Originally Posted by
Drkshadow03
Foucault is actually anti-Metaphysics. Almost nothing really exists for Foucault, except how we define it (all knowledge and history is contingent on society for Foucalt). Well, I'm sure literally he accepts that a chair exists, but how we think of a chair, why we named it a chair, how we developed the arts of chair-making are tied to socio-cultural historical process rooted in a particular needs of the power-knowledge relationships in society.
He is applying many of the post-structuralist principles of language to history. A word only refers to another word, which only then refers to more words is the meat and potatoes of Deconstructionism. For Foucault historical developments are equally as insular. History is vertical as opposed to linear for Foucault; he challenges the idea of the story-narrative version of history where one historical period follows another, which follows another, filled with many great individuals (Alexander the Great, Socrates, Saladin). According to the implications of his theory, history isn't a product of individual Great Men or subjectivities, or even a linear narrative where one events LOGICALLY (keyword here) follows another, rather history is a product of its discourses in a given period and society. One historical age is completely different than another historical age. You understand a historical period not by looking at the ages and societies that surrounded it or its major events, but rather turn to the archives and study the discourses both high and low. What you'll find according to Foucault is general themes to different periods that change with a given historical moment and society. You might think of them as rules that govern speech, thought, and writing. These invisible rules control what can or cannot be articulated, what a given society is capable or incapable of thinking about. They aren't to be understood as literal rules, but rather as sort of broad themes that pre-occupy a given culture at a given historical period. The reason history is vertical (one period is completely different from another) is because of these rules of discourse called the episteme. It would literally be impossible for someone from our period to completely understand the historical period of another period, and vice-versa the discourses of another period would not make sense for us because we try to project our own central concerns and rules onto previous history to make sense of it (even if we are both speaking English it'd still be like we were talking two different languages).
So in Discipline and Punishment there is an episteme centered around the body, which then shifts to the episteme centered around the soul. Foucault attempts to document this shift by looking at the historical institution of the penal system. The practices of how you run your prison for example and the institutions surrounding it will change its associate knowledge to reflect the change in the episteme. Torture is the main form of punishment when the episteme centers on the body (Foucault also points out a correlation with the given economic system at the time; he associates the body with Middle Ages and Serfdom), while the shift to the soul makes torture obsolete, replacing it with psychiatry, self-analysis, penal rules, criminology; all methods not meant to hurt the body, but to transform the soul (Foucault points out the shift correlates with the rise of Capitalism. Such a system requires control of the soul rather than physical torture).
I should add by soul Foucault doesn't mean some metaphysical pre-existing entity, hence why I said earlier than Foucault is anti-Metaphysics. Rather a person's "soul" is just a social product of power-knowledge like anything else. We literally invented the concept of the soul. All beliefs, all possible thoughts, all utterances, and discourse is a product of power-knowledge governed by the episteme of a given age. Even your original post, and my post that I am writing now is a product of power and a product of someone writing is a given point in history.
The Panopticon serves as the central metaphor that Foucault turns to describe how power works. All knowledge, even the most innocuous kind, is inherently tied with power according to Foucault. The implications of all this is that our subjectivity is basically bound to historical processes beyond our control. He uses the prison to demonstrate how power-knowledge works; a delinquent goes into prison; the law (a form knowledge bound with power) establish what constitutes delinquent behavior in the first place (it may be his or her first offense), then within the prison she or he is subjected to all sorts of techniques of power-knowledge within the prison (watch by guards, charts of progress and behavior, experts in the field of crimonology, psychiatrists, prison rules, other prisoners), he or she tries to conform to these rules and expectations (in other words she or he transforms his or her behavior to fit these various groups who produce knowledge about him), this power-knowledge transforms him or her into the very delinquent they accuse him or her of being (literally they harden these qualities of his or her identity), he or she gets to leave jail after doing their time, she or he repeats his or her crime, power-knowledge of delinquency has further proof that its truths are correct (see we have a delinquent who repeated his crimes, so he or she must be a delinquent), he or she returns to jail, the whole process begins again, and the subject sinks further into the truth about itself created by power-knowledge.
Foucault by the end suggests this not only applies to particular sub-groups like delinquents, but all people living within society in all aspects of their lives (in school, at work, in their relationships, walking down a street, going into a Dunkin Donuts, etc.).
I'd also add power is not ONLY repressive for Foucault. Since power is intimately tied with knowledge--in fact the two words are pretty much synonymous--power must also be productive. It produces knowledge, it produces human diversity, it produces all human thought, all human interaction; it isn't necessarily a bad thing, and in fact, it is impossible to ever escape power or step outside of it according to Foucault. Foucault hits on this point of power being productive more in The History of Sexuality V. 1, which attempts to challenge the Victorian notion of the Repressive Hypothesis. Power as Foucault points out doesn't only say "No." Power quite often says, "yes."
Does that help you puzzle him out a bit further?
