2.3. Michel Foucault’s Theories Michel Foucault was a French critical thinker. He has had strong influence on philosophy, critical theory and a wide range of humanistic and social scientific disciplines. He was one of the most influential thinkers of the twentieth century. Foucault played a major role in events and in the focus of theoretical work of that time. He focused on particular subjects because that subjects come from his personal experiences.
Whenever I have tried to carry out a piece of theoretical work, it has been on the basis of my own experience, always in relation to processes I saw taking place around me. It is because I thought I could recognize in the things I saw, in the institutions with which I deal, in my relations with …show more content…
Foucault concentrated on the analysis of the effects of various institutions on group of people and their role in resisting those effects in his works such as The History of Sexuality (1978), Power/Knowledge (1980), The Birth of the Clinic (1973) and Discipline and Punish (1977). Power is the main central analysis. He works critically on the concept of power which a group of people or an institution possess and that power concerned with oppressing. Foucault’s idea about power is more than oppression of the powerless by powerful. He tries to consider the role of power within everyday relationship between people and institutions. Foucault argues about power beyond the negative view, as repressing and constraining in The History of Sexuality, Vol. I (1978), the measures of constraining and oppressive are in fact productive and create a new forms of behavior. Foucault is not concentrate on oppression in comparison to the earlier Marxist theorists, but rather in making clear resistance to power. The concept of power is to realize powerful agent’s will over the will of powerless people and force the people to do things which they do not wish to do. Power for those in power is a way to control powerless. Foucault criticizes this idea about power and argues about this in The History of Sexuality, Vol. I. He believes that power is a strategy than a possession. Power should be considered as something that does something and should be seen as a verb. Foucault argues about it in Power/Knowledge: “Power must be analysed as something which circulates, or as something which only functions in the form of a chain . . . Power is employed and exercised through a netlike organization . . . Individuals are vehicles of power, not its points of application” (Mills, 35). The concept of power is more than relations between the oppressed and the oppressor. It is like a chain or a net
Whenever I have tried to carry out a piece of theoretical work, it has been on the basis of my own experience, always in relation to processes I saw taking place around me. It is because I thought I could recognize in the things I saw, in the institutions with which I deal, in my relations with …show more content…
Foucault concentrated on the analysis of the effects of various institutions on group of people and their role in resisting those effects in his works such as The History of Sexuality (1978), Power/Knowledge (1980), The Birth of the Clinic (1973) and Discipline and Punish (1977). Power is the main central analysis. He works critically on the concept of power which a group of people or an institution possess and that power concerned with oppressing. Foucault’s idea about power is more than oppression of the powerless by powerful. He tries to consider the role of power within everyday relationship between people and institutions. Foucault argues about power beyond the negative view, as repressing and constraining in The History of Sexuality, Vol. I (1978), the measures of constraining and oppressive are in fact productive and create a new forms of behavior. Foucault is not concentrate on oppression in comparison to the earlier Marxist theorists, but rather in making clear resistance to power. The concept of power is to realize powerful agent’s will over the will of powerless people and force the people to do things which they do not wish to do. Power for those in power is a way to control powerless. Foucault criticizes this idea about power and argues about this in The History of Sexuality, Vol. I. He believes that power is a strategy than a possession. Power should be considered as something that does something and should be seen as a verb. Foucault argues about it in Power/Knowledge: “Power must be analysed as something which circulates, or as something which only functions in the form of a chain . . . Power is employed and exercised through a netlike organization . . . Individuals are vehicles of power, not its points of application” (Mills, 35). The concept of power is more than relations between the oppressed and the oppressor. It is like a chain or a net