This collection offers a critical look at the influential work of Michel Foucault, who was definitely a major figure in French social theory and philosophy alongside thinkers like Althusser, Barthes, Derrida, Deleuze, and Lacan. When this book was first planned, Foucault was still alive and very much at the height of his powers, but it sadly became a testament to a completed life's work when he passed away. However, as the sources suggest, Foucault's influence was far from over and continued to inspire considerable discussion and assessment across various fields in the 1980s and beyond. The essays in this collection originally appeared in the journal _Economy and Society_ and represent a critical engagement with Foucault's work within a specific area of social inquiry. They are presented as standing on their own, but Mike Gane's introduction helps set the stage by offering a helpful overview of Foucault's writings, providing a short biographical note, and surveying how his work has been received elsewhere. This helps readers get a coherent basis for understanding the arguments that follow and draw some initial conclusions about the nature and value of Foucault's project. **Foucault's Diverse and Interconnected Projects** One of the striking things about Foucault's work is its enormous scope, attracting attention from anthropologists, historians, sociologists, social administrators, philosophers, literary theorists, and more. He explored a vast array of topics! The sources tell us he undertook major investigations into subjects like madness, illness, criminality, and sexuality. He also had projects focused on the history of government and developed coherent considerations of literature and art alongside and even within these larger investigations. Interestingly, Foucault saw these diverse projects as parts of a single, unified enterprise. For instance, his early book _Mental Illness and Personality_ (later reworked as _Mental Illness and Psychology_) clearly connected with his main doctoral thesis, _Madness and Civilization_. Even some essays tackling literary themes, like the book on Raymond Roussel, written in the years 1962-7, were seen as complementing his study of madness. Later, he embarked on a massive project concerning the history of sexual morality, which he conceived as 'the genealogy of desire as an ethical problem'. Looking back, Foucault related that in his studies of madness, illness, criminality, or sexuality, he saw a complex three-fold interlacing, not just a simple link between knowledge and institution (like reason and the asylum, or health and hospital). He analyzed the genesis of thought as the possibility for experiences, examining how specific knowledge of 'mental illness' was formed, how a normative system of technical, administrative, juridical, and medical apparatuses was organized to isolate and take custody of the insane, and how a relation to oneself and others as subjects of madness was defined. This highlights his view that his various projects were indeed connected and aimed at understanding similar processes across different domains. **Methodological Adventures: Archaeology, Genealogy, and Critique** Foucault was always reflecting on his methods. While _Madness and Civilization_ is subtitled 'a history,' books like _Birth of the Clinic_ and _The Order of Things_ are called 'archaeologies'. Then, his final works, the volumes of the _History of Sexuality_, return to being 'History'. This shift in terminology isn't just for fun; it signals different methodological emphases. He himself noted that the history of the deployment of sexuality since the classical age could serve as an archaeology of psychoanalysis. He stressed that archaeology and genealogy formed one side of his methodological discussion, focusing on the formation of discourses, while the other side, the critical side, concerned the consideration of the regulation of discourses. A key aspect of Foucault's approach was his commitment to an extremely anti-humanist and anti-structuralist path. He explicitly and consistently aimed to attack and oppose descriptive histories or explanations based on the simple or complex intentions and choices of individual subjects. His interest in Nietzsche seems to have been a great inspiration for this. He argued that historical contextualization needed to be more than simply relativizing the phenomenological subject; one had to do away with the 'constituent subject' to analyze how the subject is constituted _within_ the historical texture. This is a challenging idea – imagine thinking about history and society without starting from the assumption of a pre-existing, conscious individual calling the shots! Furthermore, Foucault's critical method didn't lead to a simple rationalism. At times, he suggested that the essential political problem for the intellectual isn't criticizing ideological content or ensuring their scientific practice has the 'correct' ideology, but rather figuring out a 'new politics of truth'. This shifts the focus from simply identifying 'true' or 'false' ideas to understanding how certain ideas become accepted as 'truth' and how that process is entangled with power. **Initial Reception and Criticisms** Foucault's work has been placed under various labels, from 'structuralist' and 'neo-structuralist' to 'post-structuralist,' as well as neo-eclectic, neo-positivist, empiricist, Spinozist, relativist, or phenomenological. Some commentators have seen his work as valuable because it successfully bridges traditional divides, such as between structural and phenomenological approaches, structural and historical analyses, or even Marxist and critical theory. The sources note the widespread effort to explore the implications of his thought, often to clarify perceived limitations in political thought on both the left and the right. However, not all reception has been positive. A "strongly emerging point of view" represented in the collection by Peter Dews' essay and by Perry Anderson suggests Foucault's work has had a mainly "pernicious influence" on Marxism. Anderson, for example, characterized Foucault's early phase as 'technocratic functionalism' and a later phase in the 1970s as belonging to the 'neo-anarchist current'. He even accused Foucault of a cavalier attitude towards historical evidence, linking it to a desire to abolish absolute truth, seeing it as a 'normal and natural licence in a play of signification beyond truth and falsehood'. The editor of the volume finds this comment 'woefully distant' from Foucault's writing. Despite these criticisms, Foucault clearly had a profound impact on contemporary Marxism, with writers attempting to rewrite basic Marxist theoretical propositions in Foucauldian terms. The essays by Minson and Wickham in the collection are presented as belonging to this tendency, exploring the issues at stake in such a project, even though it wasn't explicitly identified by Foucault himself. One recurring theme in the critiques discussed is the problem of historical causation. While Foucault's important works present historical stages and reveal breaks and transitions, he shows little interest in explaining the _causes_ of these transitions. This has led to charges that, unable to explain mutations, he resorted to celebrating the role of chance and inserting 'methodological principles into an ontology' like a 'panurgic will to power,' without specifying who holds this power or its goals. This is seen by some as stemming from the Nietzsche-Saussure inspiration, which provides no way to think about the causation of structural historical processes. However, the sources also caution against simply reducing Foucault to Nietzsche or Saussure, noting Foucault's own clarification in _The Archaeology of Knowledge_ that his object of analysis is the 'archive,' the 'density of discursive practices,' which don't just accumulate randomly. While Foucault steps back from the science/ideology dichotomy, it's argued this is to rethink truth's production mode, not avoid evidence. Nevertheless, the problem of historical causation remains, as without specifying the social totality, Foucault is seen as left only with a principle of immanence where techniques of knowledge and strategies of power lack exteriority. Another issue raised concerns the consequences for strategic conceptions. Because Foucault focuses on discontinuities but steps back from etiological analysis, this has serious implications for any strategic ideas he might develop in his practical interventions. There's seen to be a vast gulf between his cultural projects and what this might mean for political strategy. The collection also touches upon characterizations of Foucault as a 'pessimistic nihilist,' though this is noted as potentially an idiosyncratic viewpoint. The source suggests this arises where Foucault refuses to establish a consistent alternative position for his critique, whether an epistemological base, an optimistic vision of a new social order, or a conception of the relation between the two, as found in orthodox Marxism. A review of this characterization suggests it misconstrues Foucault's strategy, especially concerning philosophy, and notes that Foucault's claims about the damage done in socialist politics by visions of new orders that turn out to be negatives of old ones might be persuasive. **Key Essays in the Collection** The essays in _Towards a Critique of Foucault_ reflect general tendencies in the reception of Foucault's work, particularly the strong interest in his engagement with Marxism and politics. They aim both to present his work as a significant theoretical contribution and to engage critically with it. They also consider how Foucault is read elsewhere, including in France and Australia. Let's take a quick look at the focus of some of the chapters mentioned: - **Michael Donnelly's essay (Chapter 2):** This chapter aims to explain Foucault's turn to history, or genealogy, in his investigations of the human sciences. It asks what his critical intent is, how his genealogies of the human sciences can be seen as 'writing the history of the present,' and how he moves from histories of the human sciences (like the birth of the prison in the early 19th century) to describing contemporary 'disciplinary society'. Donnelly specifically examines Foucault's genealogical method as applied in _Discipline and Punish_. He points out apparent difficulties, especially regarding Foucault's claim to have made a decisive break with conventional historical method, evaluating its effectiveness against basic historical issues like analyzing the causes, diffusion, and functions of social phenomena. Donnelly explores the central theme of power and knowledge forming a complex, 'pouvoir-savoir,' which the human sciences helped constitute. He notes that for Foucault, historical objects, including 'human nature' or the knowing subject, have no essence but are constructed from diverse elements. This leads to the idea that concepts like 'madness' and 'reason' are historically contingent constructions. The term 'genealogy' is linked to Nietzsche and seen as a 'gray, meticulous, and patiently documentary' historical reconstruction, but also as criticism enhanced with polemics. Donnelly discusses the difficulties in Foucault's concept of 'disciplinary society,' questioning how disparate disciplinary mechanisms are coordinated to produce a uniform pattern and how they take on a 'class' character. He also asks how, if the prison is used tactically in social struggles, the effects of tactics are calculated, noting Foucault has sidestepped this question. Ultimately, Donnelly's analysis implies that while the notion of 'power-knowledge' is significant and has led to important new conceptions and serviceable insights in areas like penology, Foucault is least successful where he is most ambitious, such as establishing the connection between the genealogy of the human sciences and an analysis of power-knowledge in contemporary mechanisms of discipline. - **Beverley Brown and Mark Cousins' essay (Chapter 3):** This chapter focuses on what they call the 'linguistic fault' in Foucault's archaeology, particularly in _The Archaeology of Knowledge_. They see this book as a challenge to traditional analysis of knowledge in the human sciences, arguing against reducing knowledge to expressions of social relations or the human subject. Foucault sought to define a specific realm of 'discursive formations' with a material character, proposing archaeology as a method to analyze them by identifying regularities of 'statements'. Brown and Cousins investigate Foucault's claim that his critique of linguistics broke with the traditional centrality of the communicating individual subject, suggesting this claim can be contested. Their in-depth focus on the concept of the 'statement' in _The Archaeology of Knowledge_ leads them to argue that Foucault's definition remains crucially ambiguous in relation to linguistics and 'language'. They maintain that the text fails to clearly identify and stabilize discursive practices as definite discursive formations, pointing to oscillations in the conception of 'conditions of existence' and the link between discursive formations and institutions or other social practices. The chapter suggests these issues mean Foucault ultimately falls back onto traditional concepts he tried to move beyond. - **Peter Dews' essay:** This piece examines how Foucault's work, especially _The Archaeology of Knowledge_ and _Discipline and Punish_, has been read by the French 'new right' philosophers like Glucksmann and Levy. Dews shows that while Foucault cannot be unequivocally interpreted as a 'new right' thinker, these philosophers believed they found valuable resources and a 'fellow spirit' in his work. Dews argues that Foucault's position, which suggests theoretical analysis of spontaneous resistance can align with the repressive order it opposes, makes a serious connection between Foucault and Marxism unlikely. The essay also provides context for Foucault's writing after 1970 and the ambiguities of his positions within the new political climate. The source details how thinkers like Glucksmann draw comparisons between Foucault's description of the 17th-century 'Great Confinement' and the Soviet Gulag, seeing reason as an instrument of oppression. This is seen as a distortion, as Foucault's concern was with the 'moment of partition' that constitutes reason and madness, linked not just to thought but to economic factors. Dews highlights how the Nouvelle Philosophie utilizes Foucault's genealogies while retaining a philosophical concept of reason that Foucault, following Nietzsche, sought to demolish. The 'new right' perspective is characterized as reversing the Hegelian principle of reason towards self-transparency, seeing this goal as a nightmare countered by obscurity or blind rebellion, while Foucault sees no such total closure in discourse. - **Jeff Minson (Chapter 5) and Gary Wickham (Chapter 6) essays:** These represent the excitement Foucault's work generated among the socialist left. Minson focuses on Foucault's concept of 'strategy' in _The Archaeology of Knowledge_, _Discipline and Punish_, and _History of Sexuality_, aiming to refine it for radical socialist potential. Wickham, drawing significantly on Foucault's interviews, attempts to build a framework for analyzing power that could complement Minson's project, while trying to avoid issues arising from an uncritical 'use' of Foucault's ideas. Minson's chapter aims to show that Foucault's work, despite flaws, presents inescapable challenges for socialist theories and politics, offering possibilities for rethinking struggles and socialist objectives in a non-utopian way, particularly concerning 'the social' domain and the construction of individuality. He argues that the 'positive' aspects of Foucault can be detached from the problematic idea that politics is reduced to domination, citing a bifurcation in Foucault's approach. **Delving Deeper into Concepts and Critiques from the Essays** Several core Foucauldian concepts are discussed and critiqued throughout these chapters. **Pouvoir-Savoir (Power-Knowledge):** This is a central notion in Foucault's genealogies of the human sciences. It directs his inquiries and helps him construct arguments about the emergence of human sciences and new political technologies focused on the individual. The sources note it has led to new conceptions of knowledge, power, and their connections, proving useful in analyzing modern penal practices. However, the sources also highlight issues. Donnelly notes that where Foucault is most ambitious regarding pouvoir-savoir and new technologies of power, he is least successful. The notion of 'disciplinary' or 'carceral society' remains more evocative than demonstrable. There's a risk that Foucault's use of slogans might reduce the force of his historical research. Minson explains that the concept of pouvoir-savoir challenges Marxist political analysis in two ways: it counters the idea of ideology being opposed to science and opposed to force. Foucault's view is that power operates through mechanisms that produce definite mental effects while remaining physical, like the Panopticon. The prisoners' own minds and knowledge are crucial to their subjection, without needing 'make-believe' or ideology. A fundamental prerequisite for understanding power, in Foucault's view, is that power must be constitutive of the subjectivity of the agents it relates to. It doesn't just subject individuals; it also 'subjectifies' them. Pouvoir-savoir achieves this because subjectivities are constituted and made instrumental to power through the discourses 'immanent' to that form of power. Different forms of power produce different kinds of individuals. This leads to the idea of a 'reversal of the political axis of individualization,' where under sovereign power, individualization was for the famous few (memorable man), while under discipline, it 'lowered the threshold of describable individuality' and made description a control mechanism, making everyone a 'calculable individual' subject to normalization. Minson points out that Foucault's approach differs by not appealing to a pre-existing human ethical subjectivity threatened by discipline. Discipline doesn't just repress differences; it produces them as supports. **Strategy:** The term 'strategy' is central, especially in Minson's discussion. Foucault sees technologies of power functioning within particular strategies. He gives the example of the 'bourgeois strategy' inventing new technologies of power to irrigate the whole social body and establish hegemony. However, problems are identified with Foucault's conception of strategy. Wickham argues that Foucault's treatment reinforces essentialist tendencies, forcing us to see power relations as completely unified, for instance, unified around the category 'bourgeoisie'. Minson also raises questions about Foucault's strategy concept, asking how it can be simultaneously intentional and non-subjective, and how, if strategies are conditioned by tactics, the global character of a strategy is merely an effect and resistance might always be confined to resistance 'immanent' to the strategy. Wickham suggests that in the framework _he_ is arguing for (a non-essentialist one), the notion of strategy should not have a unifying function but be limited to the operation of specific policies in specific sites. Foucault also argues that strategies don't have subjects, being formed around subject-less objectives. **The Subject and Subjectification:** Foucault sees power as constitutively linked to the formation of subjects. Subjectification ('assujettissement') has the twofold significance of issuing in subjection while also undertaking the work of making subjects. This occurs through the medium of discourses immanent to the form of power. The individual produced by discipline is calculable and subject to normalization. The 'human soul' or personality is constituted by power relations where knowledge is central. Internalizing this knowledge produces the individual as a 'subject' for power strategies; subjectification is preliminary to subjection. Critically, Minson points out that Foucault's approach, while effective in showing the subject as a product of normalization techniques, collapses various forms of individuality into the problem of the formation-cum-regulation of 'the subject'. This leads to identifying subjectivity-in-general with the object, target, instrument, and effect of discipline. The contrast between memorable (Absolutist) and calculable (disciplinary) individuality doesn't necessarily coincide with these periods. Wickham criticizes Foucault's treatment of subject formation as too general and too negative. There's no general process of normalization, but subjects are produced or repeated in specific sites. Suggesting subjects are produced _in subjugation_ promotes the negative view of power Foucault aimed to avoid. Wickham argues the concept of 'subject' itself should be abandoned due to its negativity (subjects always subjected) and its implication that subjection works on pre-existing entities (like individuals) rather than producing these categories. Minson offers an alternative view, suggesting that the constitution of subjects through power relations is better understood as the construction of 'personal' categories like 'human person, child, mother, father, sexual identities'. These are limited and non-given, not pre-existing individuals outside the power process. **Location of Power:** Foucault states power is not localized in definite elements like the state but is 'everywhere' and 'always-already there'; one is never 'outside' it. He suggests studying power at the point where it is in direct relation with its 'target' or 'field of application,' which he identifies as the micro-levels or 'smallest elements' of the social body. These micro-mechanisms, with their own histories and techniques, are then 'invested, colonised, involuted, transformed, displaced, extended' by more general mechanisms and global domination forms. Wickham praises Foucault's work for helping to shift the understanding of 'the social' from a totality governed by a unifying principle to a dispersed plurality of practices without a constant center. This allows understanding 'the social' as a shifting category. Specific intersections of practices around operational policies are seen as constituting 'the social' in particular sites, rather than the other way around. However, Wickham strongly disagrees with Foucault's idea that micro sites are incorporated into global sites. This formulation, he argues, suggests global sites exist as essences, even if formed from the bottom up. To avoid essentialism, this formulation must be rejected. Larger or more global sites should be understood as specific intersections of practices around specific operational policies, not as essences. For example, the state isn't a unified essence but a category used to represent specific practices (government, bureaucratic, etc.) as a grouping in certain sites. It doesn't exist 'above' smaller sites and incorporate them but reproduces or repeats them within its boundaries using specific techniques. **Nature of Power:** Foucault sees power, particularly in the modern period, as taking a main form: discipline. This disciplinary power accesses individuals' bodies, acts, attitudes, and behavior, enabling the administration and control of populations. It operates from micro-levels to global forms. Wickham criticizes this as too encompassing, falsely unified (an essence), and too negative (concerned with control/repression). He questions Foucault's use of military analogies for power, arguing power relations differ from military ones. The critique of Foucault's notion of power includes the argument that it entails a 'relational totality' where relations are essentially ones of domination, confining analysis to means of subjection and excluding other possibilities. This is linked to the Nietzschean concept of a will-to-knowledge. Minson discusses how Foucault's concept of pouvoir-savoir is problematic because it involves a relational totality where relations are primarily relations of domination. This means political analysis is limited to identifying means of subjection, and other forms of relating are excluded. **Resistance:** Foucault argues that there is no power relation without correlated resistance. Every advance of power produces 'resistances' as an inevitable counter-effect, although these resistances are as minute and dispersed as the power relations themselves. He later adopts the notion of the 'plebs' from Glucksmann, interpreting it not as a sociological reality but as an 'inverse energy,' a 'centrifugal movement' that 'replies to each advance of power by a movement of disengagement'. For Foucault, "there is 'plebs'" – something in the social body that escapes relations of power. He suggests resistance must be analyzed in 'tactical and strategic terms,' with each offensive leading to a counteroffensive. However, critiques highlight problems here. Wickham argues that Foucault's view of resistance is essentialist, seeing it as part of a 'plebian quality' everywhere and as formed against a unified power. He also notes that Foucault suggests resistance is only truly effective at the global level, when smaller sites are incorporated into a larger strategy. This leads to portraying resistance as totally determined by a unified power, with Minson summarizing Foucault as saying power 'produces, fixes in place and manages' resistances, making them 'supports' as well as 'targets'. The idea of the plebs is also seen as incoherent because Foucault describes it as an irreducible limit but also suggests it can be 'reduced' by subjection, utilization, or by fixing itself into a strategy of resistance. This desire to avoid naturalism while denying power is coextensive with the real is seen as leading toward the Nouvelle Philosophie's idea of a pure rebellion neutralized by setting positive goals. **Proposed Alternative Framework (Drawing from Wickham & Minson):** Based on the critiques, particularly in Wickham's chapter, an alternative framework for power analysis begins to emerge, focusing on being non-essentialist. This framework views power relations as existing in specific sites, not as part of a global, unified essence. The 'social' is understood as specific intersections of practices around specific operational policies, not as a fixed totality. Power analysis focuses on specific sites as intersections of practices around specific operational policies. Power is multi-form, not reducible to a single essence like 'discipline' or the economy. Agents operating in power relations (persons, groups, institutions) are produced or repeated within these specific sites; they don't exist in a unified, essentialist form before entering power relations. Agents are not 'subjects' subjected to a force, as power doesn't operate through a unified force. Instead, the constitution of agents can be seen as the construction of specific, non-given 'personal' categories. Resistance exists and operates in specific sites formed by intersections of practices and is not determined by any essence. The relationship between smaller and larger/global sites (whether of power or resistance) is not one of incorporation or determination, but rather where larger sites use specific techniques to reproduce or repeat smaller sites within their boundaries. This framework suggests abandoning the notion of 'struggle' as a grand war and redefining concepts like democracy and socialism in relation to specific settings. Ultimately, this proposed framework is presented not as a new definitive 'house' of power analysis but as part of an ongoing transformation of the process itself. **Further Thoughts and Questions to Explore:** Reading these critiques and alternative proposals might spark some fascinating questions for your own exploration: - How does Foucault's rejection of a 'constituent subject' change the way we think about responsibility and agency in history and society? If the subject is constituted _within_ historical processes, does that lessen individual blame or credit? - Can we truly analyze historical transitions and social change without addressing causation? What are the benefits and drawbacks of Foucault's focus on rupture and discontinuity over causal explanations? - The debate over whether Foucault's work is essentialist or not seems central here. How can we identify a truly 'non-essentialist' analysis, and what are the risks of trying to unify disparate social phenomena, even under terms like 'strategy' or 'power'? - If 'the social' is a shifting category defined by intersections of practices and policies, how does this impact traditional sociological or political analyses that rely on more stable concepts of society or the state? - How does the idea that resistance might be 'managed' or even function as a 'support' for power challenge conventional ideas about political opposition and liberation? Does this perspective risk discouraging attempts at organized resistance? - The sources mention Foucault's connection to Nietzsche. How does a Nietzschean perspective on power, will, and genealogy shape Foucault's analysis, and what are the strengths and weaknesses of this influence? - How might the concept of pouvoir-savoir be applied to understand contemporary phenomena, such as the power dynamics in digital spaces, social media, or data collection?