Foucault

Descartes's cogito, Husserl's transcendental ego, Heidegger's Dasein, Sartre's radical freedom: each keeps an indubitable self at the center, and Foucault's early work revolts against that sovereign subject.

Put simply Foucault's early work rebels against the "sovereign subject": the self that philosophers from Descartes to Husserl, Heidegger and Sartre kept at the center as the one thing beyond doubt.

Marx's decentering of the subject through class struggle was answered, late in the nineteenth century, by seeking a total history that reduces all of society's differences to one form.

Put simply Foucault: Marx pushed the individual from the center by explaining society through class struggle. Late in the 1800s, defenders of the self answered by seeking a "total history" that reduces all of society's differences to one pattern.

Against the decentering worked by Nietzsche's genealogy, Foucault says, the sovereign-subject tradition set a search for an original foundation, making reason mankind's telos and demanding perpetual return to it.

Put simply Foucault: against the decentering of the self by Nietzsche's "genealogy," the defenders of the sovereign subject sought an original foundation: reason as humanity's goal, to which thought must always return.

Agency belongs neither to a sovereign self nor to history's momentum; Foucault relocates it largely in language, in discourse, which becomes a key word.

Put simply Foucault: what makes things happen is neither a ruling self nor the forward push of history. It lies largely in language, in "discourse": the organized ways a society talks about things.

No statement is neutral or free-standing; each sits within a series, leans on other statements while setting itself apart from them, and means what it means through that network.

Put simply Foucault: no statement stands alone or neutral. Each belongs to a series, leans on other statements while marking itself off from them, and gets its meaning from that web.

Foucault's post-structuralist turn: a structure of statements is never sealed, references keep running past its edges, so even a book lacks clear-cut frontiers.

Put simply Foucault moves past structuralism here: a web of statements is never closed. References always run past its edges, so even a book has no clear boundary.

Foucault rejects one approach above all, the phenomenological, which gives the observing subject absolute priority and ends in a transcendental consciousness; scientific discourse should be analyzed as discursive practice.

Put simply Foucault rejects above all the phenomenological approach, which gives the observing mind absolute priority and ends in a "transcendental consciousness". The history of scientific discourse should instead be analyzed as "discursive practice": how people speak and write.

The standard story calls the asylum humane progress, treating the mad as patients rather than criminals; Foucault reads it instead as a means of control, a great confinement.

In the text In Madness and Civilization (1961; Howard translation), ch. 2, Foucault dates the Great Confinement from the Paris decree of 1656 founding the Hôpital Général, which he says "is not a medical establishment".

Other readings Marcel Gauchet and Gladys Swain (Madness and Democracy, 1999) read the asylum as a democratic project.

Enlightenment reason was possible only once madness had been defined: there is no reason without an unreason to set it against, which makes the asylum the Enlightenment's dark side.

Put simply Foucault: the Enlightenment's idea of reason needed an idea of madness to define itself against. Without unreason there is no reason. That makes the asylum the Enlightenment's dark side.

The prison was sold as a rational, humane successor to torture; its real function, Foucault argues, is surveillance and isolation, like the school, hospital, factory and asylum.

Bentham's panopticon fascinates Foucault: because the prisoner can never tell whether the guard in the central booth is watching, the uncertainty itself becomes an instrument of discipline.

The repressive hypothesis is a myth: the question is not why we are so repressed about sex but why we keep insisting, obsessively, that we are.

Put simply Foucault calls it a myth that modern society silenced sex. The real question is not why we are so repressed, but why we keep insisting, obsessively, that we are.

Sexuality is not a stubborn drive or a libido; Foucault treats it as "an especially dense transfer point for relations of power."

Put simply Foucault: sexuality is not a built-in urge or sex drive. It is a place where relations of power run especially thick.

Where to read it Foucault, The History of Sexuality, vol. 1, Part Four, ch. 3 ("Domain").

Where Adorno and Horkheimer draw a dialectical spiral from Enlightenment to totalitarianism, Foucault draws a straight line: the drive to know and classify everything leads directly to control and surveillance.

Put simply Foucault draws a straight line from the Enlightenment to control and surveillance: the urge to know and sort everything leads there directly. Adorno and Horkheimer instead trace a winding, back-and-forth path toward totalitarianism.

Knowledge is never innocent of power; the slash in power/knowledge marks their inseparability, which rules out disinterested inquiry and any neutral Archimedean point to stand on.

Put simply Foucault: knowing is never free of power. His term "power/knowledge" marks that the two cannot be separated, so there is no neutral inquiry and no outside spot from which to look.

Power has no single source. It is omnipresent "not because it embraces everything, but because it comes from everywhere": radically dispersed, built into every relationship.

Put simply Foucault: power has no single source. It is everywhere "not because it embraces everything, but because it comes from everywhere": spread out through every relationship.

Where to read it Foucault, The History of Sexuality, vol. 1, Part Four, ch. 2 ("Method").

Resistance never stands outside power. Always already present, power constitutes the very thing used to resist it; the two are locked in a shifting relational dynamic.

Put simply Foucault: resistance is never outside power. Power is always already there and shapes even the means people use to resist it. The two keep shifting in relation to each other.

Where to read it Foucault, The History of Sexuality, vol. 1, Part Four, ch. 2 ("Method").

Power does not only crush; it also creates. Calling it productive as well as repressive is a description, not praise or blame.

Put simply Foucault: power does not only hold people down; it also creates things. Saying so describes power; it is neither praise nor blame.

Discourse must be treated as discontinuous: the historian excavates layers of talk and marks the moments where the way something is spoken about shifts.

Put simply Foucault: a history of how people talk must look for breaks. The historian digs through layers of talk and marks the moments when the way something is spoken about changes.

Nietzsche's genealogy is the inspiration for Foucault's archaeology: a history that looks for discontinuity.

Put simply Foucault's method, which he calls "archaeology," is a history that looks for breaks. Its inspiration is Nietzsche's "genealogy."

The historian is an archaeologist digging in words and sources rather than earth; archaeology seeks no secret of origins, only "the systematic description of a discourse object."

Put simply Foucault: the historian is an archaeologist who digs in words and documents instead of soil. The aim is not the secret of origins, only a systematic description of how something was talked about.

When the discourse shifts, the archaeologist does not ask why. Causality is not the point; the task is to describe the break.

Put simply Foucault: when the way people talk shifts, the historian does not ask why. Causes are not the point; the job is to describe the break.

After God's death comes the subject's, and Foucault admits how much that hurts; he sympathizes with people who find it unbearable.

Put simply Foucault admits how painful it is that, after God's "death," the self loses its central place too. He sympathizes with those who find that unbearable.

To those who still ask after man's essence, or who start from man to reach truth, Foucault's answer is "a philosophical laugh."

As Foucault would put it about power, everywhere is not nowhere: that power pervades everything does not mean it has vanished.

Put simply Foucault on power: the fact that power runs through everything does not mean it has disappeared. Being everywhere is not the same as being nowhere.

Truly escaping Hegel means calculating what the escape costs and how close he stands; our anti-Hegelianism may itself be one of his tricks, with him waiting at the end.

Put simply Foucault: to really escape Hegel, we must know what breaking free will cost and how close he still is. Our very rebellion against Hegel may be one of his tricks, with him waiting for us at the end.