What are Foucault view on discourse and power?

Discourse, as defined by Foucault, refers to: ways of constituting knowledge, together with the social practices, forms of subjectivity and power relations which inhere in such knowledges and relations between them. Discourses are more than ways of thinking and producing meaning.

What is Foucault known for?

Foucault was known for tracing the development of Western civilization, particularly in its attitudes towards sexuality, madness, illness, and knowledge. His late works insisted that forms of discourse and institutional practices are implicated in the exercise of power.

What is Enlightenment Foucault?

Foucault saw himself as perpetuating the principle whereby philosophers «enlighten» their present, which Kant introduced in his classic 1784 paper that defines Enlightenment as an emancipation from self-imposed «immaturity».

What is pastoral power Foucault?

Foucault (1982, p. 784) states that, in its contemporary form, pastoral power extends beyond the Church to encompass a whole range of actors, supported by ‘a multitude of institutions’, with the objective of worldly achievements such as health, wealth and wellbeing, rather than posthumous salvation.

What did Foucault write?

Michel Foucault began to attract wide notice as one of the most original and controversial thinkers of his day with the appearance of The Order of Things in 1966. His best-known works included Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison (1975) and The History of Sexuality, a multivolume history of Western sexuality.

What does Kant argue is essential to the Enlightenment?

Enlightenment is man’s emergence from his self-imposed nonage. Nonage is the inability to use one’s own understanding without another’s guidance. This nonage is self-imposed if its cause lies not in lack of understanding but in indecision and lack of courage to use one’s own mind without another’s guidance.

What is Enlightenment Kant Wiki?

In Kant’s essay “Answering the Question: What is Enlightenment?”, he defined the Enlightenment as an age shaped by the Latin motto Sapere aude (“Dare to be wise”). Kant maintained that one ought to think autonomously, free of the dictates of external authority.

What does Foucault mean by power?

According to Foucault’s understanding of power, power is based on knowledge and makes use of knowledge; on the other hand, power reproduces knowledge by shaping it in accordance with its anonymous intentions. Power (re-) creates its own fields of exercise through knowledge.

How does Foucault define power?

Foucault, Power and Knowledge. Foucault’s definition of power is simple enough: power is a power struggle. Note that the term “force” here is not written in the singular. Indeed, for Foucault the balance of power is combined always in the plural.

What did Foucault mean by ‘knowledge=power’?

Foucault’s theory states that knowledge is power: Knowledge linked to power, not only assumes the authority of ‘the truth’ but has the power to make itself true . All knowledge, once applied in the real world, has effects, and in that sense at least, ‘becomes true.’

What does Foucault say on discourse and power?

Foucault also exclaims “Discourse is about the production of knowledge through language”. From here the article shifts into the discussion about knowledge and power. Of course everyone has heard of the phrase “knowledge is power.” But Foucault continues by breaking down this quote.