Michel Foucault was one of the most influential philosophers of the twentieth century, particularly of its latter half. He laid the foundations of post-structuralism and post-modernism. His life was by no means ordinary. It was both turbulent and extreme. After a suicide attempt in 1948, he spent some time in a psychiatric institution because his father thought he was prone to self-harm; later in life, he became indulgent in what he called ‘limit experiences’. These limit experiences consisted of drug-use, especially then-popular ‘acid’ or ‘LSD’ and experimental sexual interactions with other gay men. The sexual indulgence proved to be a fatal limit-experience as he contracted AIDS, a disease thought to be common in the gay community in some places at the time. He died in 1987 but not before writing a new chapter in the theory of knowledge and structures of power and domination.
He was an exemplary philosopher of epistemology. At the risk of exaggeration, one can say that by exposing the archaeology and genealogy of their forms, he snatched grandeur of absoluteness from the modern knowledge, rationality and scientific discourse, and the structures of power they support . He is relevant today because the pretensions of reason and scientific knowledge continue to support modernist structures of domination and power. Governments throughout the world are assuming greater control over public behaviour using modern tools spawned by scientific knowledge. It is not surprising for a reader of Foucault’s genealogy; for in it, the evolution of the structures of domination and power to gigantic mechanisms controlling every aspect of public behaviour is a logical culmination. He is also relevant for a different reason: today, post-modernism is losing battle to the importance of reason in the post-truth era. A need has emerged to balance relativism with facts and scientific discourse as both, when taken to extreme, become tools for the acquisition and exercise of power.
Archaeology of Knowledge
Foucault essentially deals with two subjects: knowledge and power. Of the former, he attempts to create an epistemological archaeology; of the latter, he attempts to trace genealogy. The two are not separate. The archaeology of knowledge builds foundations for the genealogy of power, and the genealogy of power complements the archaeology, rendering finishing touches and completing the argument.
The influence of structuralist thinking is evident on the archaeology of knowledge: its basic assumption is that at any point in time, there are rules that structure and regulate knowledge. These rules determine what can be said within a discourse and what would be considered true. The archaeology of knowledge is a search for such rules. These rules govern how individual statements would be formed into discursive formulations. Thus, everything said is structured from the beginning, and an archaeologist of knowledge, like an archaeologist of the physical remains of the past, can find the foundations of the structure.
The primary method of the archaeology of knowledge is akin to textual analysis. But Foucault’s archaeology is different from hermeneutics -for it does not aim at getting a deeper understanding of a text. It is simpler, and prima facie, straightforward and mechanical. The Foucauldian method consists of text organisation, division, distribution, ordering, arrangement, series-establishment, distinguishing relevant from irrelevant. It is oriented towards micro rather than macro, since the focus is on statements and how they are governed by some rules. These statements become themes and discourses containing grand/larger meanings.
From statements to discourses, hidden rules govern what can be said and accepted. Thus, the disintegration and deconstruction of a text reveals the rules that form the criteria for truth and acceptability. The statements and discourses produced under the conditions set by these rules not only conform to these rules but also tend to justify them. For example, scientific discourse, the particular target of Foucault’s criticism, produces statements and discourses that are governed by the rules of scientific statements and discourses; it also tends to justify the scientific paradigm as the only true paradigm.
Foucault was particularly interested in discourses that set the rules for what is to be considered true. Scientific discourses including modern medicine and psychiatry are examples of such discourses. They were a target of Foucault’s criticism. He experienced the power and ‘abuse’ of medicine and psychiatry firsthand, noticing that such discourses rationalise and systematise themselves in relation to particular ways of saying the truth. If successful, they become influential and powerful, exercising domination over other discourses or the alternate ways of saying the truth; moreover, such discourses eventually become tools to curb the freedom of people.
Clearly, Foucault was against rules and discourses that set the conditions for veracity – for all such rules and discourses are mere pretensions, having no absolute value. They can be questioned, historicised ( using archaeology of knowledge and genealogy of power), and deconstructed. Nothing has universal validity. Foucault’s harsh tirade and strong position against anything claiming to hold universal value makes him a strong relativist.
One can ask an important question here: on what criteria does archaeology of knowledge evaluate a text in order to expose it? The simple answer to the question is that there are no such criteria. Foucault was careful to keep his archaeology of knowledge different from what it evaluates; that is, from the self-justifying discourses making claims of being truthful. It does not assume such absoluteness. The purpose is to deconstruct and expose a text in such a way that the rules conditioning it become visible. The purpose is not to justify or reject anything -for there is not truth against which something can be compared. Instead, the archaeology aims at rendering a text completely intelligible, divesting it of sanctity. At the end of the archaeological activity, a text or discourse becomes completely understandable, contextual and historical, losing its absoluteness in the process and becoming relative.
Madness and Civilisation
Archaeology of knowledge is Foucault’s primary activity in texts like Madness and Civilisation, and the Birth of the Clinic. In others, he is involved in genealogy of power. Focussing on psychiatry and medicine, these two texts show the change in epistemological standards, and the rules conditioning discourses.
In Madness and Civilisation, he covers the period between 1650-1800. The text explores the invention of the perspective that views madness as a problem or disease. During and before the Renaissance, the mad were not differentiated from the sane. Madness was not pathological. Before the revolutionary change brought about in the categories, madness was considered to have elements of sanity, and sanity could easily wander in moments of madness. There was no discrimination against the mad. In some cases, the mad were considered superior to the sane (as in ecstatic religious experiences). Throughout the world, many unconventional individuals (according to the modern lens) became saints, and were considered to be truly wise, having a heavenly connection. The modern perspective being absent, madness was nor a moral problem neither was it a disease of the body or brain.
Slowly madness came to be defined as a problem of the body and moral judgement followed. The psychiatric and psychological perspective developed and matured. This perspective defined and viewed madness as pathological. It drew a line between the mad and the rest, alienating the mad. It also added the element of guilt to madness – for now madness was pathological not only bodily but also morally. Consequently, the mad were forced to turn inwards under the burden of guilt.
According to Foucault, psychiatry prevailed because it had the myth of positivism to back it, and the zeitgeist of the Enlightenment supported the two. It should be noted that in exposing the psychiatric perspective of madness, Foucault also exposes the historicity and context of positivism (and modern Enlightenment rationality in general), unhinging the epistemological foundations of the scientific discourse. Scientific discourse/attitude maintains that everything must conform to the rules of positivism in order to be true. In this way, the scientific discourse tries to provide rules for ascertaining and validating the truth, and rationalises and validates itself in relation to the other ways of saying the truth. Psychiatry being a part of this discourse, standing (rather shakily) on the ground of positivism, also tries to rationalise and validate itself as the only way of saying the truth about madness. Foucault famously called psychiatry the ‘monologue of science about madness’. The mad, curbed under alienation and guilt, are given no right to participate in this discussion.
Psychiatry has also become a moral tactic in the hands of psychiatrists (the powerful and the society in general) against the mad. Foucault asserts that psychiatry is a moral enterprise overlaid by the myth of positivism; its purpose is not to help individuals suffering from some illness of body or mind through some universal principles -since there are no such principles- but to control individuals through this new ‘scientific/positivist’ morality.
Both psychiatry, and its child, the modern morality it is trying to impose on individuals, are historical phenomena. They have predecessors as well as successors. However, the myth of positivism, which makes psychiatry difficult to challenge also lends uniqueness to it.
Foucault did not think that the development of psychiatry was deliberately and consciously planned by the powerful or elite few. There was no conspiracy. It was outcome of historical processes in which individuals can take part but cannot assume control. Only in the later mature stages of their development the discourses which try to justify themselves as the truth with respect to alternative ways of saying the truth become tools for the exercise of power.
Psychiatry has dual control. Madness is not only judged externally by the psychiatrists (and ‘sane individuals’ and society) but also internally by the mad themselves. It has assumed internal control and power over the mad by imprisoning them within their minds. Damned by its moral judgement, the mad are overcome by the guilt of not being normal and functional, sentenced to gigantic moral imprisonment.
The Birth of Clinic
The Birth of Clinic is another text where Foucault performs archaeology of knowledge. Parts of the text also engage in the genealogy of power. The question before Foucault is the birth of medical clinic, as an institution, phenomenon and practise. This text is a continuation of the analysis of modern scientific discourse, particularly in the fields of psychiatry and medicine. Modern medicine and the clinic, the location of its practice, consists of rules that determine the speech and thought from the onset in such as way that every subsequent thing is already conditioned.
The text notices that the field of medicine has undergone revolutionary changes since the Renaissance. The changes have transformed the nature of medical science as discourse and profession. The birth of clinic has been the major revolution spearheading the transformations in the other aspects of the field. The field of medicine has changed from being a classificatory science (a study concerned with finding and labelling diseases in human body) to study of disease in human bodies through observation in the clinic. The scope of the field has also expanded, since it is no longer concerned with disease classification only but with diagnosis as well: the entire human society is the field of observation now.
The field of medicine has developed the normal-pathological stance towards people/society: inherent in it is a process of identification (diagnosis), categorisation, and discrimination (through diagnosis and treatment) against the people it defines as pathological against the ones it considers to be the normal. Moreover, since the site of observation is human body/society now, the field of medicine has gone from being the one based on study of medical documents and books to one grounded in monitoring the patients in a clinic from a normal-pathological stance.
This complex revolution simplified in the anatomo-clinical gaze, which carries all the conditions and injunction of the field of medicine. Gaze and observation are reoccuring themes in the works of Michel Foucault. He considers them to be important tools for the exercise of the power. The anatomo-clinical gaze carries the normal-pathological stance, constantly observing and classifying individuals and society into the categories of normal and pathological. The anatomo-clinical gaze also represents a change in the epistemological foundations of the medical knowledge. In the past, books were the source of knowledge and education for medical professional; the new source is the anatomo-clinical gaze, which means the professionals learn on the foundations of normal-pathological stance. A new language of the profession has developed.
Naturally, these changes had an impact on the nature of medical discourse, and the people subjected to medical profession. They were reduced to being objects. It should not be surprising that the number of diseases has increased, as has the number of pathological people against the normal, because of the diagnostic activity of the medical profession. This augmentation is the natural outcome of the anatomo-clinical gaze in action. Foucault observed that as the power of medical profession has increased, it has become a tool/source for the exercise of political power. Such politics he called ‘bio-politics’.
Genealogy of Power
In Foucault’s view, knowledge and power are inextricably linked and intertwined. Knowledge, in particular such knowledge which claims veracity, is the source of power. Owing to this link between knowledge and power, Foucault’s contextualising and deconstructive analysis and criticism begins with the archaeology of knowledge, but then moves on to genealogy of power: the difference between the two is that archaeology of knowledge explores the epistemological foundations and the changes in them governing knowledge production, and genealogy of power on the other hand traces how power actually develops through history through employment of knowledge. Genealogy of power attempts to contextualise history and its contents to trace trajectories of historical development. Therefore, after exposing the true and transient epistemological foundations of all knowledge through archaeology of knowledge, genealogy of power is the essential complementary second part in Foucault’s relativist project.
It was Nietzsche who first employed the genealogical method in his book The Genealogy of Christian Morality. Foucault borrowed the method from him. He used it to show the historicity and contingency of discourse and power. Contingency in this sense does not mean that a historical event is necessarily caused by the events on which it is contingent, as developments and trajectories can vary from their initial sources; it only means that historical trajectories do not move towards some ultimate good in Hegelian or Kantian sense. Historical trajectories, therefore, are not simply unfolding of their origins nor the necessary realisation of their ends. The unfolding of history is much more dynamic. Even the people who play active part in shaping it may not fully understand how it unfolds. But every future unfolds from the present and past being contingent on the causes/forces they produce. As employed by Foucault, genealogy analyses multiple trajectories and patterned relationships among them assuming that these trajectories are open-ended.
Genealogy of power exposes how knowledge is formed and used to exercise power over people. Everyone uses knowledge as a tool of power, be it people individuals, groups, professions or government institutions. Knowledge is power and power is everywhere. The micro instances of power become macro. Although Foucault maintains the role of micro powers in establishing macro power structures, his focus is essentially micro. His approach has been criticised for making criticism of power irrelevant and inconsequential through focus on micro and insisting on omnipresence of power. His critics maintain, to some extent accurately that, the exploitative power is governmental and institutional, and it cannot be equated with the power exercised through knowledge in small groups.
Since knowledge is the source of power and the instrument of its exercise, power is used to govern minds and bodies. It is because these sites are amenable to its influence. Through knowledge, power first assumes a stance on normal versus pathological, and then defines new rules and enforces them, governing minds and bodies. Such exercise of power often shapes the identities of people. People themselves act as enforcers of rules to govern their bodies and minds under the influence of such forces; little do they realise that they have become subjects exercising power not only on themselves but also on other subjects.
Knowledge also provides other tools for the exercise of power. The clinic and anatomo-clinical gaze are two examples. There are countless other examples as well. For example, in Discipline and Punish 1757-1830s, a text in which the genealogy of power is the primary concern of Foucault, prison is exposed as a technology for rationalised exercise of power. It took birth from the new rationalist spirit and the knowledge it spawned. The birth of clinic, normal-pathological stance, and anatomo-clinical gaze were related parallel developments.
On the surface, the substitution of prison for torture seems an introduction of a more humane way of treating criminals. However, it was an application of rationality to punish better while hiding the torture. Foucault says that torture was bad economy of power. The new system removed the criminals from the public eye by making them prisoners. In prisons, they came under constant observation. The prisoners develop the consciousness over time of being observed all the time. This sense of omnipresent observation at all times becomes permanent.
The prison system borrows the system of micro-powers from the rational military model. In military, discipline is maintained through innumerable points of confrontation and resistance. The first point of interaction or discipline is hierarchical observation. The hierarchy observes everything about and around itself. There is omni-present and unending observation. The discipline is also maintained through normalising judgements. In this, the prison system is also akin to the field of medicine where normal-pathological stance is used regularly to categorise and control people. The prisoners are conscious that not only they are being observed constantly but also being judged against a standard. In military as in prison system, there is the use of examination to test people on pre-determined standards, which ensures that people fall in line with expectations of the powerful. In this way, the modern prison system punishes the soul as well as the body of a prisoner.
Foucault foresaw the expansion of the prison-like observation to the rest of the society as knowledge extends the technological capacity to observe. The institutions of power today have the modern surveillance technology in their hands, which they regularly use to observe people. They also have influential ways of making normalising judgements. Moreover, there are numerous examination methods to test people according to pre-determined standards.
Panopticon
Panopticon is the perfect architecture or facility to keep prisoners in check. It has enabled the modern rationalised form of torture, that is, prison. A panopticon is a tower at the centre of a prison from which the controlling observers can conduct surveillance in all directions. However, Foucault maintains that since it is the prisoners who are always visible, not the controlling observers or invigilators, the prisoners are always conscious that they are being observed. Therefore, knowledge has not only produced more rational principles of punishing through torture of the soul, it has also helped in designing the architecture to apply these principles. The modern electronic devices (phones, computers and even TVs) have enabled the observation of people everywhere at all time. Resultantly, the entire population has developed a sense and consciousness of being observed. People, like prisoners, are learning to behave themselves according to the wishes of the powerful.
History of Sexuality
Among Foucault’s texts, his History of Sexuality can be categorised as essentially a text in genealogy of power. Sexuality, with the discourses related to it, and the control over it, is an important part of the exercise of power. Foucault sees the knowledge of sexuality as a tool through which the society (particularly in the West)exercises control over itself. Definitions of sexuality and the norms of normal-pathological are the starting point of such control. These definitions and norms also define and affect pleasure.
According to Foucault, there is a particular regime of power-knowledge-pleasure which shapes and sustains the discourse on sexuality in the west. He called on science to explore the relationship between sex and power, and how anatomo-politics of human body, bio-politics of population and life itself have become a political object.
He points out and criticises the field of medicine in his genealogy of power for its orientation and perspective towards the study of sexuality as well. He maintains that medicine brings its morality to the study of sexuality. Therefore, being laden with morality, medicine prevents the emergence of truth instead of finding and unveiling it. The truth about sexuality is hidden in its relationship with power.
Governmentalities
In genealogy of power, Foucault discusses the concept of governmentalities. Governmentalities consist of heterogeneous, non-subjective processes on which practices and techniques of governance have come to depend on, including the discursive representation of the field of intervention and operation. In somewhat simpler terms, it means the rationalities (including reasons, methods and justifications) and practices that make up the means of ruling people and exercising government over them. Government, therefore, in terms of Foucault, is conduct of conduct.