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 Philosopher
of the Month
May
2001 - Foucault
Chris
Bates
Michel
Foucault marked out new boundaries for a French philosophical tradition
moving away from Sartre and structuralism into post-modernism. His
writing synthesised history, psychology and philosophy into 'archaeologies'
of the human subject that examined the impact of concepts upon the
world rather than their origin and meaning. Drawing on Nietzsche,
Foucault considered the interaction of power, knowledge and the
subject.
Folie
Philosophers
have long studied the individual, the subject and the mind to uncover
the meaning of 'self'. This discourse, building through Descartes'
cogito through Kant, Hegel and Freud to structuralism and
linguistics was, for Foucault, a pointless philosophical quest.
The use of the concept of 'self' and 'the individual' was far more
important.
Foucault
took the issue of reason and madness to explore how the language
of reason developed to control the concept of 'madness' and use
it to re-define reason. Foucault saw reason as oppressive, not liberating
as Descartes and the positivists suggested. In Madness and Civilisation
(1960) he examined the 'great incarceration' of the insane into
asylums in 17th and 18th century France and England. This was physical
and moral incarceration, a stigmatisation of madness to replace
the old stigma of leprosy. The madhouse isolated unreason, substituting
'for the free terror of madness the stifling anguish of responsibility'.
This
systemisation and categorisation of madness as social failure led
to the asylum becoming a tool of accusation, judgement and condemnation.
Madness became the antithesis of reason, and the dialogue of reason
and unreason - as with the fool in King Lear - was ended. Reason
had triumphed at the expense of the unusual, the non-conformist
and, ultimately, what was truly individual.
Surveiller
Foucault
expanded this theme of incarceration in Discipline and Punish:
the birth of the prison (1975). Building on the archaeology
of the asylum he examined how the institution of the prison based
on control of the mind had replaced torture of the body as punishment
using an 18th century execution and Bentham's panopticon prison
as contrasts. In the panopticon prison the all-seeing warder would
sit in darkness observing the inmates without their knowing. Eventually,
the degree of control would be such that the watchtower would need
no occupant as the inmates would behave as if under constant surveillance
and discipline themselves. For Foucault, this mind control reflected
the idea that knowledge is power and can be used to dehumanise the
individual. The torture and physical punishment of the past may
have been brutal, but was also brief, infrequent, and preferable.
The
prison represented the modern way of control through regulation,
be it the panopticon, religion, society itself, or Freud's idea
of the all-knowing super-ego. Knowledge becomes a means of regulation
and control seen in all institutions of incarceration, be they asylums,
prisons, hospitals, barracks or schools. Modern society was where
surveillance (an aggressive observation) was commonplace, exercised
by police, psychiatrists, teachers, doctors, social workers and
so on. Foucault saw this categorisation of the individual as dangerous
and to be resisted. In The History of Sexuality he would
explore these themes in one area of human activity.
Sexualite
In
his sexuality archaeology, Foucault pursued his theme that concerns
for the mind superseded those for the body. He saw a shift from
the Middle Ages when sex was a bodily concern, to the modern age,
when the intention behind sex became the major concern. Freudian
psychology refined this approach and sex became an object for categorisation,
control and direction. This 'subjectification' affected the individuals
'self formation' by appearing to be the key to understanding human
nature. In effect, we may feel free to talk about sex but what we
are doing is demanded by society, negating our actual freedom and
exposing us to surveillance and supervision.
Foucault
saw the search for reason and truth as self-deluding. In sex, as
with crime and madness, new concepts and theories have given us
no more control over our destiny. All we have done is change the
nature of our imprisonment, binding us with more elaborate and subtle
controls - the velvet straitjacket. The key instrument of oppression
has been the state.
L'Etat
Foucault
saw the state as a peculiar advance and corruption of society and
the individual. The state was not liberating, using 'bio-power'
to exert control over it's population. Through categorising and
normalising individuals, the state can produce a totalising web
of control. In effect, we live in the shadow of the state, and are
forever caught in it's spotlight.
Foucault
sought liberation from these 'totalising procedures' of the anonymous
state. In an age of computerisation, classification and technological
surveillance the individual appears increasingly powerless and de-humanised.
Foucault's powerful image of the individual being erased 'like a
face drawn in the sand at the edge of the sea' by this process retains
great poignancy.
Suggested
reading
The Foucault Reader, Ed. Rabinow (Penguin)
Foucault for Beginners (Icon books)
A
new philosopher of the month will be featured from June 1st 2001
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