SOCI 337 Assignment 2
SOCI 337 Assignment 2
SOCI 337 Assignment 2
Foucault is an enigmatic figure, and one of the most influential thinkers of the 20th century
(Sugrue, 1997). He was born in Poitiers, France, in 1926. His father and grandfather were both
respected surgeons, and he was expected to take up the family profession. Instead, however, he was
compelled to embark on an intriguing intellectual journey, studying psychology and philosophy; and
ultimately producing transformative understandings of society and social theory (Kelly, 2015).
His works are boundary crossing and path-breaking, incorporating diverse elements of, and
regularly being referenced across, the humanities (Elden, 2013; Ritzer and Ryan, 2011; Ritzer and
Stepnisky, 2021). Foucault's approach reflects C. Wright Mill's understanding expressed in The
Sociological Imagination; "intellectually, the central fact today is an increasing fluidity of boundary
lines; conceptions move with increasing ease from one discipline to another" (2000, 139). This is but
one way in which his approach to social theory was unique compared to traditional sociologists
(Roderick, 1993). It is therefore the purpose of this essay to chronicle these unique and transformative
aspects of his work beginning with Madness and Civilization, and concluding with his History of
Sexuality.
To begin, Madness and Civilization: A History of Insanity in the Age of Reason (a condensed
version of his doctoral thesis) was originally published in 1961 in France, and was published in English
for the first time in 1965. This book, the first of Foucault's, is similar to Friedrich Nietzsche’s Birth of
Tragedy. It sees a split between reason and unreason akin to Nietzsche’s Apollonian/Dionysian
differentiation. Also, the French history and philosophy of science, especially Gaston Bachelard's
“epistemological rupture,” Georges Canguilhem's emphasis on the separation of the normal from the
pathological, and Marx's historical analysis of social division were all vital influences not just in
Madness and Civilization examines the history of our modern conception of mental illness as
well as the results of this interpretive shift. By analyzing 19th-century archival evidence Foucault came
3
to reject the standard view of the time that psychiatry had "[liberated] [...] the mad from the ignorance
and brutality of preceding ages." Rather, he came to realize that the modern conceptualization, and
resultant medicalization of madness did not generally constitute an improvement, per se. In contrast, he
pointed to the conception of madness in the Renaissance which more positively or less problematically
saw the mad as being "in contact with the mysterious forces of cosmic tragedy." He also examined the
transitional phase of the 17th and 18th-century in which madness was viewed as the repudiation of
reason in favor of animality. Ultimately, the pathologization of those deemed mentally ill, and the
seemingly neutral scientific discourse employed merely provided a veneer for bourgeoisie domination
of potentially problematic populations and ways of being (Gutting, 2022; Sugrue, 1997). It did so by
isolating such populations from society en mass, incarcerating them in hospitals, prisons, and
workhouses during what Foucault referred to as The Great Confinement (Foucault, 1988, pp. 38-39).
As Foucault scholar Mark Kelly notes, "The History of Madness thus sets the pattern for most of
Foucault’s works by being concerned with discrete changes in a given area of social life at particular
Next, The Birth of the Clinic: An Archaeology of Medical Perception, was originally published
in France in 1963, and relatively later in English in 1973. This work, similar to Madness and
practice, again via an analysis of the discourse as found in associated documents. Around the time of
the French Revolution a "transformation of social institutions and political imperatives combined to
produce modern institutional medicine." This transformation also produced the anatomo-clinical gaze
(Athabasca 2024), which dispassionately and objectively observes patients and their conditions, "in the
service of the demographic needs of society;" and ultimately generated the great break in Western
Foucault's following work, The Order of Things: An Archaeology of the Human Sciences, was
originally published in France in 1966 and in English in 1970. It explicitly defines the methodology
Foucault had been previously employing: archaeology. And he applies archaeology again; this time to
the human sciences which encompass "an interdisciplinary space for the reflection on the 'man' who is
the subject of more mainstream scientific knowledge such as anthropology, history, and, indeed,
philosophy." These human sciences include, for example, "psychology, sociology, and the history of
However, The Order of Things analyses the prehistory of the human sciences and their
discourses. In doing so it traces Western epistemology through a number of transformations giving rise
to differing épistémès—general understandings of what constitutes legitimate knowledge. The two most
important epistemic transformations in the West occur, according to Foucault, at the start of the 17th
century, giving rise to the Classical period; and at the beginning of the 19th century, giving rise to the
Foucault states the before the Classical period, "Western knowledge [was] a rather disorganized
mass of different kinds of knowledge (superstitious, religious, philosophical), with the work of science
being to note all kinds of resemblances." With the Classical épistémè, however, the increasing
inclination towards categorization leads to more bounded disciplines (Kelly, 2015). The Classical
épistémès takes knowledge as being representative, in an abstract sense, of its object; "the map is a
fact represent their objects," undermining the status of ideas as "unproblematic vehicles of knowledge"
(Gutting, 2022). Gradually a reflexive understanding arose in which the "individual [was] conceived
simultaneously as both subject and object;" (Kelly, 2015). This, by the end of the 18th century, had
began to inspire a new focus on language and the hidden, underlying logics of knowledges; leading to
5
understandings as diverse as "the dialectical view of history, psychoanalysis, and Darwinian evolution"
(Ibid., 2015). Foucault critiqued this mode of thinking as tending to dichotomize "what is 'the Same'
and what is other; with the latter usually excluded from scientific inquiry," and having a bias towards
taking man—corresponding to the modern state's governable and abstract population/demographic, and
the accompanying sciences and discourses—as the object of investigation (Ibid., 2015).
This epistemic logic which takes man as its object, however, according to Foucault, opens the
door to man's eventual transcendence; as some of these sciences, such as psychoanalysis investigate
realities which are too deep to be fully properly examined within such a limited perspective. One can
argue, therefore, it is this epistemic shift which underlies the development in recent times of
interdisciplinary methodologies, such as New Materialism (Coole, 2010). Coole, author of New
Materialisms: Ontology, Agency, and Politics states, "interestingly, some indication of how new
materialists might investigate both the quotidian and structural dimensions of late capitalism can
Another example of recent development along these lines is Posthumanism, which, similar to
technological, urban, social, and political realities and relations (Braidotti, 2013, 40 and 55-105). In
regards to Foucault's influence, Braidotti states: "by the time Michel Foucault published his ground-
breaking critique of Humanism in The Order of Things (1970), the question of what, if anything, was
the idea of ‘the human’ was circulating in the radical discourses of the time and had set the anti-
humanist agenda for an array of political groups" (Ibid., 23). Foucault's epistemological-discursive
investigations up to this point, which a "[reject] the idea of an autonomous, meaning-giving subject"
(Ritzer and Stepnisky, 2021), were leading to a higher perspective from which to consider, create, and
Foucault's next book The Archaeology of Knowledge: And the Discourse on Language, was
published in France in 1969, and in English in 1970. It is his most conceptual work, and does not deal
with historical analysis; instead it looks at language on its own, examining "discrete linguistic events,
which he calls 'statements'" to understand how they relate (Kelly, 2015). Foucault comes to see
language as influenced by "extra-linguistic realities" but ultimately "governed by a 'system of its [own]
functioning'" (Ibid., 2015) outside "grammar and logic, [and] [operates] beneath the consciousness of
individual subjects and [defines] a system of conceptual possibilities that determines the boundaries of
thought in a given domain and period" (Gutting 2022). Foucault calls this the archive and archaeology
Foucault then, in 1969, produced an essay titled "What is an Author?" in which he critiques the
concept of the author. He suggests that the author, rather than being a sovereign and transcendent
creator, is a historically and socially constructed artifact operating from the nexus of influences, such as
discursive systems. This is similar in theme to another essay published earlier, in 1967, by Roland
Barthes, titled "The Death of the Author." Though Barthes is more interested in giving primacy to the
reader, over the author, in terms of the text's interpretation/meaning, stating "a text is made of multiple
writings, drawn from many cultures and entering into mutual relations of dialogue, parody,
contestation, but there is one place where this multiplicity is focused and that place is the reader"
(1977, 148). These works both contributed to the Postmodern death of the author.
Next came "The Order of Discourse" in 1970. This work came about, in some ways, in response
to the volatile political climate of 1968 in France; and reflects a more political approach. Also, we find
here the methodology which Foucault calls genealogy (after Nietzsche's Genealogy of Morals)
expressed and defined for the first time. Genealogy can be defined as "doing what Foucault calls the
'history of the present,' [...] [and] is an explanation of where we have come from, [...] to tell us how our
current situation originated, [...] motivated by contemporary concerns" (Kelly, 2015). Also, importantly,
7
it should be noted that genealogy emphasizes "complex, mundane, inglorious origins," which are "in no
way part of any grand scheme of progressive history." Genealogy emphasizes that any particular
system of thought—its fundamental composition and dynamic having been revealed by archaeological
investigation of the archive—was merely an outcome of contingent historical developments, rather than
a rational and inevitable outcome (Gutting, 2022). This methodology is further employed in the
The anthology Power/Knowledge collects his thought from 1972 to 1977, and "is closely linked
to the themes and arguments" presented in his 1975 work Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the
Prison, to be discussed afterward. Gordon Collin, the editor, states that this anthology focuses on "the
problematic of 'pouvoir-savoir', power and knowledge, which has given this book its title" (Foucault,
1980, vii and ix). It examines "power at its extremities, in its ultimate destinations, with those points
where it becomes capillary, that is, in its more regional and local forms and institutions;" as opposed to
that which emanates from central, "regulated, and legitimate forms" (Foucault, 1980, 96). Also the
analysis disregards "conscious intention or decision", instead focusing on "processes which subject our
bodies, govern our gestures, [and] dictate our behaviours etc." (Ibid., 97).
really and materially constituted through a multiplicity of organisms, forces, energies, materials,
desires, thoughts etc." (Foucault, 1980, 97). Foucault also points out that individuals are not only sites
of power as applied, but also operate as vehicles, applying power themselves (Ibid., 98). This anthology
also describes the concept of bio-power, or somato-power, which "[penetrates] the body in depth." It is
a "network or circuit" which "acts as the formative matrix of sexuality itself as the historical and
Foucault's next book, the well-known, highly influential Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the
Prison, was published in France in 1975, and in English in 1978. Its title and methodology mirror that
8
of The Birth of the Clinic (both titles deriving from Nietzsche's Birth of Tragedy), though it is more
genealogical.
Discipline and Punish traces the development of the carceral system to the 17th century, where
the prison system evolved as an alternative method to the system of punishment employed by medieval
societies. Medieval, or sovereign societies, would punish to avenge an affront to the power of the
sovereign; naturally Foucault defines the power in such societies as sovereign power (Foucault, 1995,
36). Such punishment would entail brutal, torturous violence applied to the offender's body publicly, as
a spectacle of justice (Roderick, 1993). However, this also allowed the crowd to sympathize with the
offender's suffering, and often riots would break out afterward, creating negative sentiment towards the
the development of the prison system and its associated reform "becomes a vehicle of more effective
control: 'to punish less, perhaps; but certainly to punish better'" (Gutting, 2022). This new mode of
punishment, "becomes the model for control of an entire society, with factories, hospitals, and schools
modeled on the modern prison" and comes to make up a carceral archipelago (Ibid.; Foucault 1995,
Another important concept presented in Discipline and Punish, is panopticism. This concept
stems from a style of prison architecture and its associated mode of surveillance developed by the late
18th, early 19th-century philosopher Jeremy Bentham. In the panopticon "each inmate is always visible
to a guard situated in a central tower. Guards do not in fact always see each inmate; the point is that
they could [...] [therefore] [inmates] must behave as if they are always seen and observed. As a result,
control is achieved more by the possibility of internal monitoring of those controlled" (Gutting, 2022).
For Foucault, this dynamic in general is a key aspect of modern disciplinary power. It is present
in schools, hospitals, shopping malls, etc. However, it is also integrated at the micro level into the
subjects themselves, who therefore observe and constrain their own behavior, perspectives, and
9
attitudes as well as those of others (Gutting, 2022). This disciplinary power ultimately produces
Before his early death in 1984, Foucault turned his critical and probing intellect toward the
topic of sexuality. The first volume of a multi-volume work was published in France in 1976, and in
English in 1978. Titled The History of Sexuality, Vol. 1: The Will to Knowledge, it served as an
introduction, and focused on various concerns of modern sexuality including "children, women,
'perverts,' [and] population" (Gutting 2022). Kelly, author of The Political Philosophy of Michel
Foucault states that, "The Will to Knowledge is an extraordinarily influential work, perhaps Foucault’s
most influential" (2015). Similar to his previous works, he subjects different historical ways of thinking
about and conceiving sexuality to genealogical analysis. However, as sexuality involves deep aspects of
our subjective selfhood, the domination which emanates from scientific observation and discourse on
sexuality is particularly potent. In this case people "are controlled not only as objects of disciplines but
also as self-scrutinizing and self-forming subjects" (Gutting. 2022; Kelly, 2015). Ultimately, "sexuality
becomes an essential construct in determining not only moral worth, but also health, desire, and
identity, [as] subjects are further obligated to tell the truth about themselves by confessing the details of
their sexuality." This takes on a secularized religious dynamic where the doctor or psychiatrist takes the
Foucault explains that the notion of modern society repressing sex is mistaken. In fact, he
argues that the opposite is the case; there has, in fact, been a great expansion of sexual discourse,
particularly that which is "medical, juridical and psychological." This, rather, leads to our society
becoming more sexualized. Also, because all sexuality is inherently based within enculturated
experience and understanding, the society's general view that there was a natural, repressed sexuality
needing to be liberated, was itself incorrect (Gutting, 2022). Foucault also points out in this work that
power is not only repressive, but that it is also productive, and works by producing "cultural normative
10
practices and scientific discourses, [and] the ways in which we experience and conceive of our
sexuality" (Ibid.). This perspective influenced social constructivist understandings of sexuality, gender,
and identity. For instance, Judith Butler's work Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of
Identity makes frequent reference to Foucault and his understandings of power-knowledge, as well as
the culturally relative/constructed nature of subjectivities and identities (2002; Kelly, 2015). Also,
Donna Haraway states in her "Cyborg Manifesto: Science, Technology, and Socialist-Feminism in the
Late Twentieth Century" that "[Michel] Foucault's biopolitics is a flaccid premonition of cyborg
politics;" where cyborg politics looks forward to "unclosed constructions of personal and collective
Foucault completed Volumes II and III, and nearly completed Volume IV, all of which were
published after his death in 1984. Volume II, published in France in 1984, and in English in 1985; was
subtitled The Use of Pleasure. Volume III, published in France in 1984, and in English in 1986; was
subtitled The Care of Self. And finally, Volume IV published in draft form in France in 2018 and in
English in 2021 was subtitled Confessions of the Flesh. These works continue "to investigate how
individuals were led to practice, on themselves and on others, a hermeneutics of desire, a hermeneutics
of which their sexual behavior was doubtless the occasion; [...] how, for centuries, Western man had
been brought to recognize himself as a subject of desire" (Foucault, 1990, 5-6). They also continue to
examine the resultant power-knowledge dynamics. And Foucault also questions: "how, why, and in
what forms was sexuality constituted as a moral domain? Why this ethical concern that was so
persistent despite its varying forms and intensity? Why this 'problematization'?" (Ibid., 10). The
historical period analyzed ranges from the Greco-Roman period through to early Christianity. Kelly
notes how influential Foucault's thought has been: "concerns with sexuality, bodies, and norms form a
potent mix that has, via the work of Judith Butler in particular, been one of the main influences on
11
contemporary feminist thought, as well as influential in diverse areas of the humanities and social
sciences" (2015).
Also, while most of Foucault's works had largely bracketed questions of how the state and such
institutions directly exercise power, his later work addresses these questions, especially the concept of
governmentality. Two collections of his lectures are of note, Security, Territory, Population: Lectures at
the Collège de France 1977-1978, and The Birth of Biopolitics: Lectures at the Collège de France,
1978-1979. These works examine the intersection of statecraft and what Foucault terms the government
of the self. These works were also very influential, and form the "basis for what is effectively an entire
forward to Deleuze's work Foucault—quotes Foucault as saying, "'perhaps one day this century will be
known as Deleuzian" (Deleuze, 1988, xlii). Beyond Deleuze writing about him directly in the
eponymous Foucault, his influence is also foundational to Deleuze's essay "Postscript on Societies of
Control" (Deleuze, 1992). "Postscript" extrapolates Foucault's transition from sovereign societies to
disciplinary societies to what Deleuze calls control societies. This perspective is only increasing in
relevance, as the methods by which subjectivities and docile bodies are formed and governed
increasingly become the kind belonging to control societies. These modes of control, often based in
[metastable]" (Deleuze, 1992). One simple example would be the discipline society's imprisonment and
associated prison cell, as opposed to the control society's house arrest and associated ankle monitor.
followed along "multiple, open-ended, heterogeneous trajectories of discourses, practices, and events"
and thereby contributed to the postmodern dismantling of meta/grand narratives. As Ritzer and
Stepnisky state, "[he] has no sense of some deep, ultimate truth; there are simply ever more layers to be
12
peeled away" (2021, 421-422). And, as noted, his essay "What is an Author" contributed to the
Postmodern death of the author, re-conceptualizing the role of the transcendent subject, author, or
researcher.
Also, his structuralist/post-structuralist (Ritzer and Stepnisky, 2021) analyses show how
discourses generate, and relate to normative, subjectivizing power-knowledge dynamics which work to
categorize and marginalize certain groups seen as problematic from the perspective of the bourgeoisie.
This has given rise to a lifting up and centering of subaltern discourses, such as in "post-colonial
discourse theory, [or] multicultural theory," etc. (Athabasca University, 2024). It also contributed to the
rise of New Materialism, and Posthumanism (Sugrue, 1997); and his understanding of social
constructivism contributed significantly to the development of queer and gender studies (Ritzer and
Ryan, 2011). His Madness and Civilization "[gave] birth to the anti-psychiatry movement;" and,
His understanding of bio-power/politics and the physics of micro-power significantly impacted social
theorists' understanding of power, which previously had been more attuned to its the top down
institutional manifestations. Conversely his ideas regarding the state and governmentality added to the
Foucault's work was different from that of traditional sociologists in that he freely borrowed
from the methods and materials of any discipline. His approach was also different in that it—similar to
Bruno Latour's actor-network theory (2007), or Deleuze and Guattari's rhizome (2005)—blurred the
In conclusion, this all examples Foucault's transformative influence which drastically changed
our understanding of society and social theory via his distinct methodology and perspective. This essay
is not—nor could it be—exhaustive. His influence is too intense, widespread, and diverse; it is nigh
impossible to trace all of its threads, to name all of its potential offspring, or delineate all the resultant
13
realities. Foucault's work will continue to be impactful long into the foreseeable future; where it may
finally echo out to imperceptibility. And even then, it may perhaps at some unknowable point, be
revived; just as Duchamp's art took on renewed meaning for the (re)generation of the 1960s (Lebel,
2024).
References
Barthes, Roland. "The Death of the Author." In Image, Music, Text. Translated by Stephen Heath.
London: Fontana, 1977. (Original work published 1967) Accessed April 17, 2024.
https://sites.tufts.edu/english292b/files/2012/01/Barthes-The-Death-of-the-Author.pdf.
Braidotti, Rosi. The Posthuman. Cambridge: Polity Press, 2013. Accessed April 17, 2023.
https://ageingcompanions.constantvzw.org/books/The_Posthuman_-_Rosi_Braidotti.pdf.
Butler, Judith. Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity. New York: Routledge. 2002.
https://selforganizedseminar.files.wordpress.com/2011/07/butler-gender_trouble.pdf.
Christensen, Gerd. "Three Concepts of Power: Foucault, Bourdieu, and Habermas." Power and
Cool, Diana. New Materialisms: Ontology, Agency, and Politics. Durham: Duke University Press,
Deleuze, Gilles. Foucault. Translated by Seán Hand. Edited by Seán Hand. Minneapolis: University of
Minnesota Press, 1988. (Originally published in French, 1986). Reprint, 2007. Accessed April
hand-foucault-university-of-minnesota-press-1988.pdf.
Deleuze, Gilles. "Postscript on Societies of Control." October 59 (1992): 3-7. Accessed April 20, 2024.
https://cidadeinseguranca.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/deleuze_control.pdf.
Deleuze, Gilles, and Félix Guattari. A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia. Minneapolis:
University of Minnesota Press, 2005. (Originally published 1987). Accessed April 18, 2024.
https://culturetechnologypolitics.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/
deleuze_guattari_a-thousand-plateaus-geologyofmorals.pdf.
Elden, Stuart. "How Should We Do the History of Territory?" Territory, Politics, Governance 1, no. 1
New York: Vintage Books, 1995. (Original work published 1975). Accessed April 17, 2024.
https://monoskop.org/images/4/43/Foucault_Michel_Discipline_and_Punish_The_Birth_of_the
_Prison_1977_1995.pdf.
Foucault, Michel. The History of Sexuality Vol. II: The Use of Pleasure. Translated by Robert Hurley.
New York: Vintage Books, 1990. (Originally published 1984). Accessed April 18, 2024.
https://monoskop.org/images/a/a3/Foucault_Michel_The_History_of_Sexuality_2_The_Use_of
_Pleasure.pdf.
Foucault, Michel. Madness and Civilization: A History of Insanity in the Age of Reason. Translated by
Richard Howard. New York: Vintage Books, 1988. (Original work published 1969). Accessed
https://monoskop.org/images/1/14/Foucault_Michel_Madness_and_Civilization_A_History_of
_Insanity_in_the_Age_of_Reason.pdf.
Foucault, Michel. Power/Knowledge: Selected Interviews & Other Writings 1972-1977. Translated by
Collin Gordon, Leo Marshall, John Mepham, and Kate Soper. Edited by Collin Gordon. New
https://monoskop.org/images/5/5d/Foucault_Michel_Power_Knowledge_Selected_Interviews_a
nd_Other_Writings_1972-1977.pdf.
Foucault, Michel. "What is an Author?" In Aesthetics, Method, and Epistemology. Translated by Robert
Hurley and Others. Edited by James D. Faubion, 205-222. New York: The New Press, 1998.
https://www.sas.upenn.edu/~cavitch/pdf-library/Foucault_Author.pdf.
Gutting, Gary. "Michel Foucault." In The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Last modified 2022.
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/foucault/.
Haraway, Donna. "A Cyborg Manifesto: Science, Technology, and Socialist-Feminism in the Late
Twentieth Century." In Simians, Cyborgs and Women: The Reinvention of Nature. New York:
Routledge, 1991. (Originally published in Socialist Review, no. 80, 1985). Accessed April 18,
2024. https://www.sfu.ca/~decaste/OISE/page2/files/HarawayCyborg.pdf.
Kelly, Mark. "Michel Foucault" In The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Accessed April 10, 2015.
https://iep.utm.edu/foucault/.
Latour, Bruno. Reassembling the Social: An Introduction to Actor-Network Theory. Oxford: Oxford
Lebel, Robert. "Marcel Duchamp." Encyclopedia Britannica. March 12, 2024. Accessed April 20,
2024. https://www.britannica.com/biography/Marcel-Duchamp.
Mills, C. Wright. The Sociological Imagination. Fortieth Anniversary Edition. Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 2000. (Originally published 1959). Accessed April 20, 2024.
https://ratical.org/ratville/AoS/TheSociologicalImagination.pdf.
https://scholar.google.com/citations?hl=en&user=rbgNVw0AAAAJ.
Ritzer, Georg, and J. Michael Ryan, eds. The Concise Encyclopedia of Sociology. Hoboken: Wiley-
Ritzer, Georg, and Jeffery Stepnisky. Modern Sociological Theory. 9th ed. Thousand Oaks: Sage
"Study Guide: Unit 12, Postmodern Social Theorists." Soci 337: Modern Sociological Theory in the
20th Century: The Age of Grand Theory. (Rev. C6). Athabasca University. Accessed April 17,
2024.
Sugrue, Michael. "Part Six - Modernism and the Age of Analysis: Conclusions; Foucault: Power,
Knowledge, and Post-Structuralism." The Great Minds of the Western Intellectual Tradition
Roderick, Rick. "Part Six - Foucault and the Disappearance of the Human." The Disappearance of the
Human lecture series. YouTube video, The Partially Examined Life channel.
Produced by The Teaching Company. Accessed April 10, 2024. Original publication date, 1993.