Foucault's subject

The three key concepts in Foucaultian thought are the Subject, Truth and Power.
In The History of Sexuality, he describes western society as being one of “scentia sexualis”, as opposed to one of “ars erotica”, such as Rome, China, Japan and India. Our society practices a strong repression against the subject of sex, and has done so for several centuries. He claims that the repression was caused by the incompatibility between sex and “a gereral and intensive work imperative.” (294)
This act of censorship and denial however caused for a great amount of discourse to be produced on the subject. Sex is therefore “put into discourse,” creating a science of sexuality. Confession, which originated with the sacrament of penance in the Catholic pastoral, was meant to cleanse man of the sins of the flesh. It was only through a detailed description of his sins that he could be freed. The confession “was and still remains the general standard governing the production of the true discourse on sex.” The discourse would reveal his “truth,” by helping him acknowledge his “sin.” The ritual is interpreted by Foucault as a power relation. The one in power listens to the confession, and the one without power confesses, revealing his truth. It was through confession that the individualization of man could occur, unveiling his subjective truth. The person in power (the “master”) deciphers and interprets that which is said, and “heals” the confessor. What I understood is that Foucault, as well as Freudians say that we should be allowed not to feel guilty of sex.
In The body of the Condemned Foucault describes a different side of the effects of man’s individualization. The “subjectification” of man’s crime results as a shift in the interpretations of his acts by those in power, but also in a change in the type of punishment inflicted. The judge no longer views the crime as a simple act, but considers the subject’s reasoning and passions behind it, in other words, what led him to commit crime, and whether or not he believes he acted rationally. The punishment is no longer inflicted on the body, but on life, on the very person’s soul. The body is no longer inflicted with the same violence as it was in the previous centuries. In The Birth of Social Medicine he focuses more on the concept of bio-power, and how the subjectification of the body leads to a more productive state, therefore making it more convenient for those in power to guarantee the health of the population.
Therefore the state doesn’t guarantee wellbeing to its citizens out of goodness, but out of convenience.
In Governmentality, Foucault focuses on different “reasons of state”, such as the Machiavellian sovereignty, the “art of government” of the administrative state, and the modern government, which he calls “economic government.” He discusses how the shift from the principality to the modern government took place and how the shift was accompanied by the problem of “population.” Part of being a good governor of the state is managing its economy to ensure the welfare of its inhabitants. The object governed by the prince was essentially his land, but now the government takes control over the people who occupy this land, because the state will be more successful and productive the better off its citizens are. Deleuze defines this type of society, governed by “economic government” as a disciplinary society, where every subject is confined to specific areas. Today, he says, we live in a control society. The disciplinary society was made of confinements, molds, while “controls are modulations..changing from one moment to the next”(179), everything is an endless postponement. The individual has left the old confinements only to find himself under a different, more subtle type of control. We see this with the change to a faster pace in modern society, in which individuals seem more and more entwined with one another, as the old confinements dissolve. As I understand it, this article argues for the loss of individualization rather than for the increase of it.
In The Birth of the Asylum, Foucault examines the shift from considering mental illness as a form of evil, to a medical problem. This causes for a shift in penal law, as criminals are now viewed as individuals who break the law as a result of their environment, upbringing, mental problems, not because of an inner wickedness. Through therapy, the mentally challenged have a change to get in touch with their inner goodness again, and overcome their “desires” to break the law. This new system gives a second chance to those who, in earlier societies, would have been condemned for being “wicked.”
There no longer are “bad people”, but individuals who have a rough past, and have received negative influences which, in turn ,have made them act wrongly. Canguilhem defines psychology as a science of subjectivity, because our senses mislead reason and misinterpret external stimuli. Our thoughts are the product of our internal reaction to outside objects. Our vision of the world is subjective, and different from what it should really represent the world to be. This makes every person different, from my understanding. If our perception of reality is modified by our senses, then each person has a slightly different understanding of the world. No two people think exactly alike. Canguilhem also confronts the problem of the real function of the psychologist. He claims professional secrecy, but his control over the thoughts and secrets of his patients could be an instrument of power. Man is the tool of the psychologist, but it is unclear to what use the psychologist puts such tool to.
In Man and his Doubles, Foucault deals with the analytic of finitude, man’s dual position of sovereign and a slave with respect to knowledge, as he is the subject who knows, but at the same time he is the object of knowledge. The same elements of his knowledge limit him as obstacles. The analytic of finitude is an analysis of the limits of the subject.
In The Human Sciences, he discusses the birth of the human sciences as the most recent studies, which appeared with “the birth of man.” He became “a fortiori, that which justified the calling into question of all knowledge of man.” He says economics, biology, and philology aren’t human sciences, at least not the most fundamental. The human sciences analyze the way man represents the world to himself, the way he interprets the sense of it to himself. There are three important “constituent” models by which the human sciences classify “objects.” The three models are function and norm, conflict and rule, signification and system. He claims that knowledge of man has shifted from an analysis of functions, conflicts, and signification, to an analysis based on norms, rules and systems. We see the example of such shift with the Body of the Condemned, for example. Punishment was first based on the conflict between the law and the criminal, which he refers to as belonging to “primitive mentalities.” As Freud helped bring the knowledge of man to a linguistic and philological model, there is a “radical erasure of the division between positive and negative”, and the madman is no longer viewed as “in conflict”, but rather as acting against the norms. The human sciences also reveal the importance of the unconscious, and distinguish the concept of consciousness from that of representation.
In What is the Enlightenment?, Foucault describes the Enlightenment as a time in which man has a new concept of his reason. Kant instructs man to “aude sapere”( dare to know), to come out of his state of immaturity, a state that leaves man to act passively, to let others “think for him” instead. The Enlightenment was a way of comparing “contemporary” man to his past, as Kant saw it. He was trying to differentiate “today from yesterday.”
Foucault compares the attitude of the Enlightenment with the attitude of Modernity. He defines attitude as a “mode of relating to contemporary reality”, or the way man relates himself to the outside world and how he responds to it. It is the attitude or ethos, which he defines as “limit-attitude”, a criticism of man’s limits, a kind of “self-awareness” that must be constantly renewed, in the name of the progress of truth. He also examines a need in such attitude, to discover necessity within the contingent.
The Hermeneutics of the Subject constitute another analysis of subjectivity. In these lectures, he examines the ancient notions epimeleia heautou(care for yourself) and gnothi seauton (know yourself). These notions are very important in Socratic philosophy, which is centered around the idea of a knowing subject, one who is always conscious and aware of himself.
In The Discourse on Language and History of Systems of Thought Foucault confronts the limitations and constraints that man must face when making discourse. Discourse is tied to the concept of power, for one exercises it through discourse. It is deeply centered around the tactics of power relations in social situations and institutions.
Foucault’s subject is therefore constantly surrounded by discourse, subjected to power relations, overcome by structures that constrain him. The will to knowledge is therefore a strive for pleasure, for power, and the satisfaction that the truth generates.