What do you think?
Rate this book
Power/Knowledge: Selected Interviews and Other Writings, 1972-1977
Michel Foucault has become famous for a series of books that have permanently altered our understanding of many institutions of Western society. He analyzed mental institutions in the remarkable Madness and Civilization; hospitals in The Birth of the Clinic; prisons in Discipline and Punish; and schools and families in The History of Sexuality. But the general reader as well as the specialist is apt to miss the consistent purposes that lay behind these difficult individual studies, thus losing sight of the broad social vision and political aims that unified them.
Now, in this superb set of essays and interviews, Foucault has provided a much-needed guide to Foucault. These pieces, ranging over the entire spectrum of his concerns, enabled Foucault, in his most intimate and accessible voice, to interpret the conclusions of his research in each area and to demonstrate the contribution of each to the magnificent - and terrifying - portrait of society that he was patiently compiling.
For, as Foucault shows, what he was always describing was the nature of power in society; not the conventional treatment of power that concentrates on powerful individuals and repressive institutions, but the much more pervasive and insidious mechanisms by which power "reaches into the very grain of individuals, touches their bodies and inserts itself into their actions and attitudes, their discourses, learning processes and everyday lives."
Foucault's investigations of prisons, schools, barracks, hospitals, factories, cities, lodgings, families, and other organized forms of social life are each a segment of one of the most astonishing intellectual enterprises of all time - and, as this book proves, one which possesses profound implications for understanding the social control of our bodies and our minds.
Now, in this superb set of essays and interviews, Foucault has provided a much-needed guide to Foucault. These pieces, ranging over the entire spectrum of his concerns, enabled Foucault, in his most intimate and accessible voice, to interpret the conclusions of his research in each area and to demonstrate the contribution of each to the magnificent - and terrifying - portrait of society that he was patiently compiling.
For, as Foucault shows, what he was always describing was the nature of power in society; not the conventional treatment of power that concentrates on powerful individuals and repressive institutions, but the much more pervasive and insidious mechanisms by which power "reaches into the very grain of individuals, touches their bodies and inserts itself into their actions and attitudes, their discourses, learning processes and everyday lives."
Foucault's investigations of prisons, schools, barracks, hospitals, factories, cities, lodgings, families, and other organized forms of social life are each a segment of one of the most astonishing intellectual enterprises of all time - and, as this book proves, one which possesses profound implications for understanding the social control of our bodies and our minds.
288 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1977
172 people are currently reading
6795 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 111 reviews
Read
November 2, 2019wtf im a discursive production now
March 13, 2010
foucault...what can i say...he's the best...i can't stop reading his work and rediscovering the world....
December 7, 2011
For hundreds of years the trend in the arts and philosophy in the West has been towards daily life and subjectivity, that is, extolling the importance of actual lived experience day-to-day. This is of course tied in with the bourgeois revolutions, the rise of democracies—or what passes for them—in the West, and the ongoing deterioration of shared communal/religious values. The ownership of a daily life puts everyone on equal footing. You may not hunt rare forms of geese in the marshy regions of your estate, or keep vintage bottles of port in your temperature-controlled wine cellar....but you do have a daily life. For example Vermeer’s paintings of matronly women carrying pails of water: These paintings serve to extol daily life, and in doing so they transfigure daily life into art. It’s no longer a given day in the fall of 1741 or whenever—when you paint it, the scene becomes to some extent Anytime Anywhere. The daily life becomes grand. The fact that someone is even paying attention to it is a change. We know what a given day looked like to one guy. The Ancients and Medievals, in general, didn’t give a shit about daily life. What did the inside of a medieval hovel in Provencal in the 1380s look like? What did families do in the evening? You don’t know, do you? What about Cicero’s house... what did that look like? Yeah you don’t know that either, but if Cicero were around now there’d be an MTV Cribs episode on him, and we’d all get to know what this big shot’s house looked like. (“This is where I deploy some of my best rhetoric, heh heh” [bedroom].)
Foucault can be seen as the political theorist of daily life (at least as far as I’m concerned at the moment; reviews of books beg for such big assertions). Power is grassroots, located in the pores of daily life. The starting points of power are local conditions and particular needs: “They [power structures] took shape in piecemeal fashion, prior to any class strategy designed to weld them into vast, coherent ensembles. It should be noted that these ensembles don’t consist in a homogenization, but rather of a complex play of supports in mutual engagement, different mechanisms of power which retain all their specific character.” There is something creepy and claustrophobic about this. And as usual, it’s difficult to pin down precisely what Foucault thinks. At times, he seems to think that power is situated in the individual; other times, it’s as if power relations are quietly embedded in societies and that this dense nexus of mutual engagements dictates how the individual players act.
I’ve heard the same critique of Foucault that I’ve heard about Wittgenstein: He doesn’t assert anything, he just tears down what’s already been asserted. Here is an example of Foucault walking on a balance beam looking down on two sides. He talks about the danger of “telescoping” the idea that everything is political to placing it all on individual responsibility. So don't do that. But neither should an analysis of the political be displaced as “glibly practiced today,” by saying “everything derives from the market economy, or from capitalist exploitation, or simply from the rottenness of our society (so that ... problems ... are put off until there is a ‘different’ society).” I guess this is a common criticism of Foucault, but his philosophy is primarily negative. He shows you the flaws of a given way of thinking, and then shows you the flaws of the opposite way of thinking. And there is no synthesis.
Anyhow, the traditional idea of power being imposed on the populace by the sovereign and the elite class is junked. Just as Barthes thought that in critical theory the Author should be killed, so Foucault thinks that in political theory the King should be beheaded.
Like in this quote:
“At the end of the eighteenth century, people dreamed of a society without crime. And then the dream evaporated. Crime was too useful for them [the people] to dream of anything as crazy—or ultimately as dangerous—as a society without crime. No crime means no police. What makes the presence and control of the police tolerable for the population, if not fear of the criminal?”
You could take the last sentence of this quote and think that Foucault is implying that the power elite whips up fear of the criminal in order to get the populace to comply with and support police interventions. But this is not what he’s saying. Foucault is saying that the populace at large demands that the police be there.
So I think he’s saying that the organic structures of societies—the things that are so deeply embedded that people in the society are only dimly aware of them—are a reflection of individual/collective notions of the world. It’s our fault for the way things are, not the government’s or anyone else’s. Foucault really sounds kind of “conservative” when talking about stuff like this. But for sure this might be due to the fact that he keeps talking to Maoist Marxists in this book.
Foucault also makes the point that when people talk about power it’s often discussed solely as it relates to oppression, censorship, negative qualities. But power also produces desirable things and has positive qualities. “It has been a tradition for humanism to assume that once someone gains power he ceases to know.... Modern humanism is … mistaken in drawing this line between knowledge and power. Knowledge and power are integrated with one another.... It is not possible for power to be exercised without knowledge, it is impossible for knowledge not to engender power. ‘Liberate scientific research from the demands of monopoly capitalism’: maybe it’s a good slogan, but it will never be more than a slogan.” Conservative!
Here he comes close to saying something positive: “The problem is not to choose a political ‘position’ (which is to choose from a preexisting set of possibilities) but to imagine and to bring into being new schemas of politicization.” So this fellow writes a lot about madhouses, prisons, the army etc. Why? I think it’s because Foucault sees these things as distillations of society as a whole; it’s all prison, it’s all the army, everyone’s trapped and funneled unwittingly into their current situation and everyone does things because of overarching power impetuses that they are only dimly aware of. Foucault thought we were all imprisoned, and hence his politics is about finding a way out. Foucault is seeking something transcendental!
Conservative?:
“One would have to be naïve as Baudelaire to think that the bourgeoisie is stupid or prudish. Rather it is intelligent and cynical.”
“In order to be able to fight a State that is more than just a government, the revolutionary movement must possess equivalent politico-military forces and hence must constitute itself as a party, organized internally the same way as a State apparatus with the same mechanisms of hierarchies and organization of powers.”
Separately, Foucault puts the blame on Stoicism, not Judaism, for Christianity’s ethos that sex needed to be restricted, and that Christianity was forced to take this on when it assimilated into the Roman State, in which Stoicism was the universal philosophy. Honestly, I don’t know how Foucault could arrive at this position. Christianity has only itself (and of course Judaism) to blame for its obsessive repression of the sexual, it seems to me, since centuries before Christianity became part of the Roman State we have Paul laying down the Jewish Law with multiple constraints on the sexual, followed by the early Church Fathers (Augustine excepted to some extent) who continued in this vein.
Here’s a priceless Foucault quote. He’s asked (in the midst of a heavily Marxist dialogue with a few others) who is against whom when it comes to class conflict, who is the enemy.
“This is just a hypothesis, but I would say it’s all against all. There aren’t immediately given subjects of the struggle, one the proletariat, the other the bourgeoisie. Who fights against whom? We all fight each other. And there is always within each of us something that fights something else.”
Foucault can be seen as the political theorist of daily life (at least as far as I’m concerned at the moment; reviews of books beg for such big assertions). Power is grassroots, located in the pores of daily life. The starting points of power are local conditions and particular needs: “They [power structures] took shape in piecemeal fashion, prior to any class strategy designed to weld them into vast, coherent ensembles. It should be noted that these ensembles don’t consist in a homogenization, but rather of a complex play of supports in mutual engagement, different mechanisms of power which retain all their specific character.” There is something creepy and claustrophobic about this. And as usual, it’s difficult to pin down precisely what Foucault thinks. At times, he seems to think that power is situated in the individual; other times, it’s as if power relations are quietly embedded in societies and that this dense nexus of mutual engagements dictates how the individual players act.
I’ve heard the same critique of Foucault that I’ve heard about Wittgenstein: He doesn’t assert anything, he just tears down what’s already been asserted. Here is an example of Foucault walking on a balance beam looking down on two sides. He talks about the danger of “telescoping” the idea that everything is political to placing it all on individual responsibility. So don't do that. But neither should an analysis of the political be displaced as “glibly practiced today,” by saying “everything derives from the market economy, or from capitalist exploitation, or simply from the rottenness of our society (so that ... problems ... are put off until there is a ‘different’ society).” I guess this is a common criticism of Foucault, but his philosophy is primarily negative. He shows you the flaws of a given way of thinking, and then shows you the flaws of the opposite way of thinking. And there is no synthesis.
Anyhow, the traditional idea of power being imposed on the populace by the sovereign and the elite class is junked. Just as Barthes thought that in critical theory the Author should be killed, so Foucault thinks that in political theory the King should be beheaded.
Like in this quote:
“At the end of the eighteenth century, people dreamed of a society without crime. And then the dream evaporated. Crime was too useful for them [the people] to dream of anything as crazy—or ultimately as dangerous—as a society without crime. No crime means no police. What makes the presence and control of the police tolerable for the population, if not fear of the criminal?”
You could take the last sentence of this quote and think that Foucault is implying that the power elite whips up fear of the criminal in order to get the populace to comply with and support police interventions. But this is not what he’s saying. Foucault is saying that the populace at large demands that the police be there.
So I think he’s saying that the organic structures of societies—the things that are so deeply embedded that people in the society are only dimly aware of them—are a reflection of individual/collective notions of the world. It’s our fault for the way things are, not the government’s or anyone else’s. Foucault really sounds kind of “conservative” when talking about stuff like this. But for sure this might be due to the fact that he keeps talking to Maoist Marxists in this book.
Foucault also makes the point that when people talk about power it’s often discussed solely as it relates to oppression, censorship, negative qualities. But power also produces desirable things and has positive qualities. “It has been a tradition for humanism to assume that once someone gains power he ceases to know.... Modern humanism is … mistaken in drawing this line between knowledge and power. Knowledge and power are integrated with one another.... It is not possible for power to be exercised without knowledge, it is impossible for knowledge not to engender power. ‘Liberate scientific research from the demands of monopoly capitalism’: maybe it’s a good slogan, but it will never be more than a slogan.” Conservative!
Here he comes close to saying something positive: “The problem is not to choose a political ‘position’ (which is to choose from a preexisting set of possibilities) but to imagine and to bring into being new schemas of politicization.” So this fellow writes a lot about madhouses, prisons, the army etc. Why? I think it’s because Foucault sees these things as distillations of society as a whole; it’s all prison, it’s all the army, everyone’s trapped and funneled unwittingly into their current situation and everyone does things because of overarching power impetuses that they are only dimly aware of. Foucault thought we were all imprisoned, and hence his politics is about finding a way out. Foucault is seeking something transcendental!
Conservative?:
“One would have to be naïve as Baudelaire to think that the bourgeoisie is stupid or prudish. Rather it is intelligent and cynical.”
“In order to be able to fight a State that is more than just a government, the revolutionary movement must possess equivalent politico-military forces and hence must constitute itself as a party, organized internally the same way as a State apparatus with the same mechanisms of hierarchies and organization of powers.”
Separately, Foucault puts the blame on Stoicism, not Judaism, for Christianity’s ethos that sex needed to be restricted, and that Christianity was forced to take this on when it assimilated into the Roman State, in which Stoicism was the universal philosophy. Honestly, I don’t know how Foucault could arrive at this position. Christianity has only itself (and of course Judaism) to blame for its obsessive repression of the sexual, it seems to me, since centuries before Christianity became part of the Roman State we have Paul laying down the Jewish Law with multiple constraints on the sexual, followed by the early Church Fathers (Augustine excepted to some extent) who continued in this vein.
Here’s a priceless Foucault quote. He’s asked (in the midst of a heavily Marxist dialogue with a few others) who is against whom when it comes to class conflict, who is the enemy.
“This is just a hypothesis, but I would say it’s all against all. There aren’t immediately given subjects of the struggle, one the proletariat, the other the bourgeoisie. Who fights against whom? We all fight each other. And there is always within each of us something that fights something else.”
September 2, 2015
من فترة كنت لقيت دة
النص
اكيد مش من الكوميك ستريب الاصلي بتاع calvin and hobbes
بيبقي مُصمم قرر استخدام حيلة اختلاف السياق ، عشان يحط جملة مضمونها صادم وسوداوي علي لسان شخصية شكلها برئ ومُسالم .. حيلة انتشرت مؤخراً خصوصاً مع شخصيات الكوميك ستربس
المُهم ان الكوميك حلو :D
ساعتها فعلاً حاولت أدقق في موضوع "القيمة " خصوصاً ان الموضوع دة بقي من اكتر المواضيع حساسية بالذات في الجانب الاجتماعي ، لا في الحياة كلها حتي الجوانب الاقتصادية منها ، لدرجة ان ساعات المفاضلة بين الاشياء او الاشخاص او المواضيع المجردة بيجيبلي neurosis
المهم ان فوكو خصص جزءكبير من حياته في دراسة الموضوع دة ...السلطة بكل اشكالها من ضمنها السلطة المانحة للقيمة او للحق -موضع اهتمامي الشخصي وأكيد طبعاً السلطة السياسية اللي هي موضع اهتمام اي شخص طبيعي ...
يعني هو بمعني اصح مش شايف للسلطة مصدر، او انها بتجي من الفوق دة علي العكس هي مجموعة من العلاقات المُتواترة اللي جاية من تحت ، ودة شئ بديهي يعادي يعني كان عندي القدرة علي اني اتوقع انطلاقاً من حقل اللُغويات والتحليل النفسي عالأقل .
الشئ الجديد بقي هو ربطه ابموضوع الجنسانية- اللي هو تقريباً تاني اكتر حاجة درسها فوكو تقريباً والربط كان من منظور اركيولوجي اللي ادي لذكر موضوع المعرفة ، ودة ان كان اكتر جزء مُمتع،،، لاني بشكل شخصي يُعتبر "الكلمات والأشياء" واحد من طرق عرضي المُفضلة ..
النص اكيد مش من الكوميك ستريب الاصلي بتاع calvin and hobbes
بيبقي مُصمم قرر استخدام حيلة اختلاف السياق ، عشان يحط جملة مضمونها صادم وسوداوي علي لسان شخصية شكلها برئ ومُسالم .. حيلة انتشرت مؤخراً خصوصاً مع شخصيات الكوميك ستربس
المُهم ان الكوميك حلو :D
ساعتها فعلاً حاولت أدقق في موضوع "القيمة " خصوصاً ان الموضوع دة بقي من اكتر المواضيع حساسية بالذات في الجانب الاجتماعي ، لا في الحياة كلها حتي الجوانب الاقتصادية منها ، لدرجة ان ساعات المفاضلة بين الاشياء او الاشخاص او المواضيع المجردة بيجيبلي neurosis
المهم ان فوكو خصص جزءكبير من حياته في دراسة الموضوع دة ...السلطة بكل اشكالها من ضمنها السلطة المانحة للقيمة او للحق -موضع اهتمامي الشخصي وأكيد طبعاً السلطة السياسية اللي هي موضع اهتمام اي شخص طبيعي ...
يعني هو بمعني اصح مش شايف للسلطة مصدر، او انها بتجي من الفوق دة علي العكس هي مجموعة من العلاقات المُتواترة اللي جاية من تحت ، ودة شئ بديهي يعادي يعني كان عندي القدرة علي اني اتوقع انطلاقاً من حقل اللُغويات والتحليل النفسي عالأقل .
الشئ الجديد بقي هو ربطه ابموضوع الجنسانية- اللي هو تقريباً تاني اكتر حاجة درسها فوكو تقريباً والربط كان من منظور اركيولوجي اللي ادي لذكر موضوع المعرفة ، ودة ان كان اكتر جزء مُمتع،،، لاني بشكل شخصي يُعتبر "الكلمات والأشياء" واحد من طرق عرضي المُفضلة ..
September 15, 2022
This collection of interviews, ordered chronologically from 72 to 77, not only makes a great starting point to read Foucault, but portrays his progressive line of thought [in studying the genealogy of institutionalization] in the years following May 68.
Rejecting the up to his time widely accepted notion that power always acts as a negative force, Foucault paints a new picture of the role of power from the 19th century onwards, that is the productive force of the [in the death of the monarch] decentralized relations of power, portraying power as a complex apparatus of micro relations between the individuals, rather than a pyramidical downward relation enforced by the state. This idea would later get utilized by Gilles Delueze to explain how it was the masses themselves that invested their collective desire in fascism.
By attributing positive effects to the relations of power, Foucault distances himself from Hegelian dialectics. His frequent use of the geographical terms such as territory, domain, geopolitics, displacement, etc., avoiding the use of the vocabulary of time, also makes it possible for him to avoid utilization of the model of progressive individual consciousness which again leads us back to Hegel.
Rejecting the up to his time widely accepted notion that power always acts as a negative force, Foucault paints a new picture of the role of power from the 19th century onwards, that is the productive force of the [in the death of the monarch] decentralized relations of power, portraying power as a complex apparatus of micro relations between the individuals, rather than a pyramidical downward relation enforced by the state. This idea would later get utilized by Gilles Delueze to explain how it was the masses themselves that invested their collective desire in fascism.
By attributing positive effects to the relations of power, Foucault distances himself from Hegelian dialectics. His frequent use of the geographical terms such as territory, domain, geopolitics, displacement, etc., avoiding the use of the vocabulary of time, also makes it possible for him to avoid utilization of the model of progressive individual consciousness which again leads us back to Hegel.
March 1, 2022
Some incredible, truly luminary stuff in here, interspersed with odd pieces whose inclusion I don't quite understand. Helped me understand Foucault's theoretical background and development. I look forward to reading more of his published lectures, as they were among the strongest inclusions in the volume.
Read
March 31, 2023IMO I read enough of this, about this, and countless pages of his other works (history of sexuality; discipline and punish; madness and civilization) to claim that I’ve read it. I wrote a hellish paper on it and believe I have earned the write to put it towards my reading goal.
This man puts forward very interesting, complex, nuanced, and polarizing ideas, but in such a poetic way. His work forces reflections and confrontations of norms.
This man puts forward very interesting, complex, nuanced, and polarizing ideas, but in such a poetic way. His work forces reflections and confrontations of norms.
Read
April 19, 2025whatchu know about the Gulag question and corporal persecution for the imposition of power 🤨
March 1, 2013
Power/Knowledge is an extremely dense collection of Foucault's ideas about knowledge, power, truth, government, and various other topics. It begins with a discussion on popular justice and the power wielded by the judiciary system, ends with a discussion on racism and child-rearing, and spans numerous subjects.
One thing that's difficult to read about this book (something I didn't like, I guess) is the amount of context it requires. While I suppose this will always be an issue with being a young person interested in philosophy who wants to read Foucault, it is somewhat of a challenge to fully grasp his examples of judiciary exploitation and modern intellectual specificity. The concepts are presentable enough, but the examples require research and a lot of prior knowledge of revolutions in the West, philosophy, psychology, medicine, prisons, class systems and more.
Something that I found really enjoyable about this book was gleaning more insight into Foucault's thought processes and how he can move from one topic to the next easily, showing their interconnectedness. He introduced perspectives on power relations that I never considered (such as the notion that considering power as a wholly negative force limits viewing its whole impact and understanding it as a force that is constantly moving and being transferred throughout the fabric of our society).
All in all, reading Power/Knowledge was an extremely interesting and thought-provoking experience. I feel that I would gain much more from it by reading it a second time (which I will hopefully have a chance to do in the near future), reading it again after a couple of years, after I graduate college, etc. This is just the beginning of my pursuit of philosophy (at least, I think it is!).
One thing that's difficult to read about this book (something I didn't like, I guess) is the amount of context it requires. While I suppose this will always be an issue with being a young person interested in philosophy who wants to read Foucault, it is somewhat of a challenge to fully grasp his examples of judiciary exploitation and modern intellectual specificity. The concepts are presentable enough, but the examples require research and a lot of prior knowledge of revolutions in the West, philosophy, psychology, medicine, prisons, class systems and more.
Something that I found really enjoyable about this book was gleaning more insight into Foucault's thought processes and how he can move from one topic to the next easily, showing their interconnectedness. He introduced perspectives on power relations that I never considered (such as the notion that considering power as a wholly negative force limits viewing its whole impact and understanding it as a force that is constantly moving and being transferred throughout the fabric of our society).
All in all, reading Power/Knowledge was an extremely interesting and thought-provoking experience. I feel that I would gain much more from it by reading it a second time (which I will hopefully have a chance to do in the near future), reading it again after a couple of years, after I graduate college, etc. This is just the beginning of my pursuit of philosophy (at least, I think it is!).
Read
August 17, 2015I always like reading books of interviews-- they give us the chacne to see a thinker play each card as it lays, and I'm remembering some excellent sets of interviews with Said and Deleuze.
As the title suggests, most of the lectures and interviews here deal with Foucault's conception of power, which, despite its centrality to his theory, seems to be widely misunderstood, simplified, distorted, depoliticized, psychoanalyzed, etc. It's really a rather remarkable and complex concept, and one the way it saturates society is endlessly interesting. The book is also useful for examining the influence of Marx on Foucault, and on Foucault's relationship to Marxist thought (answer: he's more of a Marxist than either the Marxists or the postmodernists give him credit for), and for seeing a novel approach to the concepts therein in a world so different from the one dear old Karl was living in.
As the title suggests, most of the lectures and interviews here deal with Foucault's conception of power, which, despite its centrality to his theory, seems to be widely misunderstood, simplified, distorted, depoliticized, psychoanalyzed, etc. It's really a rather remarkable and complex concept, and one the way it saturates society is endlessly interesting. The book is also useful for examining the influence of Marx on Foucault, and on Foucault's relationship to Marxist thought (answer: he's more of a Marxist than either the Marxists or the postmodernists give him credit for), and for seeing a novel approach to the concepts therein in a world so different from the one dear old Karl was living in.
December 24, 2012
After struggling with 'Discipline and Punish' I read this book and I think it makes a great introduction to Foucault. especially his ideas on on the prison. Its also fun to read because he more than once backs his Leftist interviewers into uncomfortable corners on the desirability of the state administering justice. Why must the state intervene in the form of courts and trials? Why does the only acceptable manner of conflict resolution within a community involve the state as mediator: at best blind, at worst malignant, coming between the people and the source of their grievance?
Read
November 15, 2024This book will go unrated from me as it exists as a selection of interviews - not necessarily a piece of linear writing - and so I myself did not indulge in every single conversation available.
My concerns align here more with the format than the book itself. Foucault is clearly a well-read and educated writer and his musings are far beyond my grasp - however - I simply want to address an issue I’ve had with the arts every since I become interested in my youth. For a while now, I’ve come to recognize that certain mediums benefit various characteristics - ie. literature is best for looking at inner thoughts, film is best at visual representations, and poetry for taping into an emotional reality. Now - these are all subjective points - however, I believe my point should be clear: not all mediums do everything perfectly, or even well. So my question for reading this book is as such: why is a novel, composed of interviews, not visual recorded? It would even benefit to have an audio recording of these conversations - for the editor has clearly taken out all the hesitations and confusion of what human conversation truly is. For me, I don’t believe what I’m reading - perfect articulation at every turn - which to me signifies a glorification of the subject more than their reality. I understand that the content and substance of the words are more important - but just as well I believe in the context they’re given… because if I were being interviewed, (having conducted a bunch myself,) I would keep in all the uncertainties that make up a dialogue. Regardless, interesting array of topics condensed into a short, introductory guide to Foucault and his work - maybe next I’ll read direct from the source.
My concerns align here more with the format than the book itself. Foucault is clearly a well-read and educated writer and his musings are far beyond my grasp - however - I simply want to address an issue I’ve had with the arts every since I become interested in my youth. For a while now, I’ve come to recognize that certain mediums benefit various characteristics - ie. literature is best for looking at inner thoughts, film is best at visual representations, and poetry for taping into an emotional reality. Now - these are all subjective points - however, I believe my point should be clear: not all mediums do everything perfectly, or even well. So my question for reading this book is as such: why is a novel, composed of interviews, not visual recorded? It would even benefit to have an audio recording of these conversations - for the editor has clearly taken out all the hesitations and confusion of what human conversation truly is. For me, I don’t believe what I’m reading - perfect articulation at every turn - which to me signifies a glorification of the subject more than their reality. I understand that the content and substance of the words are more important - but just as well I believe in the context they’re given… because if I were being interviewed, (having conducted a bunch myself,) I would keep in all the uncertainties that make up a dialogue. Regardless, interesting array of topics condensed into a short, introductory guide to Foucault and his work - maybe next I’ll read direct from the source.
October 1, 2018
Nakladni zavod Globus te FFZG
Prijevod i pogovor Rade Kalanj
Izdanje posjeduje i dva intervjua s gospodinom ćelavkom.
Tipični fukoovski jezik, jednostavan i pomalo zamoran.
Djelo se bavi problematikom suodnosa moći i diskursa. Kvalitetna raščlana problematike, zdrav teorijski pristup višekutnosti i višeslojnosti problematici. Intervjui iz 1976. i ranih osamdesetih su zbilja dašak zrelog modernizma, u potpunosti odražavaju onodobni zeitgeist (doba kada su Clash i Ramonesi bili suvremena glazba, kada su komunističke partije demokratski vladale Francuskom i Italijom, doba Brigade Rosse te doba kada su televizija i tisak bili najznačajniji mediji samog suodnosa diskursa i moći). Jebote!, čitatelju rođenom 1992. se sve navedeno čini jednako dalekim kao i renesansa. Kako se svijet promijenio u četrdeset godina.
Hasta luego!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i_6UT...
Prijevod i pogovor Rade Kalanj
Izdanje posjeduje i dva intervjua s gospodinom ćelavkom.
Tipični fukoovski jezik, jednostavan i pomalo zamoran.
Djelo se bavi problematikom suodnosa moći i diskursa. Kvalitetna raščlana problematike, zdrav teorijski pristup višekutnosti i višeslojnosti problematici. Intervjui iz 1976. i ranih osamdesetih su zbilja dašak zrelog modernizma, u potpunosti odražavaju onodobni zeitgeist (doba kada su Clash i Ramonesi bili suvremena glazba, kada su komunističke partije demokratski vladale Francuskom i Italijom, doba Brigade Rosse te doba kada su televizija i tisak bili najznačajniji mediji samog suodnosa diskursa i moći). Jebote!, čitatelju rođenom 1992. se sve navedeno čini jednako dalekim kao i renesansa. Kako se svijet promijenio u četrdeset godina.
Hasta luego!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i_6UT...
July 24, 2023
I found this book at times hard to read, that said, I feel the conversations with Foucault made some important observations.
As the title suggests the theme of the book is based on the relationship between power and knowledge, whereby power produces knowledge and knowledge 'induces' effects of power. Foucault acknowledges that power can be repressive but feels that this is not always the case, otherwise who would obey?
On power and the body Foucault talks about 'the pathway leading to the desire of ones own body' and uses the examples of those with 'healthy bodies' such as children and soldiers. The fantasy is 'the idea of a social body constituted by the universality of wills... the phenomenon of the social body is the effect not of a consensus but of the materiality of power operating on the very bodies of individuals'.
'Responding precisely to a revolt of the body, we find a new mode of investment which presents itself no longer in the form of control by repression but that of control by stimulation. 'Get undressed- but be slim, good looking, tanned!''.
This ideal of being 'slim, good looking, tanned', is not accessible for everyone as not everyone has a naturally 'slim' body. Not everybody is naturally 'good looking' and not everyone has, or can change their skins to become 'tanned'. So how then can this ideal body be acheived by the individual and/or the one who desires to be with such a person with that body? As Foucault notes, 'An economic (and perhaps ideological) expolitation of eroticisation, from sun-tan products to pornographic films' is propagated as a way for people to transform themselves, however is this 'transformed' self valued in the same way as the 'naturally' occuring 'slim, good looking tanned' self? Even with the same outccome, the naturally occuring, good looking, slim, tanned self is valued more as the widely circulated propagation of this suspected hoax news article is testament.
https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2013...
So how would someone find a naturally 'slim, good looking, tanned' body if it wasnt naturally occuring in that place?
In the chapter 'Questions of Geography' power could not have been enforced without armed force and Foucault notes the importance of Marx's analysis of the army and its role in the development of political power, and asks why this text hasn't received as much propagation as his other works. Foucault refers to the 'army as a matrix of organisation and knowledge' and talks about studying the history of 'the fortress, the campaign, the movement, the colony and the territory'.
Afterall, according to Guy Shrubsole in 'Who Owns England', the majority of land ownership in the UK is owned by aristocrats whose ancestors invaded England with William the Conquerer in 1066 and took or 'stole' the land from the people already living there and then declared all land ownership belonged to the Crown imposing rent and taxes on the people who were already living on the land. The king then distributed some of the land to the aristocratic Barons whose families would continue to inherit the lands for centuries afterwards. This historical form of land expropriation has been legitimised and incorporated into the legacy of land ownership that prevails today. Foucault talks about how law is enforced from the perspective of this legitimised property and land ownership and how this then relates to the act of thieves and stealing, to which Foucault adds that as regards criminality, 'the real thief is not who you think he is'.
The example of criminality, among others, is discussed and how those in power use legislation, surveillance, prisons and the media to impose 'universal moral categories' which create a division in the people between those who are labelled criminal and those who are not. Historically only a representative proportion of criminals would be arrested and their punishment would be spectacular in an attempt to scare others and deter them from criminality reinforced through the media coverage of criminality to create fear in the population and provide justification for surveillance and law enforcement.
In 'The Anabasis of May and Fusako Sigenobu, Masao Adachi and the 27 years withour Images' by Eric Baudelaire, it is mentioned that in Japan, authorities would put the worst picture of the person labelled criminal in the media, so they would look like a criminal and people wouldnt sympathise with them. In contrast to this people who the reader were encouraged to respect, admire and 'like' would be represented in their best form in photos. They note that they don't know if it is the same in other parts of the world.
In 'The Spirit Level, Why Equality is Better for Everyone' by Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett, it states that violent crimes are more common in unequal societies and talks about the example of Japan having a much lower rate of incarceration than say the US or UK, with Japan being a less unequal society. Its interesting, because if the vision was really to protect people from crime, then why wouldn't those in power create a more equal society?
As the title suggests the theme of the book is based on the relationship between power and knowledge, whereby power produces knowledge and knowledge 'induces' effects of power. Foucault acknowledges that power can be repressive but feels that this is not always the case, otherwise who would obey?
On power and the body Foucault talks about 'the pathway leading to the desire of ones own body' and uses the examples of those with 'healthy bodies' such as children and soldiers. The fantasy is 'the idea of a social body constituted by the universality of wills... the phenomenon of the social body is the effect not of a consensus but of the materiality of power operating on the very bodies of individuals'.
'Responding precisely to a revolt of the body, we find a new mode of investment which presents itself no longer in the form of control by repression but that of control by stimulation. 'Get undressed- but be slim, good looking, tanned!''.
This ideal of being 'slim, good looking, tanned', is not accessible for everyone as not everyone has a naturally 'slim' body. Not everybody is naturally 'good looking' and not everyone has, or can change their skins to become 'tanned'. So how then can this ideal body be acheived by the individual and/or the one who desires to be with such a person with that body? As Foucault notes, 'An economic (and perhaps ideological) expolitation of eroticisation, from sun-tan products to pornographic films' is propagated as a way for people to transform themselves, however is this 'transformed' self valued in the same way as the 'naturally' occuring 'slim, good looking tanned' self? Even with the same outccome, the naturally occuring, good looking, slim, tanned self is valued more as the widely circulated propagation of this suspected hoax news article is testament.
https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2013...
So how would someone find a naturally 'slim, good looking, tanned' body if it wasnt naturally occuring in that place?
In the chapter 'Questions of Geography' power could not have been enforced without armed force and Foucault notes the importance of Marx's analysis of the army and its role in the development of political power, and asks why this text hasn't received as much propagation as his other works. Foucault refers to the 'army as a matrix of organisation and knowledge' and talks about studying the history of 'the fortress, the campaign, the movement, the colony and the territory'.
Afterall, according to Guy Shrubsole in 'Who Owns England', the majority of land ownership in the UK is owned by aristocrats whose ancestors invaded England with William the Conquerer in 1066 and took or 'stole' the land from the people already living there and then declared all land ownership belonged to the Crown imposing rent and taxes on the people who were already living on the land. The king then distributed some of the land to the aristocratic Barons whose families would continue to inherit the lands for centuries afterwards. This historical form of land expropriation has been legitimised and incorporated into the legacy of land ownership that prevails today. Foucault talks about how law is enforced from the perspective of this legitimised property and land ownership and how this then relates to the act of thieves and stealing, to which Foucault adds that as regards criminality, 'the real thief is not who you think he is'.
The example of criminality, among others, is discussed and how those in power use legislation, surveillance, prisons and the media to impose 'universal moral categories' which create a division in the people between those who are labelled criminal and those who are not. Historically only a representative proportion of criminals would be arrested and their punishment would be spectacular in an attempt to scare others and deter them from criminality reinforced through the media coverage of criminality to create fear in the population and provide justification for surveillance and law enforcement.
In 'The Anabasis of May and Fusako Sigenobu, Masao Adachi and the 27 years withour Images' by Eric Baudelaire, it is mentioned that in Japan, authorities would put the worst picture of the person labelled criminal in the media, so they would look like a criminal and people wouldnt sympathise with them. In contrast to this people who the reader were encouraged to respect, admire and 'like' would be represented in their best form in photos. They note that they don't know if it is the same in other parts of the world.
In 'The Spirit Level, Why Equality is Better for Everyone' by Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett, it states that violent crimes are more common in unequal societies and talks about the example of Japan having a much lower rate of incarceration than say the US or UK, with Japan being a less unequal society. Its interesting, because if the vision was really to protect people from crime, then why wouldn't those in power create a more equal society?
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
September 15, 2023
dnf; found it less helpful and even more confusing than his books
May 2, 2021
Another boring Foucault book. He could had said what he was trying to say in one sentence, instead he goes on and on and on. Reading Foucault is important, he is the modern philosopher, his thought governs modern society, but he is a terrible philosopher and writer. Modern society is in trouble if Foucault is the philosopher of the age.
April 25, 2014
Any scholar in the wide array of disciplines, approaches, and questions which might be encompassed by the term 'critique' has to deal with the legacy of Michel Foucault. In reading Foucault, two questions are always foremost: "How do I explain this to someone else?" And "What the hell is Foucault saying?" Knowledge/Power serves as an adequate aide to answering both these questions, although it does not quite manage to stand on its own.
A collection of interviews and lectures through the mid-1970s, Knowledge/Power shows a more informal Foucault, one working through the contradictions and terminology of his own theories. As such, the various pieces help show 'why' Foucault approached the overarching question of power through strategies, discourses, institutions and the like, as well as some of the methodological 'how' of genealogy and archaeology. The quality of the interviews varies widely. I found 'Two Lectures' and 'Truth and Power' to be the best, with the drunken 'Confessions of the Flesh' a lot of fun as well. Sadly, the book opens with the tedious and annoying 'On Popular Justice: A Discussion with Maoists.'
On the whole, this book is probably best read as a companion to Foucualt's longer histories. The jargon is dense and could use some more clarification. But for all that, I think this collection makes a decent antidote to the unthinking and cult-like academic copying of Foucault's style without his insight.
A collection of interviews and lectures through the mid-1970s, Knowledge/Power shows a more informal Foucault, one working through the contradictions and terminology of his own theories. As such, the various pieces help show 'why' Foucault approached the overarching question of power through strategies, discourses, institutions and the like, as well as some of the methodological 'how' of genealogy and archaeology. The quality of the interviews varies widely. I found 'Two Lectures' and 'Truth and Power' to be the best, with the drunken 'Confessions of the Flesh' a lot of fun as well. Sadly, the book opens with the tedious and annoying 'On Popular Justice: A Discussion with Maoists.'
On the whole, this book is probably best read as a companion to Foucualt's longer histories. The jargon is dense and could use some more clarification. But for all that, I think this collection makes a decent antidote to the unthinking and cult-like academic copying of Foucault's style without his insight.
Read
June 13, 2011This particular work covers a broad range of Foucault's writings and is ideal for someone who hoping to get a general understanding of his work before delving in further. What's wonderful about Foucault is that his works are approachable even to non-academics. There's not an egregious over-use of italicized jargon. He's trying to get his point across, not impress the reader with his superior intelligence.
While I think the dialogue of power has evolved since Foucault's first writings, I would say that in the context of what came before him, his work is quite amazing. It has had important implications in a variety of veins of academic thought.
His unique ability to identify what seems normal but is actually absurd and couched in a wealth of rationalization makes him truly brilliant. His essays on the prison system, sexuality, and health are enlightening in this fashion.
For my research, I was more interested in his work showing power as a far more pervasive/invasive instrument. Several essays elucidate the dialog surrounding the power and influence ascribed to process. His concept that power is NOT localized in the State and that the mechanics of society must also be addressed is quite brilliantly articulated.
One should definitely read this book if they are interested in modern political or philosophical thought.
While I think the dialogue of power has evolved since Foucault's first writings, I would say that in the context of what came before him, his work is quite amazing. It has had important implications in a variety of veins of academic thought.
His unique ability to identify what seems normal but is actually absurd and couched in a wealth of rationalization makes him truly brilliant. His essays on the prison system, sexuality, and health are enlightening in this fashion.
For my research, I was more interested in his work showing power as a far more pervasive/invasive instrument. Several essays elucidate the dialog surrounding the power and influence ascribed to process. His concept that power is NOT localized in the State and that the mechanics of society must also be addressed is quite brilliantly articulated.
One should definitely read this book if they are interested in modern political or philosophical thought.
October 9, 2008
Best overview (by the man himself) of Foucault's later intellectual projects of power/knowledge relations and how humans become subjects. It is all his own lectures and interviews where you can quickly familiarize yourself with his theories on the concern with the inter-relationship between power and knowledge, which makes one float ideas of subject/object relations in any area of study in the social sciences that one is interested. For the Foucault beginner "Two Lectures", "Truth and Power", and "Body/Power" are priceless.
April 21, 2018
I wanted a meaningful book when we were at Shakespeare and Co in Paris. What better than a collection of essays and interviews of Michel Foucault! It has been nearly 30 years since I last studied him, and I was worried I might not have the patience for this book, but given the political climate today, essays about power and knowledge were refreshing! Although Foucault boils things down to simple constructs, I found myself imagining what he would have said about American politics in 2018. I read with a pen and underlined so many things. Power and knowledge. What a concept!
March 12, 2015
kind of a summation of the major monographs. maybe could serve as an introduction?
May 11, 2017
Lost my momentum in the last 50 pages. When it was good, it was really good. Lots of notes. Finished the paper tonight.
October 16, 2024
AN ILLUMINATING SET OF INTERVIEWS WITH THE CONTROVERSIAL PHILOSOPHER
Michel Foucault (1926-1984) was a French philosopher, historian of ideas, and social theorist and activist; he wrote many books. Openly gay, he died of AIDS---the first “public figure” in France to die of the virus.
The editor wrote in the Preface, “One of the motives for fabricating, in translation, this further Foucault ‘book’ has therefore been the hope that it will facilitate access to works that are… already available…The problematic of … power and knowledge… is a fundamental theme of Foucault’s historical studies of the genealogy of the human sciences: it is also, ineluctably, a fundamental question concerning our present. This also means that these discussions, given their location in time and space, have to do with the events of May 1968 and the transformation of political thought and practice which these events were seen as inaugurating.”
Foucault says of his book “Discipline and Punish,” “My hypothesis is that the prison was linked from its beginning to a project for the transformation of individuals. People tend to suppose that the prison was a kind of refuse-dump for criminals, a dump whose disadvantages became apparent during use, giving rise to the conviction that the prisons must be reformed and made into means of transforming individuals. But this is not true: such texts, programmes and statements of intention were there from the beginning. The prison was meant to be an instrument comparable with… the school, the barracks, or the hospital, acting with precision upon its individual subjects.” (Pg. 39-40)
He explains, “I think I would distinguish myself from both the Marxist and the para-Marxist perspectives. As regards Marxism, I’m not one of those who try to elicit the effects of power at the level of ideology. Indeed I wonder whether, before one poses the question of ideology, it wouldn’t be more materialist to study first the question of the body and the effects of power on it. Because what troubles me with these analyses which prioritize ideology is that there is always presupposed a human subject on the lines of the model provided by classical philosophy, endowed with a consciousness which power is then to seize on.” (Pg. 58)
He clarifies, “I have never had the intention of doing a general history of the human sciences of a critique of the possibility of the sciences in general. The subtitle to ‘The Order of Things’ is not ‘THE archaeology’ but ‘AN archaeology of the human sciences.’” (Pg. 65)
He explains, “I have sketched a history of sexuality on the basis of the confessional practice of the seventeenth century or the forms of control and infantile sexuality in the eighteenth to nineteenth century. I have sketched a genealogical history of the origins of a theory and a knowledge of anomaly and of the various techniques that relate to it. None of it does more than mark time. Repetitive and disconnected, it advances nowhere. Since indeed it never ceases to say the same thing, it perhaps says nothing. It is tangled up into an indecipherable, disorganized muddle. In a nutshell, it is inconclusive.” (Pg. 78)
In a 1976 lecture, he states, “The course of study that I have been following until now---roughly since 1970/71---has been concerned with the HOW of power. I have tried, that is, to relate its mechanisms to two points of reference, two limits: on the one hand, to the rules of right that provide a formal delimitation of power; on the other, to the effects of truth that this power produces and transmits, and which in their turn reproduce this power. Hence we have a triangle: power, right, truth.” (Pg. 92-93)
He suggests, “these new techniques of power needed to grapple with the phenomena of population, in short to undertake the administration, control and direction of the accumulation of capital and the system of power that ordains the accumulation of men are, from the seventeenth century on, correlated and inseparable phenomena… hence there arise the problems of demography, public health, hygiene, housing conditions, longevity and fertility. And I believe that the political significance of the problem of sex is due to the fact that sex is located at the point of intersection of the discipline of the body and the control of the population.” (Pg. 125)
Later, he says, “We have had sexuality since the eighteenth century, and sex since the nineteenth. What we had before that was no doubt the flesh. The basic originator of it all was Tertullian… Tertullian combined within a coherent theoretical discourse two fundamental elements: the essentials of the imperatives of Christianity… and the principles by the way of which it was possible to escape from the dualism of the Gnostics.” (Pg. 211)
This is an excellent collection of interviews, that provide a great deal on insight into Foucault’s ideas. It will be of immense interest to anyone studying Foucault, and the development of his thought.
Michel Foucault (1926-1984) was a French philosopher, historian of ideas, and social theorist and activist; he wrote many books. Openly gay, he died of AIDS---the first “public figure” in France to die of the virus.
The editor wrote in the Preface, “One of the motives for fabricating, in translation, this further Foucault ‘book’ has therefore been the hope that it will facilitate access to works that are… already available…The problematic of … power and knowledge… is a fundamental theme of Foucault’s historical studies of the genealogy of the human sciences: it is also, ineluctably, a fundamental question concerning our present. This also means that these discussions, given their location in time and space, have to do with the events of May 1968 and the transformation of political thought and practice which these events were seen as inaugurating.”
Foucault says of his book “Discipline and Punish,” “My hypothesis is that the prison was linked from its beginning to a project for the transformation of individuals. People tend to suppose that the prison was a kind of refuse-dump for criminals, a dump whose disadvantages became apparent during use, giving rise to the conviction that the prisons must be reformed and made into means of transforming individuals. But this is not true: such texts, programmes and statements of intention were there from the beginning. The prison was meant to be an instrument comparable with… the school, the barracks, or the hospital, acting with precision upon its individual subjects.” (Pg. 39-40)
He explains, “I think I would distinguish myself from both the Marxist and the para-Marxist perspectives. As regards Marxism, I’m not one of those who try to elicit the effects of power at the level of ideology. Indeed I wonder whether, before one poses the question of ideology, it wouldn’t be more materialist to study first the question of the body and the effects of power on it. Because what troubles me with these analyses which prioritize ideology is that there is always presupposed a human subject on the lines of the model provided by classical philosophy, endowed with a consciousness which power is then to seize on.” (Pg. 58)
He clarifies, “I have never had the intention of doing a general history of the human sciences of a critique of the possibility of the sciences in general. The subtitle to ‘The Order of Things’ is not ‘THE archaeology’ but ‘AN archaeology of the human sciences.’” (Pg. 65)
He explains, “I have sketched a history of sexuality on the basis of the confessional practice of the seventeenth century or the forms of control and infantile sexuality in the eighteenth to nineteenth century. I have sketched a genealogical history of the origins of a theory and a knowledge of anomaly and of the various techniques that relate to it. None of it does more than mark time. Repetitive and disconnected, it advances nowhere. Since indeed it never ceases to say the same thing, it perhaps says nothing. It is tangled up into an indecipherable, disorganized muddle. In a nutshell, it is inconclusive.” (Pg. 78)
In a 1976 lecture, he states, “The course of study that I have been following until now---roughly since 1970/71---has been concerned with the HOW of power. I have tried, that is, to relate its mechanisms to two points of reference, two limits: on the one hand, to the rules of right that provide a formal delimitation of power; on the other, to the effects of truth that this power produces and transmits, and which in their turn reproduce this power. Hence we have a triangle: power, right, truth.” (Pg. 92-93)
He suggests, “these new techniques of power needed to grapple with the phenomena of population, in short to undertake the administration, control and direction of the accumulation of capital and the system of power that ordains the accumulation of men are, from the seventeenth century on, correlated and inseparable phenomena… hence there arise the problems of demography, public health, hygiene, housing conditions, longevity and fertility. And I believe that the political significance of the problem of sex is due to the fact that sex is located at the point of intersection of the discipline of the body and the control of the population.” (Pg. 125)
Later, he says, “We have had sexuality since the eighteenth century, and sex since the nineteenth. What we had before that was no doubt the flesh. The basic originator of it all was Tertullian… Tertullian combined within a coherent theoretical discourse two fundamental elements: the essentials of the imperatives of Christianity… and the principles by the way of which it was possible to escape from the dualism of the Gnostics.” (Pg. 211)
This is an excellent collection of interviews, that provide a great deal on insight into Foucault’s ideas. It will be of immense interest to anyone studying Foucault, and the development of his thought.
March 8, 2017
This book was a big disappointment. If it were any other author, I would be lenient in my review but this is, unfortunately, not the case. This book is the product of one of the most popular authors in social theory, the great Michel Foucault and because of this, I will have no remorse in my judgment.
One of the things that annoyed me the most, in this book, is the language. Foucault has a tendency to take a complex concept and start rambling about it without precisely defining what he means by it. Other times his sentences simply don't form coherent thoughts. But, since, plenty of philosophers had the same tendency, I decided to let this slide.
The next thing that bothered me is his interpretation of history, or rather the lack of complexity in it.
Foucault simplifies the history of sexuality to a few crucial moments in the 17th, 18th and 19th century. While I agree with the relevance of these particular periods, in the development of a contemporary understanding of sexuality, I find his explanation of why this happened, unclear. Foucault talks about power, the aristocracy, biopolitics, blood etc. Most of his theory can be summed in a few pages without the unnecessary use of vague terms, which he favors. To be more precise, Foucault focuses on the complexity of wrong things.
Foucault is heavily influenced by marxism and so the idea of social conflict is deeply rooted in his theory. The bourgeois is out to get you! I don't care much for structuralism so this was a big no for me.
Taking into context Foucault's life, his work seems highly apologetic of his lifestyle and sexuality and I have no problem with that. But, on a theoretical level, it simply doesn't seem to have that much quality. Foucault is more of a symbol for a new understanding of sexuality which is not based primarily on the biological functions of sex, but in terms of analytical and objective reasoning, Foucault is lacking. In other words, I see the context in which Foucault gained popularity, I just don't think it is deserved, and since I favor empirical confirmation, I cared little for so much unsubstantiated theorizing.
The final verdict is three stars, just because of the cultural relevance of the work, otherwise, it would have been one.
One of the things that annoyed me the most, in this book, is the language. Foucault has a tendency to take a complex concept and start rambling about it without precisely defining what he means by it. Other times his sentences simply don't form coherent thoughts. But, since, plenty of philosophers had the same tendency, I decided to let this slide.
The next thing that bothered me is his interpretation of history, or rather the lack of complexity in it.
Foucault simplifies the history of sexuality to a few crucial moments in the 17th, 18th and 19th century. While I agree with the relevance of these particular periods, in the development of a contemporary understanding of sexuality, I find his explanation of why this happened, unclear. Foucault talks about power, the aristocracy, biopolitics, blood etc. Most of his theory can be summed in a few pages without the unnecessary use of vague terms, which he favors. To be more precise, Foucault focuses on the complexity of wrong things.
Foucault is heavily influenced by marxism and so the idea of social conflict is deeply rooted in his theory. The bourgeois is out to get you! I don't care much for structuralism so this was a big no for me.
Taking into context Foucault's life, his work seems highly apologetic of his lifestyle and sexuality and I have no problem with that. But, on a theoretical level, it simply doesn't seem to have that much quality. Foucault is more of a symbol for a new understanding of sexuality which is not based primarily on the biological functions of sex, but in terms of analytical and objective reasoning, Foucault is lacking. In other words, I see the context in which Foucault gained popularity, I just don't think it is deserved, and since I favor empirical confirmation, I cared little for so much unsubstantiated theorizing.
The final verdict is three stars, just because of the cultural relevance of the work, otherwise, it would have been one.
September 27, 2020
Buku yang sangat sulit untuk dimengerti karena di sana Foucault tidak hnya terfokus pada tema utama yng dibahasnya tentang relasi kuasa dan pengetahuan lewat politik saja tpi ia jga menjelaskannya dalam medis, penjara, seksualitas yng menurutnya ada relasi kuasanya. Menurut saya pribadi gk tau otak saya yng gk kesampaian atau apa tpi ia dalam bku ini tdk menjelaskan secara eksplisit tentang relasi kuasa dan pengetahuannya itu, ya kitu tahu kalau Foucault bukan hnya seorang filsuf melainkan ia jga adalah seorang yng menguasai beberapa bidang ilmu pengetahuan sprti sejarah, linguistik, sosiolog, arkeolog, politik dan sebagainya hal itulah yng dirasa sngt sulit bila ingin memahami pemikiran Foucault jika hnya dari bku ini saja
May 21, 2025
From the Bentham invention of the panopticon which inevitably uses observation to manipulate a system of control to the control of childhood sexuality which was a rearing methodology although the implication intended might be that overarching control mechanisms are inherently a system of repression and thus the basis of power in its hierarchical structure I might intend to surmount that avoiding the penal colony by outstanding surveillance is in fact best practice the question remains who would stay at the utmost tower of control? The demiurge or monarchy that exhibits god like qualities? Perhaps this is the greatest quandary in a modern problem of a web of power which is all interrelated and is believed to flow both top down and down up
May 23, 2019
At least for now I just read it for the last interview in which Foucault teases the basic content of the recently posthumously published (against his family’s wishes) fourth volume of History of Sexuality. At least I think it would be the most respectful way of figuring out his whole point there. His whole point being, don’t buy the whole liberals blaming the church for a repression that doesn’t exist- rather, attack the whole idea of abusing power in general and the way it gets us deeply conflicted about our own desires.
August 12, 2021
Foucault is an interesting philosopher. Much of his thoughts tend to repeat. Foucault certainly sees what society has done to man. The focus on self is apparent, the thought that what I think is what I am has become the thought of the culture. It is important to study different philosophies to understand some of the thoughts of culture. This book is I interview style and can help in some of the understandings of Foucault’s writing but I would suggest you also read his writings to understand his comments in this book.
September 3, 2017
Odlična knjiga s odličnom tezom da se nad seksualnošću ne provodi represija, već je se, naprotiv, proizvodi kao poželjnu da bi je se onda moglo klasificirati i kako bi se mogli propisivati njezini normativni i nenormativni oblici. Odlična je i teza da se moć ne može shvaćati kao svojstvo apstraktnih koncepata poput države, već kao odnos snaga raznorodnih elemenata društva, kao nešto što se ne posjeduje, nego provodi.
January 10, 2019
"It is not a matter of emancipating truth from every system of power (which would be a chimera, for truth is already power) but of detaching the power of truth from the forms of hegemony, social, economic and cultural, within which it operates at the present time.
The political question, to sum up, is not error, illusion, alienated consciousness or ideology; it is truth itself. Hence the importance of Nietzsche.”
The political question, to sum up, is not error, illusion, alienated consciousness or ideology; it is truth itself. Hence the importance of Nietzsche.”
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 111 reviews