Mark Kelly - Michel Foucault’s Political Thought
@ Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy
The work of twentieth-century French philosopher Michel
Foucault has increasingly influenced the study of politics. This influence has
mainly been via concepts he developed in particular historical studies that
have been taken up as analytical tools; “governmentality” and ”biopower” are
the most prominent of these. More broadly, Foucault developed a radical new
conception of social power as forming strategies embodying intentions of their own,
above those of individuals engaged in them; individuals for Foucault are as
much products of as participants in games of power.
The question of Foucault’s overall political stance
remains hotly contested. Scholars disagree both on the level of consistency of
his position over his career, and the particular position he could be said to
have taken at any particular time. This dispute is common both to scholars
critical of Foucault and to those who are sympathetic to his thought.
What can be generally agreed about Foucault is that he
had a radically new approach to political questions, and that novel accounts of
power and subjectivity were at its heart. Critics dispute not so much the
novelty of his views as their coherence. Some critics see Foucault as effectively
belonging to the political right because of his rejection of traditional
left-liberal conceptions of freedom and justice. Some of his defenders, by
contrast, argue for compatibility between Foucault and liberalism. Other
defenders see him either as a left-wing revolutionary thinker, or as going
beyond traditional political categories.
To summarize Foucault’s thought from an objective point
of view, his political works would all seem to have two things in common: (1)
an historical perspective, studying social phenomena in historical contexts,
focusing on the way they have changed throughout history; (2) a discursive
methodology, with the study of texts, particularly academic texts, being the
raw material for his inquiries. As such the general political import of
Foucault’s thought across its various turns is to understand how the historical
formation of discourses have shaped the political thinking and political
institutions we have today.
Foucault’s thought was overtly political during one
phase of his career, coinciding exactly with the decade of the 1970s, and
corresponding to a methodology he designated “genealogy”. It is during this
period that, alongside the study of discourses, he analysed power as such in
its historical permutations. Most of this article is devoted to this period of
Foucault’s work. Prior to this, during the 1960s, the political content of his
thought was relatively muted, and the political implications of that thought
are contested. So, this article is divided into thematic sections arranged in
order of the chronology of their appearance in Foucault’s thought.
Table of Contents
•
Foucault’s Early Marxism
•
Archaeology
•
Genealogy
•
Discipline
•
Sexuality
•
Power
•
Biopower
•
Governmentality
•
Ethics
•
References and Further Reading
Primary
Secondary
.
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