Online research in philosophy

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.

Foucault appears to challenge traditional views of truth, reason, and knowledge in the doctrine of power/knowledge developed in his post?1970 writings. This doctrine applies to all the sciences (and to non?scientific and non?discursive practices that are not discussed here). Foucault's notions of discourse (1) and power (3) are sufficiently discussed to set out his explanatory theory of the cause of our discourses and their change. In (4) three theses concerning the power/knowledge link are distinguished, of which the more important is called the ?Primacy Thesis?, namely the causal priority of power over knowledge. Various formulations of this thesis are investigated, some of which are contrasted with Francis Bacon's more plausible account of the link between power and knowledge. In (5), six criticisms of the thesis are discussed. Foucault's notion of truth is explored on the way, more particularly in (6). The outcome of the discussion is that Foucault's doctrine of power/knowledge, apart from some insights for an empirically based sociological investigation into the causes of some of our scientific beliefs, is generally false; for philosophical theories of truth and knowledge it has nothing to say. In fact if Foucault is to be a critic of the beliefs which circulate as a result of power, he needs the traditional account of truth and knowledge.

It is impossible to imagine contemporary critical theory without the work of Michel Foucault. His radical reworkings of the concepts of power, knowledge, discourse and identity have influenced the widest possible range of theories and impacted upon disciplinary fields from literary studies to anthropology. Aimed at students approaching Foucault's texts for the first time, this volume offers: * an examination of Foucault's contexts * a guide to his key ideas * an overview of responses to his work * practical hints on 'using Foucault' * an annotated guide to his most influential works * suggestions for further reading. Challenging not just what we think but how we think, Foucault's work remains the subject of heated debate. Sara Mills' Michel Foucault offers an introduction to both the ideas and the debate, fully equipping student readers for an encounter with this most influential of thinkers.

This thesis constructs a model of the material causes of the capacity of individuals to act at work, by using the ontology of scientific realism to facilitate a synthesis between Marx and Foucault. This synthetic model is submitted as a solution to the long-standing problem of Industrial Relations theory, now manifest in the deconstruction of the organon of 'control'. The problems of 'control' are rooted in the radical concept of power and traditional, base/superstructure, interpretations of Marx. Developing an alternative to the last provides the means of transcending the limitations of the first and the second. A realist, chronological-bibliographic reading of Marx provides an alternative to traditional interpretations, by creating a novel concept of his object, his initial explicandum and his putative explicans. This reading identifies a fresh problem with his model of capital: it cannot explain how labour is organized into a productive power and subsumed to capital. Foucault provides the means of resolving these deficiencies of Marx's explicans. A realist interpretation turns Marx and Foucault around to face each other, renders them compatible and establishes points of contact between their work. Together they constitute a model of the operative logic of production relations capable of explaining the organization of labour, its subsumption to capital and the materialism of civil society and the idealism of the state. On this basis, the contemporary form of the problem of Industrial Relations theory is explained.

: This paper argues that pragmatists must be more cognizant of the concept of "power" and its consequences. To demonstrate this, I show how Foucault's analytics of power can be brought into Peirce's theory of signs. Central to both philosophers is the role of action. Using the concept of action, I explain that Foucault's conception of power, action on actions, can be understood as structuring Peircian habits, which are rules for action. From here I build out to Peirce's semiotics, illustrating how power channels the meanings of signs in certain directions. The rest of the paper is dedicated to reconstructing in light of Foucault Peirce's claim that the subject is nothing more than the signs it uses. I argue that any understanding of the subject must account for the subject being distributed through a field of power. The paper concludes by proposing a new "philosophy of the subject" which seeks to reconcile Foucault's concerns with those of pragmatism.

Michel Foucault’s 1976 Collège de France course provides a window on the shift into the work of his final years. Presented between the publication of Discipline and Punish (1975) and the first volume of The History of Sexuality (1976), the lectures presented a political history of power that foregrounded the function of war. This article suggests that elements of the lectures could already be found in Discipline and Punish and that they introduced categories, such as bio-power, that became increasingly important to Foucault in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Furthermore, I illustrate the historical context for Foucault’s lectures: the fading possibilities of 1968 and contemporaneous anti-totalitarian political debate.

This book introduces and applies Foucault's most important concepts and procedures, and does so specifically for a psychology readership. Drawing on the recently published Collège de France lectures Abnormal (2003) and Psychiatric Power (2006), Foucauldian Analytics and Psychology is as useful to those concerned with Foucault's engagement with the "psy-disciplines" as it is to those interested in the practical application of Foucault's critical research methods.

The recent publication of Michel Foucault’s 1974-75 and 1975-76 lectures at the Collège de France provides an opportunity to reconsider the potential contribution of Foucault’s “analytics” of power for understanding the contemporary operation of race. Unlike the deployment of gender, which, I argue here, is best understood as a function of “disciplinary” power, the deployment of race is primarily a function of “biopower,” an expression of power that is bound up with the state apparatus. The announcement of the federal Violence Initiative in the 1990s provides an illuminating example of the operation of this power, and the chiasmic function of discourse that Foucault famously termed “power/knowledge.”.

This is the first major study of Michel Foucault as a political thinker. Written in clear prose, Foucault and the Political explores the ramifications for political theory of the whole range of Foucault's writing, including materials only recently made available. Jon Simons argues that Foucault's work is animated by a tension between his presentation of modern life as "unbearably heavy" and his temptation to escape its limitations by aiming for "unbearable lightness." Through expositions of Foucault's ideas on power/knowledge, subjectification, governmentality, political rationality and the aesthetics of existence, Simons demonstrates how Foucault resists both extremes. Foucault's thought entails an ethic of permanent resistance, best embodied in radical democracy. Simons relates Foucault's work both to contemporary political thinkers, such as Michael Walzer, Charles Taylor and Jurgen Habermas, as well as to scholars challenging conventional political categories, especially feminist and gay theorists such as Judith Butler.

Marking a major development in Foucault's thinking, this book derives from the lecture course which he gave at the Collège de France between January and April, 1978. Taking as his starting point the notion of "bio-power," introduced in his 1976 course Society Must be Defended , Foucault sets out to study the foundations of this new technology of power over population. Distinct from punitive, disciplinary systems, the mechanisms of power are here finely entwined with the technologies of security, and it is to 18th century developments of these technologies with which the first chapters of the book are concerned. By the fourth lecture however Foucault's attention turns, focusing on a history of "governmentality" from the first centuries of the Christian era to the emergence of the modern nation state. As Michel Sennelart explains in his afterword, the effect of this change of direction is to "shift the center of gravity of the lectures from the question of biopower to that of government, to such an extent that the former almost entirely eclipses the former ..." Consequently, in light of Foucault's later work, it is tempting to see these lectures as the moment of a radical turning point at which the transition to the problematic of the "government of self and others" would begin.