Although it is usually assumed that in Michel Foucault’s work biopolitics is a politics which has life for its object, a closer analysis of the courses he gave at the Collège de France on this topic, as well as of the other seminars and papers of this period, shows that he took a quite different direction, restricting it to the regulation of population. The aim of this article is to return to the origins of the concept and to confront the (...) issue of life as such. This implies four shifts with respect to Foucault’s theory: Politics is not only about the rules of the game of governing, but also about its stakes. More than the power over life, contemporary societies are characterized by the legitimacy they attach to life. Rather than a normalizing process, the intervention in lives is a production of inequalities. The politics of life, then, is not only a question of governmentality and technologies, but also of meaning and values. The discussion is grounded on a series of empirical investigations conducted in France and South Africa on how life and lives are treated in our world. (shrink)

Foucault rejette la dissociation entre savoir et pouvoir, il la renverse même en insistant sur leur interaction. On examine d'abord en quoi consiste la conception foucaldienne du pouvoir. On illustre ensuite les fluctuations du philosophe français concernant les rapports entre savoir et pouvoir. Puis on propose une relecture de "L'histoire de la sexualité" comme exemple privilégié de savoir-pouvoir, un savoir-pouvoir non seulement "du" sexe, mais aussi "de" sexe, c'est-à-dire "reflétant le point de vue particulier des hommes sur la sexualité, à (...) l'exclusion de celui des femmes. Cette perspective permet de remettre en cause la conception foucaldienne du pouvoir. (shrink)

This article provides a reading and analysis of Foucault’s 1973-4 lecture course Le pouvoir psychiatrique. It begins by situating the course within the wider context of Foucault’s work, notably in relation to Histoire de la folie and the move of the early 1970s to the conceptual tools of power and genealogy. It is argued that Le pouvoir psychiatrique is a rewriting of the last part of Histoire de la folie from the perspective of these new conceptual tools. Analysis then moves (...) to more thematic concerns, showing how this course enriches our understanding of Foucault’s work on the sources of power, the individual and the family, and the spaces of the disciplinary society. Particular focus is given to the role of the army, public health, the hospital, children, women and hospital architecture. The article concludes by showing how the themes of this course, while not worked up for publication themselves, point the way to concerns in Foucault’s later work, notably The History of Sexuality and collaborative work on urban medicine and habitat. (shrink)

Contemporary discussions about practical reason or practical rationality invoke four competing views which can be named as follows by reference to their historical models: Aristotelian, Hobbesian, Kantian and Nietzschean. The subject-matter of this article is a defence of the Kantian conception of practical rationality in the interpretation of discourse theory. At the heart, lies the justification and the application of the rules of discourse. An argument consisting of three parts is pre sented to justify the rules of discourse. The three (...) parts are as follows: a transcen dental-pragmatic argument; an argument which takes account of the maximisation of individual utility and an empirical premise about an interest in correctness. Within the framework of the problem of application, the article outlines a justification of human rights and of the basic institutions of the democratic constitutional state on the basis of discourse theory. (shrink)

En collaboration avec Marie-France Bazzo, Maka Kotto et plusieurs autres, voici un ouvrage qui traite de la liberté d’expression (que ce soit à propos du mot en n, ou de la pièce de théâtre SLAV), des débats sur le genre, ainsi que d’autres questions sociales fortement médiatisées qui ont provoqué un certain malaise dans la société.

The notion of natural kinds has been widely criticized in philosophy of science but also appears indispensable for philosophical engagement with classificatory practices. Rather than addressing this tension through a new definition of “natural kind”, this article suggests materiality as a substitute for naturalness in philosophical debates about scientific classification. It is argued that a theory of material kinds provides an alternative and more inclusive entry point for analyzing classificatory practices, which is specified through an account of “restricted malleability” of (...) materiality and further analyzed as (1) gradual, (2) multi-dimensional, (3) scalable, (4) interactive, and (5) purpose sensitive. (shrink)

Conservation biology is a branch of ecology devoted to conserving biodiversity. Because this discipline is based on the assumption that knowledge should guide actions, it endows experts with a power that should be questioned. The work of the French philosopher Michel Foucault can be seen as a relevant conceptual resource to think these aspects of conservation biology through. I critically analyse the relevance of the Foucauldian approach to conservation. I argue that Foucauldian arguments are deeply ambiguous, and therefore useless for (...) conservation purposes, unless they are supplemented with unsaid assumptions that are, depending on the case at hand, untenable, or at least at odds with basic assumptions underlying conservation biology. In any case, the prospects of using the Foucauldian approach for conservation purposes are deeply undermined. However, the Foucauldian reasoning contains some ideas that can be important and useful for conservation purposes, if they are duly clarified. (shrink)

This article explores the understanding of æsthetics in the work of Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe and Jean-Luc Nancy. It does so in relation to Hegel’s claim about art’s dissolution or passing at the end of the classical Greek age, as the world entered the modern Christian age. For the two French thinkers, their relation to Hegel (and to a large extent æsthetics generally) turns on the claim that art was, but is not. The article looks first at Nancy’s discussion of the young (...) girl carrying fruit, a figure used by Hegel to depict this scene in the history of spirit, then moves on to a rarely read but significant article by Lacoue-Labarthe, “The Unpresentable,” before some final thoughts. (shrink)

The way we experience, investigate and interact with reality changes drastically in the course of history. Do such changes occur gradually, or can we pinpoint radical turns, besides periods of relative stability? Building on Oswald Spengler, we zoom in on three styles in particular, namely Apollonian, Magian and Faustian thinking, guided by grounding ideas which can be summarised as follows: “Act in accordance with nature”, “Prepare yourself for the imminent dawn and “Existence equals will to power”. Finally, we reach the (...) present. How to characterise the new era we entered round the year 2000? (shrink)

De moderne filosofie lijdt aan muziekvergetelheid. Opvallend is echter dat filosofen, wanneer ze toch aandacht schenken aan muziek, hun aandacht bij voorkeur op één bepaald genre richten, namelijk de opera. Filosofen zoals Søren Kierkegaard en Friedrich Nietzsche lieten hun gedachten over Don Giovanni, Parsifal en Carmen gaan, terwijl omgekeerd de filosofie van Arthur Schopenhauer de opera heeft beïnvloed via Wagner. Diens werk lijkt zich op het snijpunt van het grensverkeer tussen moderne filosofie en moderne muziek te bevinden. Het was zijn (...) ambitie de menselijke existentie en de menselijke geschiedenis in één panoramisch oeuvre te vatten, vanaf het primordiale begin tot en met de dramatische finale die ophanden leek: een catastrofale apotheose die een geheel nieuwe toekomst mogelijk zou maken. Dat is althans de verhaallijn van zijn meesterwerk Der Ring des Nibelungen. Aan het slot van Götterdämmerung lijkt zich een algehele verwoesting te hebben voltrokken: ‘Everything is destroyed and there is an enigmatic kind of hovering over the scene of destruction’ (Badiou 2010, p. 106), een ambivalente stemming van hoop en destructie zette Wagner op muziek. Voor Wagner is dan ook een hoofdrol in deze studie weggelegd: voor zijn muziektheoretische geschriften (waarin hij over een ‘muziek van de toekomst’ filosofeerde), maar meer nog voor de muzikale totaalkunstwerken die hij daadwerkelijk componeerde. (shrink)

El presente trabajo se focaliza en las investigaciones de Michel Foucault sobre las discontinuidades relativas a la práctica de la confesión introducidas en el marco del monacato de los siglos IV y V. En este sentido, se intenta realizar un aporte que tienda a complementar las reflexiones del filósofo francés relacionadas con la conformación de la “voluntad de saber” en Occidente y en particular en torno al rol central que la confesión ocupa en ella. A partir del problema foucaultiano de (...) la “exclusión”, abordamos el modo en que la exomologesis — una forma no verbal de decir la verdad del individuo propia del cristianismo de los primeros siglos — deja de ser el medio fundamental de veridicción de sí mismo en el seno de la institución monástica. Así, nuestro análisis nos permitirá abordar aspectos centrales respecto de los cambios introducidos por el monacato en la configuración de las relaciones entre subjetividad y verdad en Occidente. (shrink)

The article raises the issue of ‘the right to be ill’, formulated by Tadeusz Kielanowski, a Polish physician and humanist. According to him, the right to health should be supplemented by the principle which would serve the protection of people with diseases or disabilities. One-sided interpretation of ‘the right to health’ may result in various forms of intolerance and discrimination. This paper presents what dangers Kielanowski recognized and explains why his approach was considered to be a novelty; what the idea (...) of ‘the right to be ill’ is, how the need for it is substantiated. This idea is considered in the context of human rights and it constitutes a starting point for the reflection on social phenomena connected with medicine. Taking into account the changes in medical ethics and culture which have taken place in the recent decades the question has been asked—is it worth talking about the right to be ill these days? Giving positive answers to this question, the spheres and issues that have been presented can be analyzed and assessed from the perspective of the right to be ill. (shrink)

A história intelectual do século XX tem sido escrita ao longo de um cenário que vê, na morte de Merleau-Ponty em 1961, a linha de divisória entre uma geração existencial e fenomenológica e o evento do estruturalismo imediatamente subsequente. A publicação das notas de leitura de Merleau-Ponty sobre o texto A origem da geometria, de Edmund Husserl, tem mostrado quão frágeis são os alicerces desta leitura simplificadora. Na verdade, enquanto a tradução e introdução de Derrida ao texto de Husserl, de (...) 1962, tornavam-se um texto fundamentador para a geração estruturalista, introduzindo uma reflexão sobre a historicidade e a materialidade da idealidade, foi apenas em 1998, com a publicação das notas da conferência de Merleau-Ponty no Collège de France, em 1959, sobre o mesmo tópico, que se tornou claro quão próximo está o primeiro Derrida do último Merleau-Ponty. Assim como Derrida, Merleau-Ponty identificou, na tensão husserliana entre arqueologia e teleologia, o problema básico da fenomenologia, introduzindo a questão da história e a do meio de transmissão cultural. Comparar tais leituras em seu contexto específico não apenas permite um retrato mais complexo dos debates intelectuais da época, mas também mostra como, com a interpretação de Merleau-Ponty sobre A origem da geometria, a "diferença" de Derrida antecede-se e admite outra genealogia. (shrink)

Die sprachliche und soziale Natur der Erkenntnis ist eine Grundeinsicht der Moderne. Doch welchen Spielraum lässt sie noch der Kritik, der distanzierten Prüfung der eigenen Sprache und Lebensform? Vor dem Hintergrund des Werkes Stanley Cavells fragt dieses Buch nach dem Verhältnis von Lebensform und Selbsterkenntnis. In ungewohnter Weise liest es Wittgenstein und Foucault als komplementäre Antwortstrategien auf dieses Grundproblem: Philosophie muss als eine »Arbeit an sich« (Wittgenstein), als körperliche »Selbsttechnik« (Foucault) verstanden werden. Nicht ethische Programmatik, so kann gezeigt werden, sondern (...) systematische Konsequenz führt zu einer Engführung von Philosophie und Lebenspraxis. (shrink)

In this paper Foucault’s thought on monstrosity is explored. Monsters appear whenever and wherever knowledge/power assemblages emerge. That which eludes the latter, and which threatens to subvert them, is the monstrous. Foucault distinguished the production, throughout history, of juridical-natural monsters, moral monsters, and political monsters. In this paper it is argued that Foucault must have sensed that monstrosity eludes all notions of identity and difference, and therefore also the notion that places it ‘outside’. It is the space of emergence itself, (...) i.e. the location where sheer potentiality becomes the possible of and in the event. All monstrosity is therefore deeply, and inevitably, political. It is the promise of unsettling subversion. (shrink)

Inaugural lecture as Professor of Women's Studies in the Arts Faculty of the University of Utrecht, May 16, 1990.

To date, the primary focus of research in the field of corporate social responsibility (CSR) has been on the strategic implications of CSR for corporations and less on an evaluation of CSR from a wider political, economic and social perspective. In this paper, we aim to address this gap by critically engaging with marketing campaigns of so-called ‘ethical’ bottled water. We especially focus on a major CSR strategy of a range of different companies that promise to provide drinking water for (...) (what they name as) ‘poor African people’ by way of Western consumers purchasing bottled water. Following Fairclough's approach, we unfold a three-step critical discourse analysis of the marketing campaigns of 10 such ‘ethical’ brands. Our results show that bottled water companies try to influence consumers' tastes through the management of the cultural meaning of bottled water, producing a more ‘ethical’ and ‘socially responsible’ perception of their products/brands. Theoretically, we base our analysis on McCracken's model of the cultural meaning of consumer goods, which, we argue, offers a critical perspective of the recent emergence of CSR and business ethics initiatives. We discuss how these marketing campaigns can be framed as historical struggles associated with neo-liberal ideology and hegemony. Our analysis demonstrates how such CSR strategies are part of a general process of the reproduction of capitalist modes of accumulation and legitimation through the usage of cultural categories. (shrink)

Business ethics serves the important social function of integrating business and society, by promoting the legitimacy ofbusiness operations, through critical reflection. Although the social function of business ethics is impliCit in leading business ethicsfoundation theories, it has never been presented in a systematic way. This article sets out to fill this theoretical lacuna, and to explore the theoretical potentials of a functional approach to business ethics. Key concepts from Parsonian functionalistic SOCiology are applied to establish the social integrative function of (...) business ethics. This produces a theoretical framework for business ethics that provides strong theoretical arguments against often-heard criticisms of business ethics. Many of these criticisms are ideological in nature, in that they systematically play down the importance of integrative functions in the bUSiness-society relationship, on the grounds of unrealistic assumptions about the performance of economic and bureaucratic institutions. However, business ethics itself can alsobecome ideological, if it forgets that the conditions for the application of ethics to business are not always ideal as well. (shrink)

This paper tackles the main changes that have taken place in the mechanical worldview of simple, self-regulating and intelligent machines, and studies their repercussions at the ethical and organisational level. These views of machines agree with the scientific, human-relations and postmodern proposals in organisation theory, in that they are in fact reflections on human nature which depend on metaphorical devices within which the machine metaphor is central.

This has been an account of how an incommensurability between peoples is integral to the creation of identity in modernity and of how law assumes its modern, ambivalent being through embodying and mediating that incommensurability. A concluding point can be made by relating all this to the large and revelatory concern nowadays with the construction of Occidental identity in exclusion. This construction involves that which is acceptable or within the identity being created in its difference to that which is unfit (...) and excluded. Looked at in reverse, if the excluded were to re-enter, as it were, then the identity would disintegrate. All of which, so the story continues, is a somewhat figurative way of discerning processes that remain internal to the identity. There is no “without” because the supposedly excluded is a fantastic projection of what is “within,” although it is repressed there. This projection is, however, attached to actuality, as we have seen. In ascribing what is excluded to the colonized, peasants and other incommensurables, not only must their difference to what is “within” be fabricated and asserted but also their similarity to what is “within” must be denied. The resistances of the colonized, which have just been described, succeeded because of organizational efficacies and juridical assertions which were the putative preserve of the Occident. Such a sameness of what should be different may locate a “remote recess” in a globalized Occidental identity, including its law, from which it could be seen as partial and precarious. (shrink)

Practice theory has lately taken a turn towards modelling the evolution of practices, which appear situated at the centre of the study of social action. I argue in this paper, following previous criticisms, that such centrality can be revised in order to better incorporate elements of agency and normativity, which are much determinant of the emergence and development of practices. The aim of this paper is to propose an alternative heuristic which advances on lefebvrean trialectics, in order to better account (...) for process in the study of practices. For this I rely on previous concepts from anthropology and sociology, such as fetishisation, ritualisation and bricolage. A relevant case study is merely outlined in order to illustrate how such a conceptual framework can identify agencies and situate practices in relation to power structures and performance at an early stage within the research process. (shrink)

This article focuses on Michel Foucault’s concepts of authorship and power. Jacques Derrida has often been accused of being more of a literary author than a philosopher or political theorist. Richard Rorty complains that Derrida’s views on politics are not pragmatic enough; he sees Derrida’s later work, including his political work, more as a “private self-fashioning” than concrete political thinking aimed at devising short-term solutions to problems here and now. Employing Foucault’s work around authorship and the origins of power, I (...) show that Derrida is indeed fashioning himself. This self-fashioning is not merely private or fanciful. Rather, I argue that Derrida can be read as employing what Foucault would call “technologies of the self” to not only show the play of possibility and impossibility at work in all politics and thought, but also to use his savoir to create two important and potentially constructive power structures. First, there is the power of deconstruction itself as a “militant critique” that calls for a forceful and irreducible justice. Second, there is the power of Derrida himself, understood as leaving behind a legacy of himself as the “originator” of deconstruction and as a public intellectual. (shrink)

On several occasions Michel Foucault advocated a methodological turn towards what he called a ‘happy positivism’. Foucault’s emphasis on the surface does not deny the importance of structures of hiding, but understands it as a game in which the structures of hiding are viewed as contingently given. In this paper, I will analyse the conflict between the hacker movement and the field of corporate interests. I argue that the introduction of graphical user interfaces and the maintaining of copyright interests are (...) the contingent background of the ongoing conflict. By bracketing the analyses of hidden intentional structures, the happy positivist is thus able to facilitate deeper understandings of the prevailing structures of hiding. (shrink)

The article examines the inter-implication between Foucault's and Derrida's representations of one another's work in the debate over Histoire de la folie and discovers a chiasmic structure between them, an inverted mirroring of each in the other, in which philosophy and historicity alternately encompass and exceed one another. At the heart of this is a problem of language (and the reason that accompanies it), which defines the limitations of the historian's work.

Foucault's analysis of an aesthetics of existence is presented as an instrument to practice ethical thought without the presupposition of an autonomous subject. The implications of Foucault's aesthetics of existence for ethical thought are traced to the work of Nietzsche. In Foucault's work, experiences of oneself are not a given, but are constituted in power relations and true-and-false games. In the interplay of truths and power relations, the individual constitutes a certain relationship to him- or herself. Foucault designated the relation (...) to oneself and one's existence as the main area of ethical concern and the most important field where aesthetic values are to be applied. In his aesthetics of existence, he invited the individual to problematize the relationship with the self and by using 'self-techniques' to transform it into a work of art. The relation to intimate others, shaped as friendship, is crucial to this ethical-aesthetic approach. Key Words: aesthetics of existence • ethics • Foucault • friendship • Nietzsche • subjectivity. (shrink)

This paper lays the groundwork for formulating an approach to literature which pushes Foucault’s thought in directions which he perhaps envisaged, but never pursued. However, one of the major obstacles to formulating a Foucauldian philosophy of literature is the fact that Foucault’s thought itself turned away from literature in the late 1960s. Why does literature apparently disappear from Foucault’s writings after 1969? And why does Foucault’s own re-writing of his theoretical biography elide this earlier interest in literature? In order to (...) answer these questions we will have to find out what role literature played in his early thought. What is at stake here, is not just a better understanding of Foucault’s thought, but more importantly, the possibility of reviving one of the potential lines of flight which that thought cut short as a result of its own endless turning. Hence, my ultimate aim will be to address the question of what can be reclaimed today from Foucault’s abandoned engagement with literature. (shrink)

The relationship between agriculture and nature is a central issue in the current agricultural debate. Organic Farming has ambitions and a special potential in relation to nature. Consideration for nature is part of the guiding principals of organic farming and many organic farmers are committed to protecting natural qualities. However, the issue of nature, landscape, and land use is not straightforward. Nature is an ambiguous concept that involves multiple interests and actors reaching far beyond farmers. The Danish research project Nature (...) Quality in Organic Farming has investigated the relationship between nature and organic farming. This article will focus on an expert workshop held in connection with the project that investigates the way different actors conceptualize nature. Farmers, scientists, and non-governmental organizations came together to discuss their experiences of nature and expectations of organic agriculture. From this interaction, it was clear that nature is a contested notion. Different understandings of nature exist within the three groups and there is disagreement as to whether emphasis should be given to biological qualities, production values, or experiential and aesthetic perspectives. This complexity provides a challenge to organic farming as well as to the implementation of nature considerations in general. It illustrates an underlying battle for the right to define nature and nature quality and essentially decide what organic farmers should work towards. We argue that successful implementation requires organic farmers to carefully consider what expectations they wish to meet. Optimally it is dependent on a dialog between stakeholder interest groups that allows for multivocality and pluralism. (shrink)

El cuño técnico de la cultura actual ha desordenado el marco tradicional en el cual la imagen podía persistir. El ojo ordenador y la representación contemplativa tradicional fracasan ante la velocidad vertiginosa con que nos inundan hoy las imágenes: el ojo ya no ve, sólo vibra. El autor propone una Estética del vértigo, cuyo propósito es volver a lograr un encuentro entre la concepción tradicional de las imágenes, lo cual significa hoy una defensa de la pintura, y la presencia evanescente (...) propia del vértigo técnico de las imágenes actuales. Esa Estética del vértigo aboga de nuevo por una facultad de juzgar rejlexionante, capaz de afrontar la finitud con sobriedad y pragmatismo. (shrink)

Este texto plantea el tratamiento de la noción de enfermedad en la obra de Michel Foucault desde su alejamiento del naturalismo y el constructivismo social. La herencia de Canguilhem y de su normativismo vital ofrecen las herramientas teóricas que permitirán un tratamiento de la medicina cuyo análisis provoca la explicitación de la pregunta por la ontología de la obra foucaltuiana, la relación entre normativismo social y vital y la posibilidad de una democratización del saber médico.

Foucault’s critique of early modern political theory aimed at displacing sovereignty as the principle of intelligibility of power. In the genealogical literature since Foucault, sovereignty has become a residual category lacking analytic specificity, largely displaced by governance, in turn equated with politics. We argue that Foucault and the Foucauldians have not understood that the flourishing of governance has presupposed a symbolic regime with a division of knowledge-power-law characteristic of the democratic sovereign. The conflation of governance with politics, together with the (...) sliding of sovereignty under governance, has left Foucauldians unable to diagnose the dangers present in varying possible sovereignty-governance configurations. (shrink)

RESUMO O artigo estuda, em um primeiro momento, os processos de sujeição e subjetivação nos trabalhos de Michel Foucault e sua relação com a dupla dimensão, moral e material, da governamentalidade. Se em sua dimensão moral a produção de sujeições tem como contraponto os processos éticos de subjetivação, já em sua dimensão material predomina o governo biopolítico do meio vital no qual populações são reguladas e sujeitadas em detrimento das possibilidades de subjetivação. A ênfase do governo biopolítico é especialmente observável (...) entre as populações deslocadas em busca de sobrevivência. Em um segundo momento evoca-se, para além de Foucault, uma modalidade de população problematizada como objeto de recorrente normalização nos últimos decênios, constituída pelos migrantes de sobrevivência. O estudo percorre os traços do governo biopolítico dessa população, especialmente as reconfigurações dos processos de sujeição que a regulam. Conclui-se que ela apresenta poucas possibilidades de empreender processos de subjetivação como resistência às formas de sujeição operadas pela governamentalidade biopolítica. ABSTRACT At first, the article studies the processes of subjection and subjectivation in the works of Michel Foucault and their relationship with the double dimension, moral and material, of governmentality. If in its moral dimension the production of subjections has as its counterpoint the ethical processes of subjectivation, in its material dimension what predominates, in turn, is the biopolitical government of the vital means in which populations are regulated and subjected to the detriment of the possibilities of the subjectivation. The emphasis of the biopolitical government is especially noticeable among displaced populations seeking survival. In a second moment, besides Foucault, a modality of population that has been problematized as object of recurrent normalization in the last decades, made up by survival migrants, is evoked. The study goes through the traits of the biopolitical government of that population, especially the reconfigurations of the subjection processes that regulate it. We conclude that it presents few possibilities to undertake subjectivation processes as resistance to the forms of subjection operated by the biopolitical governmentality. (shrink)

Natural language plays a fundamental role in cognition and communication, but in the modern information society, language is increasingly used as a data transmission technology. The study of the problem of language power over thinking is a significant contribution to understanding the nature of language and its relationship with thinking. This article presents an analysis of the peculiarities of M. Foucault’s views on the problem of relationship between language and thinking. The author applies the elements of Foucault’s archaeological approach and (...) studies his concepts in connection with the ideas of other French thinkers. During the analysis, the author formulates her vision of the concepts of power and discourse. The first part of the article considers the understanding of natural language as a complex open sign system that interacts with the outside world and constantly accumulates elements of culture and creativity, from the point of view of philosophy and structural linguistics. The understanding of the division of language into separate discourses is explained. The presentation of the original methodology of Foucault’s language research explains what makes it possible to reveal the peculiarities of the historical development of discourse in the social aspect. Further, Foucault’s views on the role of language in obtaining knowledge and the formation of thinking are reflected, as well as an understanding of the relations of power that the philosopher notices in mental and speech activity of individuals. There follows J. Baudrillard’s criticism of Foucouldian concept of power and the process of language development in society. In conclusion, the author summarizes the analyzed views on power, development of language and thinking as well as Foucault’s understanding of language. (shrink)

Nouvelle approche, nouvel objet, l'histoire des femmes en France n'a pas encore conquis la place qui lui revient. Catégorie mal identifiée, elle reste en marge de l'autre histoire. Elle le restera, à moins que soit restituée l'historicité des tensions entre hommes et femmes, jusqu'alors tenues à l'écart de l'histoire politique, elle-même pensée hors des rapports de pouvoir. C'est tout un renouvellement de l'écriture de l'histoire dont il est question. Le concept de gender, comme outil d'analyse toujours nécessaire, n'y peut suffire. (...) L'enjeu se situe entre l'histoire continue et les discontinuités historiques qui surgissent dans ses failles; entre les individues représentatives, objets de représentation et les sujets critiques à l'encontre de la représentation comme forme de pouvoir. (shrink)

This paper presents selected findings from a historical analysis of change in the discursive construction of social identity in UK education policy discourse from 1972–2005. My chief argument is that through its linguistic forms of self-identification the government construes educational roles, relations and responsibilities not only for itself, but also for other educational actors and wider society. More specifically, I argue that New Labour's distinctive mode of self-representation is an important element in its hegemonic project, textually manufacturing consent over its (...) policy decisions, and helping to articulate its self-styled ‘enabling’ model of governance. As evidence for these claims I discuss two prominent trends in New Labour's education policy rhetoric, which I characterise as ‘personalisation’ and ‘managerialisation’. Respectively, these relate to the discursive representation of social identity and social action. (shrink)

CNESCO recently put forward a study regarding the correlation between the quality of the school experience and the quality of the learning showing the importance of student well-being. The pedagogical well-being, (defined as the adjustment of the student accompaniment to their psychoaffective needs, improves the quality of the school experience, allows the personal development and yields happiness from being at school (De la Garanderie, 2013). Our action research, in a shared view of well-being was focused on the student’s working comfort (...) in Cycle 3, with the establishment of an experimental device whose objective was to take care of children, while supporting their teachers in this approach with accompaniment. A charter of pedagogical welfare (Loton, 2020), from the medical world, and translated into professional teaching practices suitable to the needs of each one, has allowed the implementation of a pedagogical accompaniment practice in regards to well-being. The collection of school experiences has been done by using a tool created specifically to measure the quality of experience of children: a Scale of Measurement of School Experiences (Habib et Bidal, 2016), has led to results that reveal an increase in personal development and validates the capacity of the welfare system put in place to produce educational well-being. (shrink)

A presente pesquisa de doutorado resulta de um projeto maior, intitulado “Sobre a Morte do Homem e a Psicologia, em Michel Foucault”. Esse projeto busca analisar a formulação, as nuances e consequências das diversas argumentações empregadas por Foucault nas críticas às “antropologias”, figuradas na trajetória dos textos dos anos 50 e 60. O eixo é o problema “antropológico”: nos textos de 1954, Foucault empreendia um duplo projeto de contestação e fundação das ciências humanas, buscando corrigir perspectivas consideradas errôneas em prol (...) de uma antropologia isenta de prejuízos. Esses projetos de fundação rapidamente cedem lugar a suspeitas e à recolocação do problema antropológico: mais do que “solução”, a questão antropológica começa a se delinear como um núcleo de problemas. A postura de fundação e contestação cederá lugar a um conjunto de análises que denunciam as antropologias a partir de seus compromissos históricos. A presente pesquisa tenta analisar essa passagem da “solução” ao “problema”, tomando como base alguns materiais: os textos de Foucault contemporâneos e posteriores, os debates aos quais esses textos tentavam se inserir, e também algumas anotações de Jacques Lagrange aos cursos ministrados por Foucault na École Normale Supérieure entre 1953 e 1955. O entrecruzamento de referências serve para extrair os problemas que Foucault enxerga nos textos de 1954, buscando delinear de que modo esses problemas conduzem às interrogações dos textos de 1957 e à escrita, em Uppsala, da Tese Principal sobre a história da loucura. //////////////\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ Cette recherche de doctorat est le résultat d'un projet plus vaste intitulé «La Question de la Mort de l'Homme et de la Psychologie selon Michel Foucault». Ce projet a l'objetif d'examiner la formulation, les facteurs et les conséquences rapportés aux différentes démarches utilisées par Foucault dans ses critiques aux «anthropologies», figurées dans la trajectoire des textes publiés pendant les années 1950 et 1960. La question principale est le problème «anthropologique»: dans les textes parus en 1954, Foucault a entrepris un double projet de contestation et fondation des sciences humaines; le jeune philosophe essayait de corriger les perspectives considerées par lui comme des perspectives erronées, pour en établir une nouvelle anthropologie finalement rigoreuse. Par contre, d'une façon relativement vite les projets de fondation ont eté remplacés pour des suspicions et donc il y a eu un changement de la façon d'énoncer le problème anthropologique: au lieu d'être «solution», la question anthropologique commence à devenir un domaine plein de problèmes. L'essay de fonder donne place à un ensemble d'analyses qui dénoncent plusieurs engagements historiquements faits pour les connaissances anthropologiques. La recherche realisée essaye d'analyser ce passage de la «solution» au «problème», en croisant la lecture de certains matériaux: les textes publiés par Foucault pendant les années 50 (et quelques textes des annés 60), les débats contemporains et les discussions sur lesquelles ces textes ont essayé d'entrer, et aussi quelques notes écrites par Jacques Lagrange pendant les cours donnés par Foucault à l'Ecole Normale Supérieure depuis 1953 jusqu'à 1955. Le croisement de références a l'objetif de voir le contexte des problèmes probablement vus par Foucault dans les textes de 1954, et le chemin parcouru par lui, jusqu'àux questions enoncées dans les textes de 1957 et l'écriture à Uppsala de la thèse principale sur l'histoire de la folie. (shrink)

The main objective of this paper is to describe how quality of care may be improved during an involuntary admission process of patients suffering from Korsakoff's syndrome. It presents an empirically grounded analysis with different perspectives on ‘doing good’ during this process. Family carers', healthcare professionals' and legal professionals' ways of understanding and ordering this problematic situation appear very different. This could prevent patients from getting the proper care they need, with risk of more suffering and quality of life below (...) the minimum acceptable. All this possibly lead to immoral dehumanizing situations. Firstly, the background of our empirical study is sketched. Secondly, the different perspectives on ‘doing good’ are summarized and compared. Thirdly, the tensions arising from the different conceptualizations of autonomy and different types of responsibilities of the actors are clarified. A common ‘doing good’ during involuntary admission necessitates removal of any tensions within the relational network by weighing and balancing the different perspectives on autonomy and the resulting responsibilities. With this in mind, we propose a renewed time/action table for involuntary admission, which tends to address all patients' needs at the right time. The solution presented might help healthcare professionals, who are squeezed in between patients, family carers, legal professionals and overall rules, to create practices in which patients suffering from Korsakoff's syndrome can maintain their dignity and receive the care they need. Earlier interventions, timely and adequate diagnosis, and diminishment of tensions between the different actors by fine‐tuning their paradigmatic frameworks are suggested to be part of a solution. (shrink)

Foucault repeatedly argued that his work on techniques of the self were not a denial of his previous work on 18th- and 19th-century Europe, but a different way to make our present intelligible. Although Foucault explicitly associated modern techniques of the self with the Christian model, he never considered Christian techniques of the self in a comprehensive manner. The recent publication of his last two lectures at the Collège de France in 1983 and 1984 seems to fill this gap. Christian (...) techniques of the self are characterized by an ascetic of obedience, and are considered as antithetical to ethical, parrhesiastic techniques of the self. Foucault’s detailed analysis of Sophocles’ Oedipus and Euripides’ Ion in these lectures also provides valuable insights into the rationality that presides over the modern techniques of the self, and the logic that animates the Christian politics of obedience. (shrink)

Like so many sciences, linguistics originated from philosophy's rib. It reached maturity and attained full independence only in the twentieth century (for example, it is a well-known fact that the first linguistics department in the UK was founded in 1944); though research which we would now classify as linguistic (especially leading to generalizations from comparing different languages) was certainly carried out much earlier. The relationship between philosophy and linguistics is perhaps reminiscent of that between an old-fashioned mother and her emancipated (...) daughter, and is certainly asymmetric. And though from philosophy's rib, empirical investigation methods have ensured that linguistics has evolved (just as in the case of the more famous rib) into something far from resembling the original piece of bone. Another side of the same asymmetry is that while linguistics focuses exclusively on language (or languages), for philosophy language seems less pervasive - philosophy of language being merely one branch among many. However, during the twentieth century this asymmetry was substantially diminished by the so called linguistic turn1, undergone by numerous philosophers – this turn was due to the realization that as language is the universal medium for our grasping and coping with the world, its study may provide the very key for all other philosophical disciplines. As for the working methods, we could perhaps picture the difference between a philosopher of language and a linguist by means of the following simile. Imagine two researchers both asked to investigate an unknown landscape. One hires a helicopter, acquires a birds-eye view of the whole landscape and draws a rough, but comprehensive map. The other takes a camera, a writing pad and various instruments, and walks around, taking pictures and making notes of the kinds of rocks, plants and animals which he finds. Whose way is the more reasonable? Well, one wants to say, neither, for they seem to be complementary.. (shrink)