MICHEL FOUCAULT: Please help me understand how it is that by creating "freer" individuals, helps perpetuate...

Question

the system of power.

2nd question: where does the power start, who is doing or making the choices as to what direction things must have, who creates the norm? does with knowledge e.g. Doctors, psychologists, scientists, corporation etc. ??

3rd question: Why is power reinforced by rebellion?
is it because rebellion is always a reaction to power, I mean it exists only if power is working???

sorry, english is not my mother tounge.

Answer 1

There is not a "Who" in Foucault’s Postmodernism. The subject is only a point of intersection of dynamic sets of discursive forces or practices of the “apparatus”. I will explain in stages from classical philosophy to Postmodernism the ideology to which Foucault is most identified. Foucault thought is part of a sixty-year-old trend to dismantle classical philosophy in particular the element of the Subject.

For the sake of clarity, I define philosophy as the study of the foundations of understanding or rather intelligibility. Intelligibly meaning in the context of philosophy the relationship between language, interpretation, and the world.

The classical model of Western philosophical discourse has three elements
The ideal interpretive position commonly called the Subject, Representations, and the World. Imagine a triangle with a line connecting the Subject to Representation (signs symbols etc.) and two lines connecting the Subject and Representation to the World. All questions of causality have to with the line that connects the subject to the world; all questions of Truth have to with the line connecting representations to the world. The line connecting the Subject and Representation has to do with connections to self-knowledge.

Think of The Subject, Representation, and the World as variables in the Algebra of Intelligibility, All bodies of knowledge that claim to interpret the world must account for the relationship among understanding, signs, and the world. The Subject, Representations, and the World are the grammatical elements of all systems or methods of intelligibility of life.

As a crude example, the criterion in science understanding scientific language is the Subject because all people having scientific knowledge can fill that Subject position.

The criterion of transforming observations of the world into symbol scientific discourse is the grounds for Representation in science.
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If these translations into scientific language can be tested as truth or false by events in the world, the rules of such testing are the grounds that come from the World.

As a crude example, the position and knowledge that can distinguish Revelations from God in reveal religion would be the Subject for revealed religion because people that share those abilities can fill that position.

The knowledge or ability to transform revelations into religious text or text into revelations would be the grounds for Representation in revealed religion.


The knowledge faith or ability to recognize revelations or miracles as they happen in the world would the grounds that supported from the World for revealed religion. As you can see philosophical, structures do not change the content of world being applicable for many opposing bodies of knowledge. Think of philosophy relationship to system of knowledge as grammar does to sentences. Grammar does not change the content of a text or should not and philosophy does not change the world as shaped by different disciplines or should not. Art, religion, and science are concerned the world directly. Philosophy is concerned with them or rather the context of their practices.

What is the Nature of philosophical disputes and the attack on the Subject.

In all philosophical disputes, a philosopher picks one element of the triangle as fundamental and then he or she must account for the change relationship of other two elements. For example in Yoga Philosophy only the Subject is concerned fundamental, so the World and Representation are not erased but are regarded as transitory appearances. Sartre regards the World as primary so the Subject was just an object among objects in the World. About the relation between Representation and the Subject Sartre contended that man was a Being without an essence. In other words, no representation or rather definition of the Subject by was sufficient to cover man’s nothingness as an object in materiel universe. Philosophers cannot erase the other two elements after they chose one as fundamental.
However, its Descartes, Hume, and Kant that unknowingly lay the foundations for Foucault and the other anti-philosophers. Descartes in his search for the fundamental basic of truth finally privileged the Subject as the only certainty and most importantly as self-reflexive an agent in history. Hume privileged Representation regarding the subject and the World as unstable. Hume’s radical empirical attacks on the subject and world, and causality threatened to end the philosophical enterprise. So, in a brilliant counterattack Kant change the Subject into a mediator of experience outside of time as the Transcendental Ego that synthesis fundamental categories like causality, things, and space. The Transcendental Ego is the grid we must use to interpret reality

Many philosophers liked the idea of the Subject as positional and they liked the Descartes idea of the Subject as self-reflexive Levi Strauss, Heidegger, Marx, and Husserl and they dumped the Transcendental Ego as redundant. .

Phenomenology is the combination of Descartes self-reflexive ego and Kant’s idea of the Subject as a mediating position.
Structuralism, which had a tremendous influence of Foucault despite his denials, is simple the application of Descartes self-reflexive Subject and Kant notion of the Subject as mediating and positional in the realm of science.

Foucault Invents a New Science

However, Foucault, Sartre and others discovered the Fly in the buttermilk the Kantian / Descartes hybrid baby had birth defects. Both Kant and Descartes kept the Subject or the outside of time. But for Hegel, even the movies the unified self-reflexive in the World requires a unified history indeed history is the peradventure of the Subject. The activity of consciousness is identical will the totality of history. Sartre Foucault and those bodies of knowledges called Poststructuralist questioned how could the Subject be both cause and effect of chronology. How could there be a total history without a totalizer? The arbitrary select of what is important by self-reflexive agent disguised as the voice of objectively suppressive histories as it discloses them.



There is not a "Who" in Foucault’s Postmodernism. I will clarify what Subject Positions are then you can answer your own questions. The Subject as we understand it today is an agent and interpreter of representations and a mediating position from which phenomenal and temporal experience is preformatted.

As a crude example, the criterion in science understanding scientific language is the Subject because all people having scientific knowledge can fill that Subject position.


However, its Descartes, Hume, and Kant that unknowingly lay the foundations for Foucault and the other anti-philosophers. Descartes in his search for the fundamental basic of truth finally privileged the Subject as the only certainty and most importantly as self-reflexive an agent in history.

Hume privileged Representation over the Subject regarding the subject and the World as unstable. Hume’s radical empirical attacks on the subject and world, and causality threatened to end the philosophical enterprise.

So, in a brilliant counterattack Kant change the Subject into a mediator of experience outside of time as the Transcendental Ego that synthesis fundamental categories like causality, things, and space. The Transcendental Ego is the grid we must use to interpret reality

Many philosophers liked the idea of the Subject as positional and they liked the Descartes idea of the Subject as self-reflexive (particularly Levi Strauss, Heidegger, and Husserl) and they dumped the Transcendental Ego as redundant. .

Phenomenology is the combination of Descartes self-reflexive historical ego and Kant’s idea of the Subject as a mediating position.
Structuralism, which had a tremendous influence of Foucault despite his denials, is simple the application of Descartes self-reflexive Subject and Kant notion of the Subject as mediating and positional in the realm of science.

Foucault Invents a New Science

However, Foucault, Sartre and others discovered the Fly in the buttermilk the Kantian / Descartes hybrid baby had birth defects. Both Kant and Descartes kept the Subject or the outside of time. Self-reflexive in the World requires a unified history indeed history is the peradventure of the Subject a dominating totalizer of history. Sartre ,Foucault, and those bodies of knowledges called Poststructuralist questioned how could the Subject be both cause and effect of chronology.Quoting Sartre” How could their be a total history without a totalizer?” Who arbitrary selects what is important a from a self reflexive position of dominance disguised as the voice of objectively A presence that any Westerner could fill for a maintenance of what Derrida calls a White Mythology. A master narrative that suppresses histories as it discloses them. So as the self reflexive consciousness was rejected and strategies were devised to expose the abortiveness of Western historical discourse and unveil history's synthetic Kantian core Remember Kant’s Transcendental Ego occupied a space from which phenomenal experience was organized . Foucault replaced the Transcendental Ego with the institutional practices, the mediating structures, institutions, and even models of the self without reference to historical agents of history. The goal of which is create a Post historial Man.

Question One power and freedom are both Subject positions for Foucault differencs is subject positions reflect differentials in power.

Question Two as a critique of history Foucault can not use historical methods. He privilges space over time looking for contradictions of subject position within a historical terrain.

Question three: Since subject positions are generated by societies activitiy you answer your own question.



Quoting Lawrence Grossberg quoting Foucault " We are in the epoch if simultaneity:we are the epoch of jutaposition.the epoch of the near and the far, of the side by side, of the dispersed...Time probably appears to us only as one of the various distributive operations that are possible for the elements tat are spread out in space." Of Other Spaces Diacritics 16 ,22-28.

Answer 2

Im not a big fan of michel foucault however if you want to understand power more try reading friedrich nietzche.

I will answer question number 2 first.
You will be able to find out how there is this constant power struggle within individuals. Basically, this power struggle is inherent in our nature. Notice why rich people are hated by the poor people? Its because in the pointof view of the rich, they see to it that they must continue to earn money and its wise to do what it takes to make the money flow continuous. On the other hand, the poor people turns bitter and vengeaful because the lands they squat in are taken away from them leaving them homeless. Security in first class societies are always discriminating, and the poor people would see rich people as filthy, money hungry indiviuals. MOST OF THE TIME.

The People in power are those who were always above, intellectually, physically and socially. Notice that a ruler who is regarded as opressive always causes the destruction of a lot of people because he never cares about them. Nature created this unequal status among human beings because nature needs to constantly shed out unwanted objects. however when morality was created they regarded opression as a bad idea. They conducted a set of ideas to be considered as moral and immoral. The Jews made morality to tone down the power of the ruling class because after so many years that the Romans have abused them every action which inflicts pain to them similar to that of the actions of the Romans must be removed.
But power struggles elevate classes. Remember Darwin's theory? Survival of the fittest. In human beings power belongs to the class who is powerful meaning to say nature would find its way to eliminate the weak. Rebellion is a natural tendency to create a more powerful society. You cannot remove power. Remember the more opression the more power between the opressor and opressed.

One way or the other, one social class will suffer, sad to say those who commit rebellion are those who lose and die during these so called power struggles.

Regarding foucault, i think creation here would mean the process of freedom vividly highlights that they system of power is constant. And it will forever be that way. Freer here refers to intellectual freedom.

I could be wrong but you can look it up :)

I hope this helped you:)\Good day.

Answer 3

Is this question exclusively for MICHEL FOUCAULT?

May I answer?
We, humans, are prone to believe anything we see and hear. Sorry.

Words like Freedom, Options, Choices are powerful words that get our imaginations going wild, believing in more than the reality of these benefits actuall being offered. Are there limits? Did we ask? Did we examine?

Nope.

Often there are only a couple of choices, but it is the rare person who examines the absence of other options.

The natural born "accountants" and "snoops" and "bean counters" are the ones who would block such power collection tricks, and so they will often be accused instead of being "negative", "will block the rest of you from freedom" etc.

This all stems from the anxiety of making choices. Too much freedom actually cannot be handled by most people. People simply want to be told they are free, but comfort is in knowing bounderies.

Answer 4

First of all, there is a difference between "power" and "domination." Power is not necessarily a bad thing, according to Foucault.

To answer your questions:

1. Although it may seem odd, power is just as active in "free" societies as it is in authoritarian or communist ones. Think of how power sustains the "liberal society." The liberal society forces you into being a "liberal" -- of trying to always empathize with the other person, of trying to always understand his point of view, of always "tolerating," etc. These liberal values are then passed on to the next generation. This is an exercise of power, because the liberal society, by definition, does not tolerate intolerance. It "forces" you to be tolerant -- and that "forcing" is an exercise of power.

2. The question of where power "starts" can't really be answered. You're simply born into a system of power. Power is everywhere. But power is continuously maintained by "creating" new forms of knowledge such as psychiatry, criminology, etc.

3. Because rebellion is a type of power itself. A counter-power, you might say.

Answer 5

back in the 17th century, power was oppressive. now power is used to regulate human interaction, it is used as a more productive and humanistic endeavor. power these days is concerned with liberating the individual. it does this my trying to understand the individual and the collective by understanding what is 'normal'. normal is considered good and healthy, and most people strive to be considered normal in this manner.

scientists do not dictate the normal, rather, they help to shape what is normal. they are not the source of power, but they can help to guide power. ultimately, it is up to individuals to decide how to act and behave, and in this sense they can be free.

at least that is my take on Foucault... I'm not sure how much that will help you

good luck

Answer 6

It's pretty obvious who keeps perpetuating this hoax. The same people who claim Darwin was"...the man who created Evolution...". As stated above, the ones who have the most to lose. Darwin did not "create" evolution, it always existed. He just gave the process a name and explained how it worked. (Yes, I know this is oversimplified because I don't know who actually came up with the term Evolution for the process and there were many people exploring how the process works.)

Answer 7

Because that is modern day narcissim that society presses upon people today. Give people knowledge in all rhelms and aspects of life and empower them to do whatever they want and in so doing the rebel against what they formerly were raised as. As a great theologian once said Vos "Narcissim will be the fall and decline of mankind." And not so much is it psychologists or scientists but man. Man is behind the forcing of giving people the power to rebel against whatever circumstance they are in and in some ways its a great thing but to a fault its more so only to the fall of oneself. For instance Im a christian and had an athiest tell me "Why go to church with your parents its your life go do whatever you want and be successful in life" And then if I was ignorant he would of been the one to give me the power to rebel but that is not my nature to be overcome by narcissistic autonomous mindsetting. I stick with priciples. Now 10 years later happier than ever to stick with going to church.