that ideological stratum to get down to truth, which is the conflictual relationship between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie.

Why does Marx oppose ideology?

He opposes ideology because this concept always stands against something that is supposed to count as truth. Ideology always refers to a Subject. It is always secondary to an infrastructure; a material, economic determinant. In Marxism, “base determines superstructure,” that is, the relations of production determine the ideas. As Marx said, “in every epoch, the ideas are the ideas of the ruling class.” Marx and Marxist thought seeks to unravel that ideological stratum to get down to truth, which is the conflictual relationship between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie. The Subject who is capable of knowing this truth is the working class-in-itself.

The Power in Foucault’s Philosophy

Regulating

The Micro-Power

The Knowledge

• And height of astonishment, Foucault points out, the terms of power and knowledge are insidiously related, because the exercise of these powers is based mainly on knowledge. It explains, for example in Discipline and Punish, it is the prison itself, which makes the concept of delinquency, such as psychiatric power has made the concept of disease. T...

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