Foucault: The Subject and Power - Notes
Why Study Power? The Question of the Subject
objective: create a history of different modes by which human beings are made subjects
three modes of objectification
● modes of inquiry which try to give themselves the status of sciences
● objectivization in ‘dividing practices’ - marginalization
● the way a human being turns himself into a subject
complex power relations
● economic history and theory -> relations of production
● linguistics and semiotics -> instruments for studying relations and signification
things to check
● ‘conceptual needs’ - historical conditions that motivate conceptualization
● ’type of reality with which we are dealing’
pathological forms - diseases of power
● fascism
● Stalinism
need for a new economy of power relations
● Kant -> philosophy prevents reason from transcending empirical experience
● philosophy -> keeps watch over the excessive powers of political rationality
relationship between rationalization and excesses of political power
● analysis of process in several fields
○ madness
○ illness
○ crime
○ sexuality
another way towards a new economy of power relations
● taking the forms of resistance against different forms of power as a starting point
● legality within the field of illegality
series of oppositions
● men over women
● parents over children
● psychiatry over mentally ill
● medicine over the population
● administration over ways people live
definition of commonalities of struggles
● ‘transversal’ struggles: not limited to a certain country
● aim of struggles -> power effects
● ‘immediate struggles
○ people look for immediate enemy
○ people do not expect to find a solution
● struggles which question the status of an individual
● opposition to the effects of power linked with knowledge, competence, and qualification
● revolve around the question: who are we
these struggles attack a technique or form of power
subject
● subject to someone else by control and dependence
● subject tied to his own identity by a conscience or self-knowledge
three types of struggles
● against domination - ethnic, social, or religious
● against exploitation - separate individuals from what they produce
● against that which ties the individual to himself
Reformation - struggle for new subjectivity
mechanisms of subjection
● must be studied in relation to mechanisms of exploitation and domination
● they entertain complex and circular relations with other forms
development of the state
● interests of the totality or a class among the citizens
pastoral power
● 1) ultimate aim is to assure individual salvation
● 2) must be prepared to sacrifice itself for life and salvation of flock
● 3) looks after whole community and individual for his entire life
● 4) cannot be exercised without knowing inside of people’s minds, souls
the state as a modern matrix of individualization or a new form of pastoral power
new pastoral power
● 1) worldly aims in place of religious aims
● 2) officials of pastoral power increased
● 3) multiplication of aims and agents of pastoral power focused the development of
knowledge of man around two roles
○ globalizing and quantitative - population
○ analytical - individual
Kant: What is the Enlightenment?
● investigation of contemporary historical event
● who are we?
● echoes of Descartes - who am I - the unique but universal and unhistorical subject
● analysis of us and our present
political ‘double bind’
● simultaneous individualization and totalization of modern power structures
problem of our days
● to liberate people from the state
● to liberate people from individualization linked to the state
● promotion of new forms of subjectivity
How is Power Exercised?
How not in the sense of how does it manifest itself but by what means it is exercised and what
happens when individuals exert power over others
that which is exerted vs that which gives the ability to modify, use, consume, or destroy
power - brings into play relations between individuals or groups
● relationships between partners
distinguishing power relations from relationships of communication which use language, system
of signs, or symbolic media
critical shifts in relation to the supposition of a fundamental power
● power relations can be grasped in the diversity of their logical sequence, their abilities,
and their interrelationships
objective capacities - relationships of communication and power relations
diverse forms and blocks
● educational institution’s space, regulations, activities, and persons
● capacity-communication-power
disciplines - show the manner in which systems of objective finality and systems of
communication and power can be welded together
What constitutes the specific nature of power?
power as a way in which certain actions modify others
● exists only as an action
● not the manifestation of a consensus
power as violence
● power acts upon the actions of others
● relationship of violence acts upon a body or upon things
● opposite pole: passivity
“the other” over whom power is exercised must be thoroughly recognized
consensus and violence don’t constitute principle of power
power as a structure of actions brought to bear upon possible actions; it incites, it induces, it
seduces, it makes easier or more difficult
● a set of actions upon other actions
conduct - equivocal term - specificity of power relations
● ambiguity of term government - direction of conduct
● to govern, is to structure the possible field of action of others
power is only exercised only over free subjects
● slavery is not a power relation
relationship between power and freedom’s refusal to submit cannot be separated
● freedom as condition and precondition for power
recalcitrance of will and the intransigence of freedom
● agonism: a relationship which is reciprocal incitation and struggle - permanent
provocation
How is one to analyze the power relationship?
focus on carefully defined institutions
● form and logic of elementary mechanisms
problems
● mechanisms designed to ensure preservation -> deciphering functions that are
reproductive
● analyzing relations from standpoint of institutions -> seeking explanation and the origin
of the power relations in the institutions (to explain power to power)
● institutions bring into play two elements (regulations and apparatus) -> giving
exaggerated privilege in the relations of power to one or another - modulations of the law
and of coercion
examination of institutions from standpoint of power relations
● power relations as rooted in social nexus
analysis
● 1) system of differentiations: differences established by law, tradition, economic status,
culture allow one to act upon the actions of others
● 2) the types of objectives: pursued by power-seekers for privileges, profits, authority, etc
● 3) the means of bringing power relations into being: through violence, economic
disparity, surveillance, rules etc
● 4) forms of institutionalization: mix predispositions, legal structures, traditions and
customs- apparatus or the state as complex system and regulator
● 5) the degrees of rationalization: power not as naked fact but as something elaborated,
transformed, organized and endowed with processes that depend on situation
contemporary society: all other forms of power refer to the state
● governmentalization of power relations
Relations of power and relations of strategy
strategy
● means to an end
● way in which an agent seeks to have advantage over others in a ‘game’
● procedures used to deprive opponent of his means of combat
every power relationship implies a strategy of struggle
● two forces constitute for the other a permanent limit, a point of possible reversal
strategy of confrontation -> relationship of power
relationship of power -> winning strategy
domination as general structure of power
● strategic situation - long-term confrontation between adversaries
domination of a group or class - central phenomenon in social history
● they manifest the locking together of power relations with relations of strategy - at the
level of the whole social body
