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The Panopticon Writings
A definitive collection of Bentham’s work on the model prison, key to Foucault’s theory of power.
The Panopticon project for a model prison obsessed the English philosopher Jeremy Bentham for almost 20 years. In the end, the project came to nothing; the Panopticon was never built. But it is precisely this that makes the Panopticon project the best exemplification of Bentham's own theory of fictions, according to which non-existent fictitious entities can have all too real effects. There is probably no building that has stirred more philosophical controversy than Bentham's Panopticon. The Panopticon is not merely, as Foucault thought, "a cruel, ingenious cage", in which subjects collaborate in their own subjection, but much more - constructing the Panopticon produces not only a prison, but also a god within it. The Panopticon is a machine which on assembly is already inhabited by a ghost. It is through the Panopticon and the closely related theory of fictions that Bentham has made his greatest impact on modern thought; above all, on the theory of power.
The Panopticon writings are frequently cited, rarely read. This edition contains the complete "Panopticon Letters", together with selections from "Panopticon Postscript I" and "Fragment on Ontology", Bentham's fullest account of fictions. A comprehensive introduction by Miran Bozovic explores the place of Panopticon in contemporary theoretical debate.
The Panopticon project for a model prison obsessed the English philosopher Jeremy Bentham for almost 20 years. In the end, the project came to nothing; the Panopticon was never built. But it is precisely this that makes the Panopticon project the best exemplification of Bentham's own theory of fictions, according to which non-existent fictitious entities can have all too real effects. There is probably no building that has stirred more philosophical controversy than Bentham's Panopticon. The Panopticon is not merely, as Foucault thought, "a cruel, ingenious cage", in which subjects collaborate in their own subjection, but much more - constructing the Panopticon produces not only a prison, but also a god within it. The Panopticon is a machine which on assembly is already inhabited by a ghost. It is through the Panopticon and the closely related theory of fictions that Bentham has made his greatest impact on modern thought; above all, on the theory of power.
The Panopticon writings are frequently cited, rarely read. This edition contains the complete "Panopticon Letters", together with selections from "Panopticon Postscript I" and "Fragment on Ontology", Bentham's fullest account of fictions. A comprehensive introduction by Miran Bozovic explores the place of Panopticon in contemporary theoretical debate.
158 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1791
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About the author
Jeremy Bentham
1,004 books302 followersIn 1748, Jeremy Bentham was born in London. The great philosopher, utilitarian humanitarian and atheist began learning Latin at age four. He earned his B.A. from Oxford by age 15 or 16, and his M.A. at 18. His Rationale of Punishments and Rewards was published in 1775, followed by his groundbreaking utilitarian work, Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation. Bentham propounded his principle of "the greatest happiness of the greatest number." He worked for political, legal, prison and educational reform. Inheriting a large fortune from his father in 1792, Bentham was free to spend his remaining life promoting progressive causes. The renowned humanitarian was made a citizen of France by the National Assembly in Paris. In published and unpublished treatises, Bentham extensively critiqued religion, the catechism, the use of religious oaths and the bible. Using the pen-name Philip Beauchamp, he co-wrote a freethought treatise, Analysis of the Influence of Natural Religion on the Temporal Happiness of Mankind (1822). D. 1832.
More: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeremy_B...
http://www.iep.utm.edu/bentham/
http://www.ucl.ac.uk/Bentham-Project/who
http://www.econlib.org/library/Enc/bi...
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http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/...
http://utilitarianism.com/bentham.htm
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More: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeremy_B...
http://www.iep.utm.edu/bentham/
http://www.ucl.ac.uk/Bentham-Project/who
http://www.econlib.org/library/Enc/bi...
http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Jeremy_B...
http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/...
http://utilitarianism.com/bentham.htm
http://www.historyguide.org/intellect...
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 36 reviews
May 25, 2017
Jeremy Bentham’s work, The Panopticon Writings, written in 1787, is a fascinating meditation on the puzzle of mass incarceration. Bentham wrote a series of letters that described the architecture of a prison he believed would solve England’s incarceration problem at the beginning of their industrial revolution. Bentham, often believed to be the father of utilitarianism, practiced an ideology of the greatest good, the most people that could benefit from disclosed means, was the best possible outcome. His Panopticon design and philosophy came together in a circular structure where prison cells surrounded a central hub. From a position in the central hub, or column, a contracted inspector could observe prisoners in all their surrounding cells. When the inspector needed to leave for any reason, a screen like assembly used to project only his silhouette, could be used with a façade of the inspector to lead prisoners into believing he was always there, or at least lead them to never know when he was ever there. Reason suggests that prisoners who always believe they are being watched will behave accordingly. Bentham believed that his Panopticon prison could use a single overseer to take care of 192 to 288 persons.
Bentham was considered a follower of liberal politics. He saw people in a progressive light and believed that there was good and utility inherent in all his fellow beings. The Panopticon writings are unusual because Bentham writes in a convincing and assertive style. In his efforts to present a practical solution to incarceration and exploit the physical labor of prisoners, Bentham seems on the verge of extreme fascism. He not only describes the architecture of his Panopticon, but he also explains various uses for it and how residents should be watched over as a community. For instance he believed that prisoners should work while they were incarcerated. He writes about how people who work are happier and that their natural state is to labor during the day. People who labor for society fit in easier and are happier. He further reasons that prisoners who work should be rewarded. He writes that they should start out with rations of bread and water and with more work, their rations should be improved. He also believed that prisoners should all be subjected to the state religion during the period. On Sundays all prisoners would be present for religious services, a pastor or like would inhabit the center of the Panopticon for services. Unfortunately, Bentham doesn’t discuss liberty or leisure periods for prisoners. They are simply state sustained labor. A brutal analogy would be to think of prisoners of the Panopticon like hens in an egg processing plant, all held in a tiny cage with a conveyor of feed passing in front of them, pumping out eggs until their short meaningless lives could no longer produce.
What is interesting about the Panopticon writings is Bentham’s attempt at creating a transparent society. At his time such transparency was a novel idea. He goes into extreme detail about communication tubes used to speak with prisoners. In the twenty-first century people are surrounded by closed circuit surveillance and nearly every person owns a cell-phone with video capability. Bentham’s large scale objectivity seems fascist under critical readership, but how does twenty-first century society see itself under its own modern version of the Panopticon. Of course, for people who enjoy less privacy, there is always social media. The major difference between Bentham’s vision and our twenty-first century society seems to be a trend toward diversity. How long will that last? Do we just categorize ourselves and practice convenient geography?
The other piece added to the back of this book is a Bentham writing called A Fragment on Ontology. Fragment on Ontology is an organization of philosophical terminology regarding the English language and its use differentiating fiction and reality. Bentham is seemingly able to categorize all of descriptive language as fiction. The justification being that language is arbitrary and that as reasoning beings we create language as a formulation of symbols and utterances to better communicate and reason in our surroundings. The validity of its arguments is questionable. For the most part, it seems to be a metonymy of conceptual reasoning, floundering between what is perceived in reality and what is meant by generalized descriptions of what is perceived. While it was probably added as a filler piece, it does have some interesting literary moments. Seemingly, Bentham thought people needed a way of distinguishing between rationalized fiction and material reality. He spends a portion of the work discussing “objective” and “subjective.” His only argument seems to be that these terms are interchangeable. While they have linguistic characteristics that guide our language, they still represent a perceived entity or physical body whether determined as “object” or “subject.”
For readers interested in this book, it is not a recreational read. This is a sophisticated book written by a man with critical interests in social engineering, philosophy, and politics. Sentences are long, if not epic, and contain many clauses separated with commas. Readers will need to bow and furl their brows to get through many of the sentences, let alone grasp the arguments being made and concepts discussed. While speed readers may be able to get through it in a half hour, they will retain nothing. If they or any person reading this understands its arguments and concepts, an inner dialogue will keep them occupied longer than a base reading and familiarization of its historical concepts. Like much of the literature written about England’s industrial revolution, much of what is said can be found in twenty-first century economics, industry, and politics all over the world. While this is a rich text for conversations, it is challenging and may lead optimistic theorists down some real roads that they avoid in their motivational speeches.
Bentham was considered a follower of liberal politics. He saw people in a progressive light and believed that there was good and utility inherent in all his fellow beings. The Panopticon writings are unusual because Bentham writes in a convincing and assertive style. In his efforts to present a practical solution to incarceration and exploit the physical labor of prisoners, Bentham seems on the verge of extreme fascism. He not only describes the architecture of his Panopticon, but he also explains various uses for it and how residents should be watched over as a community. For instance he believed that prisoners should work while they were incarcerated. He writes about how people who work are happier and that their natural state is to labor during the day. People who labor for society fit in easier and are happier. He further reasons that prisoners who work should be rewarded. He writes that they should start out with rations of bread and water and with more work, their rations should be improved. He also believed that prisoners should all be subjected to the state religion during the period. On Sundays all prisoners would be present for religious services, a pastor or like would inhabit the center of the Panopticon for services. Unfortunately, Bentham doesn’t discuss liberty or leisure periods for prisoners. They are simply state sustained labor. A brutal analogy would be to think of prisoners of the Panopticon like hens in an egg processing plant, all held in a tiny cage with a conveyor of feed passing in front of them, pumping out eggs until their short meaningless lives could no longer produce.
What is interesting about the Panopticon writings is Bentham’s attempt at creating a transparent society. At his time such transparency was a novel idea. He goes into extreme detail about communication tubes used to speak with prisoners. In the twenty-first century people are surrounded by closed circuit surveillance and nearly every person owns a cell-phone with video capability. Bentham’s large scale objectivity seems fascist under critical readership, but how does twenty-first century society see itself under its own modern version of the Panopticon. Of course, for people who enjoy less privacy, there is always social media. The major difference between Bentham’s vision and our twenty-first century society seems to be a trend toward diversity. How long will that last? Do we just categorize ourselves and practice convenient geography?
The other piece added to the back of this book is a Bentham writing called A Fragment on Ontology. Fragment on Ontology is an organization of philosophical terminology regarding the English language and its use differentiating fiction and reality. Bentham is seemingly able to categorize all of descriptive language as fiction. The justification being that language is arbitrary and that as reasoning beings we create language as a formulation of symbols and utterances to better communicate and reason in our surroundings. The validity of its arguments is questionable. For the most part, it seems to be a metonymy of conceptual reasoning, floundering between what is perceived in reality and what is meant by generalized descriptions of what is perceived. While it was probably added as a filler piece, it does have some interesting literary moments. Seemingly, Bentham thought people needed a way of distinguishing between rationalized fiction and material reality. He spends a portion of the work discussing “objective” and “subjective.” His only argument seems to be that these terms are interchangeable. While they have linguistic characteristics that guide our language, they still represent a perceived entity or physical body whether determined as “object” or “subject.”
For readers interested in this book, it is not a recreational read. This is a sophisticated book written by a man with critical interests in social engineering, philosophy, and politics. Sentences are long, if not epic, and contain many clauses separated with commas. Readers will need to bow and furl their brows to get through many of the sentences, let alone grasp the arguments being made and concepts discussed. While speed readers may be able to get through it in a half hour, they will retain nothing. If they or any person reading this understands its arguments and concepts, an inner dialogue will keep them occupied longer than a base reading and familiarization of its historical concepts. Like much of the literature written about England’s industrial revolution, much of what is said can be found in twenty-first century economics, industry, and politics all over the world. While this is a rich text for conversations, it is challenging and may lead optimistic theorists down some real roads that they avoid in their motivational speeches.
July 1, 2024
(11 December, 2012)
Shockingly different from what I thought this would be. The first time I heard about the Panopticon, it was portrayed as a glass prison but Bentham’s letters shows it to be much, much more. A circular building with a god-like inspector placed in the middle, present in the minds, if not in actuality, of every single prisoner incarcerated there. Incredibly, he also saw it as a viable mad-house (to use his term), hospital or school!
At times extremely tedious to read: discussing design, building materials, placement of passages, windows, stairwells and other minutia. The boredom was relieved with a few mind-boggling statements, like the preference to not intermix prisoners who might have been declared innocent with those who are, without a doubt, guilty. There were few of these but they did keep me alert enough to finish reading the whole thing.
Sometimes the desire to read a certain book far outweighs the pleasure of actually reading it.
Shockingly different from what I thought this would be. The first time I heard about the Panopticon, it was portrayed as a glass prison but Bentham’s letters shows it to be much, much more. A circular building with a god-like inspector placed in the middle, present in the minds, if not in actuality, of every single prisoner incarcerated there. Incredibly, he also saw it as a viable mad-house (to use his term), hospital or school!
At times extremely tedious to read: discussing design, building materials, placement of passages, windows, stairwells and other minutia. The boredom was relieved with a few mind-boggling statements, like the preference to not intermix prisoners who might have been declared innocent with those who are, without a doubt, guilty. There were few of these but they did keep me alert enough to finish reading the whole thing.
Sometimes the desire to read a certain book far outweighs the pleasure of actually reading it.
March 4, 2023
He leído la edición de 2020 de la editorial Virus. Una edición bellísima, ilustrada, que además incluye «El ojo del poder», una entrevista con Foucault; un informe de la sociedad económica Matritense (1820); un apéndice, «Idea del estado actual de las cárceles de España»; planos; un epílogo, «Bentham en España», de María Jesús Miranda.
January 14, 2025
Dude was ahead of his time. He would have been a great corpo overlord.
May 7, 2020
I didn't feel like I needed to have read this after I read it; I think the other work you encounter that talks about the panopticon does a pretty good job of summing it up, and I will be honest that I did not really understand the fragment on ontology. But I do appreciate the return to the text, and the introduction by Miran Božovič did a good job with the framework and exploring some of the points of the writings that I probably would have missed otherwise. If you're REALLY into like returning to the original text, or have other interests in Bentham's larger work (oops I don't) then obviously it makes sense for you to read this, but if you've already read the other works and are like "great" then you are probably okay on this one.
March 31, 2020
Bentham'ın mektuplarıyla başlayan ve ardından makalelerle süslenen verimli bir kitap.
Kitabın şu bölümü, günümüz insanının sosyal medya tercihini bir bakıma özetliyor: "Bugün tedirginlik sürekli olarak Öteki'nin bakışına açık olmama olasılığından kaynaklanıyor gibi görünüyor, öyle ki, özne varlığının ontolojik garantisi için kameranın bakışına muhtaçtır. Kitle kültürünü içselleştiren toplum, gözün iktidarının, 'büyük Öteki'nin bakışının nesnesine dönüşmek için kendisi gönüllü olur."
Kitabın şu bölümü, günümüz insanının sosyal medya tercihini bir bakıma özetliyor: "Bugün tedirginlik sürekli olarak Öteki'nin bakışına açık olmama olasılığından kaynaklanıyor gibi görünüyor, öyle ki, özne varlığının ontolojik garantisi için kameranın bakışına muhtaçtır. Kitle kültürünü içselleştiren toplum, gözün iktidarının, 'büyük Öteki'nin bakışının nesnesine dönüşmek için kendisi gönüllü olur."
July 7, 2025
Che cazzo di malato xd
January 30, 2022
The idea is that an ideal prison would be a construction of fictions because the maximum benefit to society is to discourage people from committing crime using prisoners' punishments as an example, but that the discouragement can occur from __perceived__ punishment, which would minimize pain to prisoners.
The panopticon itself (Google it) can be a means to achieve this. In practice, there was never any implementation wherein recidivism was measured, so we'll never know.
Some people think that, because of surveillance capitalism, we already live in a panopticon. It's worth reading this sort of book to understand what a panopticon is, so that we're on guard for anything that looks like it.
The panopticon itself (Google it) can be a means to achieve this. In practice, there was never any implementation wherein recidivism was measured, so we'll never know.
Some people think that, because of surveillance capitalism, we already live in a panopticon. It's worth reading this sort of book to understand what a panopticon is, so that we're on guard for anything that looks like it.
January 25, 2018
Bentham is, like most 18th century writers, borderline unreadable - yet reading these initial plans for the Panopticon shows just how little work Foucault had to do to theorize about modern surveillance states, power dynamics, etc.
What you expect to be subtext is literally just text - Bentham lays out plans for private for-profit prisons, and discusses in explicit terms about the functions of observation and discipline. Except he writes about it in a Utopian mode, completely unaware of just how sinister his architectural plans are.
Give it a read, don't expect it to be fun.
What you expect to be subtext is literally just text - Bentham lays out plans for private for-profit prisons, and discusses in explicit terms about the functions of observation and discipline. Except he writes about it in a Utopian mode, completely unaware of just how sinister his architectural plans are.
Give it a read, don't expect it to be fun.
June 6, 2016
The central ideas are worth contemplating but reading the whole collection will, for most readers, be a waste of time. In short get a good summary of the work, I found the introduction by Miran Bozovic in the present edition quite comprehensive (although too positively biased toward Bentham, i.e. I suggest a more critical discussion of the ideas put forth), and save yourself the time of reading through the actual letters and the "architectural principles".
February 26, 2015
Una desilusión. Esperaba un análisis filosófico sobre el impacto que el panóptico tendría en la libertad, el libre albedrío y la motivación de la gente alojada; sobre la vigilancia y sus implicancias éticas, etc.
En vez de eso, este texto es sólo una descripción del edificio y todas las ideas de Bentham de como implementarlo y qué usos darle. Aburridísimo. Con la excepción del capítulo de las escuelas, que es terrorífico. La única parte interesante del libro.
En vez de eso, este texto es sólo una descripción del edificio y todas las ideas de Bentham de como implementarlo y qué usos darle. Aburridísimo. Con la excepción del capítulo de las escuelas, que es terrorífico. La única parte interesante del libro.
Read
July 29, 2011The exercise of reading this short work was as agonizing as the punishment it was written to describe. Unless you are some kind of penitentary fetishist, don't waste your time.
March 19, 2020
I am/was too dumb to understand the long sentences of a man born in the year 1748. Still interesting
Read
April 20, 2025Bentham you sick fuck
Read
July 6, 2025Crazy how he thought this system is as applicable to schools/hospitals as it is to prisons
April 29, 2022
O Panóptico são Cartas de Bentham de 1787. Quando foi publicada, a capa da coletânea de escritos ficou: “O Panóptico ou a casa de inspeção contendo a ideia de um novo princípio de construção aplicável a qualquer sorte de estabelecimento no qual pessoas de qualquer tipo necessitem ser mantidas sob inspeção em particular às casas penitenciárias”.
Ou seja, para Bentham, o Panóptico é uma arquitetura orientada pelo princípio da inspeção que visa a aprimorar a vigilância e disciplina. O Panóptico é um programa racional e utilitário com objetivo de reformar a sociedade, e não tem, como acusou Foucault, uma motivação disciplinar sinistra.
No contexto da época, a situação prisional era extremamente precária. Bentham, como outros reformadores sociais, quis aprimorar o sistema penitenciário. Para tanto, Bentham adotou um modelo criado por seu irmão, Samuel, para uma casa de inspeção de uma fazenda. Samuel criou uma forma de fiscalizar e disciplinar os camponeses de uma fazenda no contexto da Rússia absolutista. O modelo de Samuel não foi implementado, mas Bentham aproveitou o princípio da vigilância para sugerir reformas para prisões.
O objetivo de Bentham era formular uma arquitetura com “vigilância invisível” e economia de tempo e dinheiro para vigiar e disciplinar. Ele chama de “princípio da inspeção” o fundamento que orienta a arquitetura. Boa parte das Cartas tratam da aplicação desse princípio às prisões. Contudo, ele também aplica, no final do texto, o princípio da inspeção no Panóptico para hospícios, hospitais, escolas e sugere a aplicação desse princípio para outros âmbitos da sociedade.
Contudo, cabe ponderar, que Bentham, diferentemente do que sugeriu Foucault, não quis transformar a sociedade como um todo em um sistema de vigilância para vigiar e punir. Só alguém contrário à ordem social e com espírito revolucionário pode sugerir que reformar instituições e racionalizá-las (em alguma medida) representa um “despotismo dos corpos”. Na prática, a ideia de Bentham não se concretizou. Sua influência se deu de forma indireta por meio da formulação de princípios para as estruturas sociais.
Ou seja, para Bentham, o Panóptico é uma arquitetura orientada pelo princípio da inspeção que visa a aprimorar a vigilância e disciplina. O Panóptico é um programa racional e utilitário com objetivo de reformar a sociedade, e não tem, como acusou Foucault, uma motivação disciplinar sinistra.
No contexto da época, a situação prisional era extremamente precária. Bentham, como outros reformadores sociais, quis aprimorar o sistema penitenciário. Para tanto, Bentham adotou um modelo criado por seu irmão, Samuel, para uma casa de inspeção de uma fazenda. Samuel criou uma forma de fiscalizar e disciplinar os camponeses de uma fazenda no contexto da Rússia absolutista. O modelo de Samuel não foi implementado, mas Bentham aproveitou o princípio da vigilância para sugerir reformas para prisões.
O objetivo de Bentham era formular uma arquitetura com “vigilância invisível” e economia de tempo e dinheiro para vigiar e disciplinar. Ele chama de “princípio da inspeção” o fundamento que orienta a arquitetura. Boa parte das Cartas tratam da aplicação desse princípio às prisões. Contudo, ele também aplica, no final do texto, o princípio da inspeção no Panóptico para hospícios, hospitais, escolas e sugere a aplicação desse princípio para outros âmbitos da sociedade.
Contudo, cabe ponderar, que Bentham, diferentemente do que sugeriu Foucault, não quis transformar a sociedade como um todo em um sistema de vigilância para vigiar e punir. Só alguém contrário à ordem social e com espírito revolucionário pode sugerir que reformar instituições e racionalizá-las (em alguma medida) representa um “despotismo dos corpos”. Na prática, a ideia de Bentham não se concretizou. Sua influência se deu de forma indireta por meio da formulação de princípios para as estruturas sociais.
October 30, 2021
Bentham's schematic for his penitentiary of total surveillance is both less and more than you might think it is. Detailed plans of a nightmare focused to such an extreme that it's kind of amusing. Has one of the funnier footnotes I have ever read: a lengthy tangent on matters of the toilet, where Bentham's delicate bourgeois sensibility collides with his compulsion to think out every aspect of his prison.
Takeaway:
"There is one subject, which, though not of the most dignified kind, nor of the most pleasant kind to expatiate upon, is of too great importance to health and safe custody to be passed over unconsidered: I mean the provision to be made for carrying off the result of necessary evacuations. A common necessary might be dangerous to security, and would be altogether incompatible with the plan of solitude. To have the filth carried off by the attendants, would altogether as incompatible with cleanliness; since without such a degree of regularity as it would be difficult, if not ridiculous, to attempt to enforce in case of health, and altogether impossible in case of sickness, the air of each cell, and by that means the lodge itself would be liable to be kept in a state of constant contamination, in the intervals betwixt one visit and another. This being the case, I can see no other eligible means, than that of having in each cell a fixed provision made for this purpose in the construction of the building."
Takeaway:
"There is one subject, which, though not of the most dignified kind, nor of the most pleasant kind to expatiate upon, is of too great importance to health and safe custody to be passed over unconsidered: I mean the provision to be made for carrying off the result of necessary evacuations. A common necessary might be dangerous to security, and would be altogether incompatible with the plan of solitude. To have the filth carried off by the attendants, would altogether as incompatible with cleanliness; since without such a degree of regularity as it would be difficult, if not ridiculous, to attempt to enforce in case of health, and altogether impossible in case of sickness, the air of each cell, and by that means the lodge itself would be liable to be kept in a state of constant contamination, in the intervals betwixt one visit and another. This being the case, I can see no other eligible means, than that of having in each cell a fixed provision made for this purpose in the construction of the building."
June 3, 2020
My edition has a very interesting introductory essay on theory by Miran Božovič but Bentham's letters about the Panopticon are mindnumbingly dull, being concerned largely with practicalities which are hard to envision (plans and diagrams would certainly have helped) however absorbing the intellectual current running through them may be. In fact it seems as if their chief value lies in the impetus they give to the preoccupations of continental philosophy rather than intrinsic merit. Much the same may be said of the Fragment on Ontology which, thanks to its archaisms and general muddiness is both baffling and confusing.
November 24, 2020
Reviewing for the Intro and 'Fragment on Ontology':
The introduction is excellent, especially the analysis of the artificial God produced by Bentham's blueprint for the panopticon. In this architectural sketch is condensed an all-seeing gaze and the omnipresent acousmatic voice, powered by an invisible inspector. The 'Fragment' outlines a pragmatic liquidation of most of the concepts of philosophy into fictions. For philosophy to survive this radical elimination requires a mutation of its practice, accounting not just for meanings of words but for the effects they produce.
The introduction is excellent, especially the analysis of the artificial God produced by Bentham's blueprint for the panopticon. In this architectural sketch is condensed an all-seeing gaze and the omnipresent acousmatic voice, powered by an invisible inspector. The 'Fragment' outlines a pragmatic liquidation of most of the concepts of philosophy into fictions. For philosophy to survive this radical elimination requires a mutation of its practice, accounting not just for meanings of words but for the effects they produce.
December 24, 2022
Como dice Bentham: privar a un hombre de su libertad no es arrojarle a las cloacas. En este libro expone cómo podrían modificarse las cárceles para que las personas que son condenadas a pasar allí un tiempo puedan ser restituidas y reinsertadas en la sociedad. Explica la distribución de los espacios para que el preso se sienta vigilado constantemente.
December 23, 2023
Reconozco el mérito de deconstruir todo el sistema penitenciario y tratar de mejorarlo. En mi opinión, sus propuestas (a pesar de ser interesantes) no solucionan el problema.
Aún así, recomiendo. Va al grano y disecciona cada detalle de una forma muy sencilla.
Aún así, recomiendo. Va al grano y disecciona cada detalle de una forma muy sencilla.
November 18, 2024
The introduction is fascinating, almost Borgesian. The letters themselves are very dull. Bentham was a curious man whose imagination combined the grotesque (seemingly without awareness that it was such) with the inventorial preoccupations of a shopkeeper.
April 29, 2018
The idea was terrific, but the way he expressed it was goddam tedious. Can't believe I needed a week to finish it!
Read
April 11, 2024Read most of Panopticon
Wow what a shitty idea
Wow what a shitty idea
Read
December 30, 2024Beefing up my reading challenge w my school readings #panopticizzy
November 9, 2025
Read this for my paper in Pol.Phi on justification of punishment! + Foucault’s critique
February 25, 2023
(letters) beginning and end good - middle very technical
October 19, 2014
It was surprising to learn, that Bentham wrote his Panopticon from Belarus, which basically follows from the full title of the work, where, evidently, CRECHEFF IN WHITE RUSSIA refers to the modern day KRYČAŬ IN BELARUS:
PANOPTICON; OR THE INSPECTION-HOUSE: CONTAINING THE IDEA OF A NEW PRINCIPLE OF CONSTRUCTION APPLICABLE TO ANY SORT OF ESTABLISHMENT, IN WHICH PERSONS OF ANY DESCRIPTION ARE TO BE KEPT UNDER INSPECTION; AND IN PARTICULAR TO PENITENTIARY-HOUSES, PRISONS, HOUSES OF INDUSTRY, WORK-HOUSES, POOR-HOUSES, LAZARETTOS, MANUFACTORIES, HOSPITALS, MAD-HOUSES, AND SCHOOLS: WITH A PLAN OF MANAGEMENT ADAPTED TO THE PRINCIPLE: IN A SERIES OF LETTERS, WRITTEN IN THE YEAR 1787, FROM CRECHEFF IN WHITE RUSSIA. TO A FRIEND IN ENGLAND BY JEREMY BENTHAM,OF LINCOLN'S INN, ESQUIRE.
PANOPTICON; OR THE INSPECTION-HOUSE: CONTAINING THE IDEA OF A NEW PRINCIPLE OF CONSTRUCTION APPLICABLE TO ANY SORT OF ESTABLISHMENT, IN WHICH PERSONS OF ANY DESCRIPTION ARE TO BE KEPT UNDER INSPECTION; AND IN PARTICULAR TO PENITENTIARY-HOUSES, PRISONS, HOUSES OF INDUSTRY, WORK-HOUSES, POOR-HOUSES, LAZARETTOS, MANUFACTORIES, HOSPITALS, MAD-HOUSES, AND SCHOOLS: WITH A PLAN OF MANAGEMENT ADAPTED TO THE PRINCIPLE: IN A SERIES OF LETTERS, WRITTEN IN THE YEAR 1787, FROM CRECHEFF IN WHITE RUSSIA. TO A FRIEND IN ENGLAND BY JEREMY BENTHAM,OF LINCOLN'S INN, ESQUIRE.
September 20, 2010
Interesting look at the original conception of the panopticon from the source--jeremy bentham. Creepy and deliberate attempt at social control and the internalizing of the state. Foucault would expound upon the potential of bentham's design in his discipline and punish--the birth of the prison. Dry in some places, tedious in others, but always fascinating, this book is essential to grasp the beginning of the surveillance society in which we live.
March 5, 2013
Short treatise by the philosopher and social reformer Jeremy Bentham regarding a building designed for the surveillance of it's inhabitants; a sort of 18th Century CCTV. It is written in the form of a series of letters from Russia where Bentham was visiting his brother. Bentham tried for years to get someone to invest in his idea but didn't succeed. Bentham died in 1832 but his body is preserved as an auto-ikon in the foyer of University College London and is worth a visit.
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