Michel Foucault

Created: 2022-12-27
Status: #soil
Last Edited: 2022-12-27
Topic: people #people

# Who is Michel Foucault?

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Michel Foucault (1926–1984) was a French philosopher, historian of ideas, social theorist, philologist, and literary critic. He is best known for his critical studies of various social institutions. His work has had a lasting impact on the fields of sociology, critical theory, post-structuralism, and Postmodernism.

What are his most significant ideas?

Foucault's most significant contributions to social theory include his theories of power and knowledge, his concept of the 'gaze', and his notion of 'discursive formation'. He also developed the concept of bio-power and argued that power is not simply something that is imposed upon people from outside, but rather something that circulates throughout society.

He believed that knowledge is not neutral or objective, but rather shaped by power relationships. He argued that discourse can be used as both a form of control and resistance.

What are his most famous works?

Among Foucault’s best-known works are The Order of Things (1966), The Archaeology of Knowledge (1969), Discipline and Punish (1975), The History of Sexuality (1976–1984), and The Care of the Self (1984). He also wrote on a variety of topics including mental illness, prisons, medicine, war, torture, and literature.

He is widely considered to be one of the most influential thinkers of the 20th century.

Who are some of his most significant contemporaries?

Some of Foucault's contemporaries include:

Famous quotes with sources

  1. “People know what they do; frequently they know why they do what they do; but what they don’t know is what what they do does.” - The History of Sexuality

  2. “Where there is power, there is resistance.” - Discipline and Punish

  3. “We are prisoners of our own description.” - The Archaeology of Knowledge

  4. “Truth isn’t outside power, or lacking in power: contrary to a myth whose history and functions would have to be analyzed, truth isn’t the reward of free spirits, the child of protracted solitude, nor the privilege of those who have succeeded in liberating themselves. Truth is a thing of this world: it is produced only by virtue of multiple forms of constraint. And it induces regular effects of power. Each society has its regime of truth, its ‘general politics’ of truth: that is, the types of discourse which it accepts and makes function as true; the mechanisms and instances which enable one to distinguish true and false statements, the means by which each is sanctioned; the techniques and procedures accorded value in the acquisition of truth; the status of those who are charged with saying what counts as true.” - Power/Knowledge