Power: Essential Works of Foucault 1954–84

In “Truth and Juridical Forms” (Foucault 2020, 52-58), contemporary philosopher Michelle Foucault discusses nineteenth-century penal law, stating that (western civilization) penal systems were transformed in the early 1800s.

The question that arises in this domain is why Foucault does not consider imprisonment to encompass a) the provocation of shame and humiliation, b) retaliation (particularly in considering the death penalty and incarceration in itself), and c) forced labour?

Poststructuralism

Several poststructuralists of the 1960s and 1970s, including Michel Foucault (1926-84) and Jean-François Lyotard (1924-98), politicised and radically challenged 'structuralism'. These poststructuralists claimed that everything we do is semiotic (mediated by cultural signs). "All we see, think and know is mediated by signs, language (hence culture)" (Cahoone 2014).

Semiotic constructions that 'suppress or ignore differences and complexities'.

Further research

The distinction between reality and appearance.

Foucaultian definitions of eighteenth-century penal ‘theories and systems’, the four types of 'punishment', and the transformation of codes and systems from the 1820s to 1860s.

"The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge" (Lyotard 1979).

In Lyotard, "language games" refer to "any social context in which language is used". Note that Foucault discusses "language games" as power plays in which knowledge is used as a political weapon and is utilised or leveraged, not as a tool of learning or attainment of higher understanding for cultural, community or social benefit, but as a tool to assert power (1994, 1–16).

Keywords

Poststructuralism, Power, Politics, Lyotard, Philosophy, Power, Michel Foucault, Knowledge, Weapon, Weaponising knowledge

Bibliography

Cahoone, Lawrence. 2014. "Postmodernism, Truth, And Power". The Great Courses. Video of lecture, 32:00. https://rmit.kanopy.com/video/postmodernism-truth-and-power.

Foucault, Michel. Power: Essential Works of Foucault 1954–84: Volume Three. 3rd ed. Edited by James D. Faubion. Translated by Robert Hurley and others. Great Britain: Penguin Books, 2020.

Heroux, Erick. 2001. "Power. Vol. 3 Of The Essential Works of Foucault, 1954-1984". SubStance 30 (3): 143-150. doi:10.1353/sub.2001.0025.