Online research in philosophy

In this article I consider Foucault's credentials as a postmodern `champion' of the `politics of difference'. First, however, I note that the familiar expression `the postmodern politics of difference' is in fact self-contradictory, or at least it is a contradiction in terms (1) if we concede that the ongoing ethical/normative task confronting politics is the unifying or synthesizing of differences and (2) if we accept, with pleasure or dismay, that postmodernism exhibits a profoundly suspicious attitude towards this ethical task and towards moral principles and normative positions generally. I then ask whether or not Foucault adopted a normative position that could provide the necessary ethical support for a `politics of difference'. I argue that it is possible to find an element of genuine normativity in Foucault's work (of the kind required for a `politics of difference') by considering his views on the role of the intellectual, on the font of legitimacy, on grand theory and on essence. I also consider the work of some well-known recent commentators on Foucault (Judith Butler, William Connolly and John Ransom) who discuss this normative/political dimension of his work. Key Words: essentialism • feminism • Foucault • legitimacy • norms.

Introduction : the politics of our selves -- Foucault, subjectivity, and the enlightenment : a critical reappraisal -- The impurity of practical reason : power and autonomy in Foucault -- Dependency, subordination, and recognition : Butler on subjection -- Empowering the lifeworld? autonomy and power in Habermas -- Contextualizing critical theory -- Engendering critical theory.

Derided and disregarded by many of his contemporaries, Michel Foucault is now regarded as probably the most influential thinker of the twentieth century, his work is studied across the humanities and social sciences. Reading Foucault, however, can be a challenge, as can writing about him, but in Understanding Foucault, the authors offer an entertaining and informative introduction to his thinking. They cover all the issues Foucault dealt with, including power, knowledge, subjectivity and sexuality and discuss the development of his analysis throughout his work.

One of the main influences on Judith Butler‘s thinking has been the work of Michel Foucault. Although this relationship is often commented on, it is rarely discussed in any detail. My thesis makes a contribution in this area. It presents an analysis of Foucault‘s work with the aim of countering Butler‘s representation of his thinking. In the first part of the thesis, I show how Butler initially interprets Foucault‘s project through Nietzschean genealogy, psychoanalysis and Derridean discourse, and how she later develops this interpretation in line with the progress of her own project. In the main part of the thesis, I present an analysis of Foucault‘s thinking in the period from The Archaeology of Knowledge (1969) to The History of Sexuality volume 1 (1976). This analysis focuses on the aspect of his work which has most influenced Butler‘s thinking: namely the notion of a relationship between knowledge, discourse and power. The other issues in his work which Butler addresses—genealogy, the subject, the body, abnormality, and sexuality—are discussed within this framework. I show how, in the early 1970s, Foucault develops the notion of power-knowledge, and sets out a relationship between power-knowledge and discourse which is overlooked by Butler. I argue that Butler interprets Foucaultian power through the notions of repression and social norms, and ignores the concepts of technology and strategy which form a key part of Foucault‘s thinking. I show how, from The Archaeology of Knowledge on, Foucault develops a socio-historical ontology and a genealogy of the subject, both of which are at variance with Butler‘s interpretation of his thinking.

The eight year gap between the publication of Volume I (1976) of The History of Sexuality and Volumes II and III (1984) has provoked a fair amount of debate within scholarly circles. Does it represent a fundamental rethinking of the analysis of power and knowledge begun in Volume I, or is something else at stake? And what does the shift in emphasis regarding power and resistance after these eight years ultimately entail? James Miller’s influential, if often flawed, biography of Foucault has provided one of the leading interpretations of this gap in Foucault’s publishing career. On Miller’s account, the turn towards governmentality and technologies of the self represents something of a tacit admission of failure on Foucault’s part regarding his Volume I rendering of power and resistance.1 Now, it seems to me that there is something right about this reading – we can map a shift in Foucault’s consideration of power and resistance in this period, culminating in the 1982 essay, “The Subject and Power,” which it seems to me can be read as a perverse re-writing of the themes of Volume I. However, the idea that this eight year period represents a ‘hard break,’ or an introduction of an incommensurability between resistance as tactical reversal (Volume I) and resistance as..

Arguing that a Foucauldian feminism is possible, Sawicki rejects the view that the power of the phallocentric is total. Instead, like Foucault, she sees discouse as ambiguous and a source of conflict.

Drawing on The Psychic Life of Power (Butler 1997), this essay sketches the outline of Butler's project of bringing Foucault (politics) and Lacan (psychoanalysis) together. In addressing the psychic life of power, Butler tries to unravel the dynamic interplay of the psychic and the social with the subject as the intersection of both.

Foucault rejects the subject as a center, that is to say, as a transparent self-conscious being who gives meaning to his actions. However, ideas about subjects that are thinking and willing autonomously are still functioning within modern culture. Discourses on subjectivity thus call for an archeological and genealogical explanation. This compels Foucault to view subjectivity increasingly not only as a product and a target of power, but also as a source of resistance and as an agent; for Foucault defines power as “actions about actions.” In his latest writings, Foucault starts to define the teleology of his philosophical ethos as the production of new forms of subjectivity, in terms of freedom and autonomy. I argue that Foucault was always particularly concerned with circling (around) transgression, apprehending subjectivity as an aimless self-negation, rather than with a “return of the subject.”.

Up Against Foucault offers both a feminist critique of Foucauldian theories as well as an attempt to reconcile these seemingly irreconcilable perspectives. Feminists are often "up against Foucault" because he questions key conclusions in feminism regarding the nature of gender relations, and men's possession of power. This book, however, fills the gap in literature about Foucault by showing how his theories of sexuality and power relations are often applicable to the everyday realities of women's lives. Drawing upon their diverse backgrounds in social theory and philosophy, the contributors discuss the ways in which Foucault provokes feminists into questioning their grasp of power relations, and examines the implications of his decision to overlook categories of gender in his discussion of sexuality and power relations. They also show that in spite of his lack of interest in gender, Foucault's ways of understanding the control of women and female sexuality ultimately have much to offer feminism.

on ethics provides an opportunity to go beyond some of the controversies generated by his work of the 1970s. It was thought, for example, that Foucault had overstated the extent to which individuals could be ‘subjected’ to the influence of power, leaving them little room to resist. This paper will consider the ‘politics’ of self-creation. We shall attempt to establish to what extent Foucault’s later notion of self-formation does in fact succeed in countering an over determination by power. In the end, though, it would appear as if Foucault’s turn to ethics amounts to a substitution of ethics, understood as an individualized task, for the political task of collective social transformation. What is at stake is whether or not Foucault’s insistence on individual acts of resistance amounts to more than an empty claim that ethics still somehow has political implications whilst having in fact effectively given up on politics. It will be argued that the subject of the later Foucault’s ethics, the individual, can only be understood as political subjectivity, i.e. that the political potential of individual action is not only ‘added on’ as an adjunct, but that individual action is intrinsically invested with political purport. Key Words: care of the self • ethics • politics • power • power/knowledge.