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.

the care of the self

In the lectures from The Hermeneutics of the Subject, Foucault discusses the theme of the relations between the subject and the truth. He introduces an ancient concept common in ancient Grecian society, the notion of epimeleia heautou, which means “care for oneself.” This notion is linked to another notion, gnothi seauton, or “know yourself.”

The two expressions go hand in hand as to know oneself, one must have care for themselves as well. To take care of yourself you must also know who you are, or “know yourself.”

He mentions Socrates as the main character in ancient Greek philosophy who really paid attention to these principles. He is described as a man who would stop people, old or young, and challenging them with questions to determine how much they knew themselves, and how much they were concerned with their selves.

The way Foucault interprets such notion is as a “desire for radical change, a sort of moral dandyism..” In opposition to the epimeleia heautou is the Christian principle of self-renunciation, the obligation towards others for the common good.

In the Socratic notion taking care of others is impossible if we do not first attend to ourselves, as I will explain later.

According to Foucault, the Cartesian approach is what caused for the epimeleia heautou to be “obliterated.” The “know yourself” instead became fundamental for any access to truth.

There is an intricate link between spirituality and philosophy when it comes to knowledge, access to the truth. The spirituality of subjectivity presumes that the person must change in order to access knowledge, that he must go through a transformation. The truth then gives beatitude to the subject. What gives access to the truth, is knowledge, therefore to “know oneself” is a necessary step towards gaining such access.

Such link was then destroyed by Theology, according to Foucault, who claims that it caused for access to truth no longer to be connected to the “spiritual necessity of the subject’s work on himself.”

Nineteenth century philosophy however still seems very much influenced by such “spirituality of subjectivity”, and there is a rediscovery of the “care of the self.”

The idea of spirituality as a condition for access to the truth is also interpreted in social terms, when discussing the subject’s class or political position, and whether these make him prepared to access the knowledge of, for example, Marxism or psychoanalysis.

Foucault then focuses in particular on the Socratic-Platonic moment, which is the first of three periods of philosophical reflection (the second is the period of the golden age of the culture of the self, while the third is the Christian asceticism, clearly opposed to the care of oneself.)

In the Socratic-platonic moment, the notion of care for oneself is first introduced. It was linked to a privilege, economic, social, or political. He takes as an example Alcibiades, and how Socrates demonstrates that he does not know how to achieve his goals, and it is because he doesn’t attend to himself. Without wealth or education, Alcibiades cannot govern a city, and guarantee the wellbeing of his citizens. Socrates helps Alcibiades see that what he is not aware of is exactly the object which he wants to take care of, or in this case, politics. He must take care of himself.

the invention of man

The readings for last week (sorry my post is a little late!) revolve around the central theme of “the invention of man.” Foucault discusses that philosophy is entangled with psychology and other human sciences, as the former marked a domain, which the “human sciences did not inherit…” , but re-established and confirmed in scientific terms. At the same time, human sciences are also defined by philosophy as sciences of finitude, or, in other words, philosophy confirms the truth of the human sciences. According to Foucault, psychology came to dominate the human sciences, because these all “became, in one way or another, sciences of the psyche.”

He also discusses that psychology is part of a larger episteme, or “worldview” structuring knowledge. Freud’s discovery of the unconscious is split into two separate interpretations, hermeneutic and “scientistic”. Psychoanalysis is linked to hermeneutics, as it approaches madness the same way hermeneutics approach literature, as texts “do not say what they say.” There are general laws of signification and interpretation. These are the normative aspects of psychology. However, we can never arrive to a definitive interpretation, a primary text.

In “Man and his doubles” Foucault defines the separation between being and representation. “It is no longer their identity that beings manifest in representation, but the external relation they establish with the human being.” The subject ‘s position with respect to knowledge is described as ambiguous, because we are objects of knowledge but also knowing subjects. We are speaking beings, but constrained by those things that are greater and older than us. We are constrained by our language, economy, and especially the body, for it is the mark of our limitations.

Finitude is the search for conditions that make all finite forms possible. The concept of “the same” is finitude’s own repetition. What is reflected empirically as a content is repeated on the transcendental level as a condition.

He then distinguishes two types of analysis , the transcendental dialectic, concerned with the social/historical/economic conditions that human knowledge depends on, and a transcendental aesthetic, concerned with the organic/physiological/neurological essence of thought. Both aspire to a truth that belongs to their discourse. This discourse is however ambiguous because it derives conditions from the objects it conditions. The solution to such ambiguity is a discourse that closes such gap, the “le vecu”(lived experience).

He talks about anthropological slumber, or the philosophical inertia caused by a dogmatism based on empirical knowledge.

Power and Subjectivity

In this week’s readings, we observe Foucault’s discussion of the legal treatment of criminals, and how much their psychological problems account for their illegal acts.
In “Birth of the Asylum”, from Madness and Civilization, Foucault describes the shift from a punitive system for the mentally disturbed, to a system which is more bent on curing such individuals. Taking as an example Tuke’s “York Retreat”, an asylum for the mentally ill, he describes a change from a prison-like environment to a more therapeutic environment. This change is given by progress in medicine and psychology, which began to interpret criminals and the mentally disturbed as having a medical condition, rather than considering them evil people.
There is both a religious and a secular interpretation of this change. The religious one, in Tuke’s contest, relies on the idea of the existence of fundamental goodness in each individual. We are all moral human beings, and the acts of transgression committed by some are only part of our superficial façade.
Pinel adopts a secular approach to such practice. He believes that religion does not comprehend all the wisdom and science necessary for the cure of the mad. He too believes that man is essentially good, and virtuous.
Both approaches are the result of a process of “subjectification”, in which subjects are no longer judged as criminals, but are individualized in the light of their own personal psychological condition.
In the First Lecture of Abnormal: Lectures at the Collège de France, he explores the changes caused by this humanistic movement in the legal sphere. He describes the relation between punishment and proof, the evidence that a crime had occurred. The more certain and detailed the evidence, the greater the punishment. There is also a correspondence between the power of the evidence, and the authority of the person presenting such proof of the crime. The humanistic approach towards the criminal’s mental condition begins to really influence legal affairs by the 19th century.
The role of psychiatric evaluation of the criminal becomes more and more important, stating whether or not his act can be considered an offense for which he is legally responsible. By analyzing the subject, the psychiatrist defines whether or not he has a condition that causes him to be more likely to commit certain acts of transgression. This study allows to find ways of correcting his condition. Punishment shifts to the profession of curing. The penal system takes the responsibility of isolating mentally disturbed people, and of “normalizing” them.
The legal system as intended in this reading is also influenced by the idea that all men have are good, even though it is less evident in some. Through the curing process described by Foucault, the mentally ill have a chance to find their moral selves, and psychiatry serves to define what factors have brought them to become “less good.” Through a therapeutic process, the subject can establish a connection with his inner goodness, and determine the life experiences that caused him to be the way he is.

Governmentality

These two readings delineate two transformations of society, one, that concerns mainly modes of government of society. The other describes specifically how society is using its institutions, schools, hospitals, prisons, to control its individuals.
In “Governmentality”, Foucault focuses on the transformation of political institutions, from the figure of the sovereign to the establishment of the state, and “the art of government” as the final stage of these transformations. Throughout the passage he compares several works. First he talks about Machiavelli’s The Prince, a work that deals mainly with the arts by which a prince can gain control over his realm. He then deals with an anti-Machiavellain author, La Perriere, and his work Miroir Politique. This author deals with a multiplicity of forms of government, of which the principality only composes one of these. He then mentions La Mothe Le Vayer, who says that the three essential forms of government are self government, the government of the family, and the government of a state. Foucault explains that while the principality and sovereignty in general are concerned with the distinction between their form of power and any other kind of power, the focus of the government is on continuity, which can be upward (when an individual first learns to govern himself, and then all that is around him) or downward (a state is well run when individuals behave as they should, or through the police). Through a further comparison of authors of the sixteenth and seventeenth century, Foucault shows evidence for a movement aiming towards a new finality in the government.
In dealing with Rousseau’s Encyclopedia he begins to explain “economy” as the government of a family, or a state, the surveillance that one has over his goods. La Perriere defines government as the running of a ship; through the control of the shipmen, and externalities such as weather, the captain can properly take charge. Frederick the Great also points out that territory is not as important. On the contrary, Machiavelli deals mostly with the prince’s control of his territory, and its inhabitants.
Therefore, more recent definitions of government have to do with the things that it administers.
He uses Mercantilism as the first example of an application of government of the state. However, it was still centered around the figure of the sovereign.
By the eighteenth century, however, after a demographic expansion and growth of wealth, the notions of “population” and “economy” took place. Population becomes the end of government. The government of state is the final stage of three types of state: the first two are the state of justice, and the administrative state.
Finally, he says that “governmentality” is born of the Christian pastoral model, a diplomatico-military model, and finally, the police.
In “Postscript on Control Societies” Gilles Deleuze describes another transformation of society, from disciplinary, to control-based. While before society was made of separate, closed sites which each had their own law, now society is based on control, which is a molding that constantly changes from one moment to the next. As Kafka puts it, everything in control societies is but an endless postponement. We never finish anything. We can see this with money, with exchange rates, which continue to change each day, with new technologies, and with the transformation of capitalism from a production, to “metaproduction”. It doesn’t sell things, but services, and activities.

bio-power

This week’s readings all relate to each other through one important theme: bio-power, which can be explained as the power through the investment and subjugation of the body and human life. The three readings all explain the transformations in institutions which allowed for a better care of life. Each passage has a very different approach, starting with Right of Death and Power over Life, where Foucault analyses the various transformations of power to decide life and death. In ancient Rome, it was the father of the Roman family who decided, through the right of patria potestas, whether to dispose or not of the lives of his children and slaves. Later on, it was the right of the sovereign to execute those who posed a threat to his life. War was declared against those nations which posed a threat to the sovereign and to the population under his power. Wars were legitimized no longer in the name of the only sovereign, but in the name of the biological existence of an entire population. We notice a change from a power that was defined by one’s right to kill, to a powerthat instead of ending life, fosters and protects it, and declares wars in the name of life. This form of “bio-power”, or in other words a power that defends life, is essential in modern capitalism. Keeping a nation’s citizens “alive” and strong, through discipline, medicine, makes the nation more powerful and productive. The second passage, Body of the Condemned, focuses particularly on the death penalty. First Foucault describes the horrible tortures involved in the death sentence in European countries and the US, focusing particularly on the French example. He then goes on to show how gradually the theatrical element of execution was eliminated. Now execution occurs behind prison walls, and has the criminal’s close family as the only witnesses. The atrocity of the punishing execution also decreased. Before, executions would last for many hours, and involved several forms of torture. By the mid-nineteenth century, the guillotine and the noose became the dominant instruments for death sentence. Nowadays, there is no physical torture involved with death penalty, and no spectacle for the public. The punishment is not supposed to be equal or greater than the crime itself. It is meant to be corrective. Imprisonment and death penalty are meant to cure society, and keep criminality out of it. They are meant for positive purposes. Today a doctor supervises the execution, and injects the criminal with tranquilizers to make the moment of his death easier for him to handle. And the time of imprisonment or mental hospitalization depends on the criminal’s intentions, his psychological health and mental stability. Through this passage we note another change from a brutal institution founded on “death”, to an institution founded on the betterment of society and its citizens’ lives.The last passage, Birth of Social Medicine, explains how strong medical interventions in the past have lead to a standard, institutionalized form of medicine available to the public.Foucault goes through the birth of social medicine in three different countries. In Germany we have the birth of state medicine, which involved the overall improvement of public health. An bureaucratic organization that gathered information from hospitals and doctors made observations on sicknesses within the state. This organization appointed officers to every region, who could control such data. Medical degrees were also standardized. The second example, urban medicine, saw its birth in Paris, France. Here an urban plan was created to guarantee that water and air were free of elements that might cause illnesses. All places that were considered insalubrious were to be relocated, such as slaughterhouses, cemeteries. Anything constricting the passage of clean air was to be destroyed. Daily reports on the purity of the water were made, to make sure citizens were drinking, washing and cooking in clean water. In England we have the birth of our third example of social medicine, also known as labor force medicine. This was the origin of welfare medicine. In fact, starting in the nineteenth century, it was common belief that poor people were a danger to public health, for they lacked in hygiene and couldn’t protect themselves from epidemics. Therefore a plan was made to offer them medical care free of charge or for a very small compensation. This system guaranteed the control of epidemics, and of locations that posed a threat to public health.
These mechanisms guaranteed the safeguarding of public health, therefore, human life, and allowed for most of today's western nations to become the well oiled machines they are.

Discourse and knowledge/History of Sexuality

Foucault's focus on the first readings is mainly on the use and purpose of discourse. He describes a discursive practice as the "delimitation of a field of objects", and as a "definition of a perspective of knowledge". In my words, in order to produce a discourse one must first define the area of notions, or more simply a subject, to base the discourse on. There is always a certain perspective tied to it as well. He believes that the will to knowledge is always in the process of transformation, and it is always linked to specific circumstances. The same discourse can change sides, as it is, like knowledge itself, polymorphous. Knowledge and truth are the foundations of institutions. Knowledge and power are related, and discourse is intrinsic of power relations. Anyone can appropriate a discourse, it is not tied to the subject.
In"discourse on language" Foucault specifies that discourse relies heavily on rules of exclusion, we are not free to say anything. We rely on institutions in our society, because they are based on the will to truth, and on our cultural system. In this reading he also mentions man's fear of breaking barriers of discourse. There are many taboos, thresholds, and limits, that man fears because putting these "unmentionable" aspects into discourse would cause a disorderly activity.
In "History of Sexuality", he talks specifically about the censorship and confinement of the subject of sexuality. He finds that today's society is very repressive towards sex. He says the only places that deal with it in a tolerant way are the brothel and the mental hospital. He also relates such repression with the need to put it into discourse. We have created a will to knowledge known as a science of sexuality, or scientia sexualis. In the third chapter of History of Sexuality, called Scientia Sexualis, he divides man's approach towards sex in two spheres. The first one, which he relates to the societies in China, Japan, Rome, India, and the Arabo-Moslem, is called ars erotica. In ars erotica, truth is drawn from the pleasure itself, therefore the knowledge of it must be deflected back to the practice of sex. The knowledge of it must remain secret. In our society, scientia sexualis is the dominant practice. It relies on confession, as the main practice for producing truth. Confession frees us, because by sharing the truth, with a friend, or a doctor, or therapist, we can break those bonds of constriction and censorship. Confession is considered scientific, medicinal, and a rational way of dealing with those subjects that are considered obscure, such as sex.