Foucault 's Society Of Discipline

Michel Foucault and Erving Goffman’s work was centralised around there two different concepts of how your identity is formed through the process of power and expert knowledge. This Essay will discuss the ideas of Michel Foucault who was a French Social Theorist. His theories addressed the relationship between power and knowledge and how both of these are used as a form of social control through society. The essay will look at Foucault’s work in The Body and Sexuality, Madness and Civilisation and Discipline and Punish which displays how he conceptualised Power and identity on a Marxist and macro basis of study. The Essay will also address the Ideas of Erving Goffman who was A Canadian Born Sociologist who’s key study was what

Foucault, From “What is an Author?” 1. In The Order of Things, Foucault analyzed discursive content in texts. a. Categories that are considered include “analysis of wealth,” “natural history,” and “political economy”. b.

Crime is inevitable in society, whether it be in traditional societies or in modern society. However, with an action, there are always has to be a consequence, however when breaking the law, the consequences are rather bad, and sometimes harsh. This is called punishment. Discipline is enforcing acceptable patterns of behaviour and teaching obedience. In an excerpt called Discipline and Punish, contemporary theorist Michael Foucault explains these two concepts. This paper will summarize the author’s main points; provide a comparison with a theorist previously lectured on in class, as well as a personal interpretation of Foucault’s arguments.

There are a few ways that Foucault’s conceptualization of bio-power and of disciplinary knowledge and practices may be evident in college settings. One example of bio-power in a college setting might be birth control and sex education at my university. Another example of bio-power in our colleges is a requirement of a health credit, such as basic health or physical education, in order to graduate. Like bio-power, disciplinary knowledge and practices are used in our university and other community colleges and universities as well. For example, when admissions offices obtain shot records is one instance. Although this isn’t used in my college, another instance is when a university requires students to attend religious services held by the school or receive a religion credit in order to graduate.

Although Foucault believes that people are not the authors of society, discourses are governed independently of anyone’s purpose (Learning Companion 2), the institutions he mentions help to keep order in society, although he is concerned about who can claim the authority of who has the power to rule how others should behave (Foucault cited by Silva, 2009, p319).

“Our society is not one of spectacle, but of surveillance; under the surface of images, one invests bodies in depth; behind the great abstraction of exchange, there continues the meticulous concrete training of useful forces; the circuits of communication are the supports of an accumulation and a centralization of knowledge; the play of signs defines the anchorages of power; it is not that the beautiful totality of the individual is amputated, repressed, altered by our social order, it is rather that the individual is carefully fabricated in it, according to a whole technique of forces and bodies. (pp.333-34)”

Hobbesian social control theory was a ideological invention that came about during the pre 1750s. The social control theory is a view that a person’s moral and political obligations are dependent upon a ‘contract’ or an agreement among that to form a society in which they live in. However, social contract theory is

Reading Foucault this year you become engaged in his philosophical exercises in self-transformation. Foucault also helps you to understand that the struggle for power in all human relations will never conclude. I also really appreciate how Foucault analyses the past to show us how we have been made docile. Docile bodies according to Foucault is subjected, used, transformed and improved. Discipline is a word Foucault uses that describes systems that are used to dominate docile bodies, in other words humans who are able to be controlled, basically all of us. How does the concept of controlling bodies through spatialization exist in other forms of trauma and violence?

Michel Foucault’s work within philosophy has made important impacts when it comes to understanding how power affects a capitalist state. Believed that history of a country should how the past created a better future for society but in most cases through history, that was not the case. One of the examples that Foucault uses is how the mentally ill were treated in the Renaissance compared to the 18th century. During the Renaissance period, the mental ill people were allowed to seen within society and were seen as useful and gave wisdom into their society rather than in the 18th century. People with mental illness were put away and see as a burden to society and seen as needed to being cured by sinister people. Another example that Foucault discuss

Foucault says that people cannot make formulated, definitive understandings about social knowledge and then write them down in journals as law. The motives of this knowledge, therefore. must be universal. For Foucault, this motive is power, but Foucault never says this directly. He says power is “a grid of intelligibility of the social order” (HIS 93) while knowledge is the same thing. Foucault says that it is in discourse that power and knowledge are joined together (HIS 100) Foucault also states, “Discourses are tactical elements or blocks operating in the field of force relations.” (HIS 101-102)

A Panopticon is a structure designed to where subjects can be observed from a central viewpoint, but cannot view each other. Why can the Central tower supervise the inmates while the inmates cannot supervise others? Simply because the central tower has the power, for the inmates to be able to observe each other in the same manner would either be inconsequential, or unjust. Foucault says that knowledge and power are deeply intertwined and that both can be used to produce the other via observation, or control. One of the issues that arise from having a society similar to the Panopticon is that not all of those who serve as a central tower can be regarded to as virtuous.

Both Foucault and Butler claim that sexuality is not what makes us who we are, that it is simply a social construct. In addition, they both believe that by submitting to the mechanisms of power and categorizing ourselves sexually, we are giving impetus to our own subjugation. While they hold similar beliefs in many ways, and much of Judith Butler's work is building upon work done by Michael Foucault, Judith Butler does diverge from Foucault's ideas. The reason Butler revises Foucault is that his concept of biopower leaves no room for resistance to power. For Foucault, a shift in the 17th century from a top-down monarchial model of power which focused on the individual gave way to a political technology for controlling entire populations.

Stability in terms of society can be defined as the state in which power is clear and defined, and the constituents abide to those in power. In modern day institutions, a certain amount of stability must exist or people would lack the motivation to get work done and would not respond to authority. To ensure motivation, employers will install cameras, or use other techniques to always keep an eye on their workers. If people are doing nothing wrong, there is no reason to have a problem with being watched. For this reason, it is not surprising that employers set their work station similar to a Panopticon, an institutional building that is step up with someone in the middle watching everyone, but the workers don’t know if they are being

Michel Foucault (birth name Paul-Michel Foucault) was born on October 15, 1926 in Politiers, France. Both his father and grandfather were working in the medical field and his mother was a major part of his education. The Foucault Society wrote that “Foucault emerged as a brilliant young thinker while studying philosophy with the distinguished Maurice Merleau-Ponty” (The Foucault Society). After getting his diploma in 1952 he held a teaching position at the universities of Uppsala, Warsaw, and Hamburg for teaching French. Throughout his life he publish many different books about multiple topics. One book is Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison which was published in 1975. After reading this work I can say that I agree with Foucault’s idea of organizing students because it could help the students who need it and will let the teachers have an easier time making a lesson plan. It is also a good idea because it will solve the problem of a disorganized classroom.

The process for a successful and productive Socratic Seminar begins weeks, or perhaps months before the actual occasion. Steps such as comparing and analyzing characters and themes, researching Ibo traditions, and truly evaluating the text were essential factors contributing to the overall success of the seminar. As modest as it may seem, this process created a multitude of obstacles and challenges; such as the difficult Ibo diction used, and the profound themes and morals found within the pages. These difficult but possible hurdles were crucial to being a successful spokesperson during the seminar. The key for a fruitful and smooth discussion