Ideas of Michel Foucault, by Theme

[French, 1926 - 1984, Born at Poitiers. Professor at the Collège de France, Paris.]

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1. Philosophy / B. History of Ideas / 2. Ancient Thought
7500 Early Greeks cared about city and companions; later Greeks concentrated on the self
1. Philosophy / C. History of Philosophy / 4. Later European Philosophy / c. Eighteenth century philosophy
15045 The big issue since the eighteenth century has been: what is Reason? Its effect, limits and dangers?
1. Philosophy / D. Nature of Philosophy / 3. Philosophy Defined
7426 Critical philosophy is what questions domination at every level
1. Philosophy / H. Continental Philosophy / 1. Continental Philosophy
7423 Philosophy and politics are fundamentally linked
1. Philosophy / H. Continental Philosophy / 4. Linguistic Structuralism
15038 Structuralism systematically abstracted the event from sciences, and even from history
2. Reason / A. Nature of Reason / 2. Logos
7420 When logos controls our desires, we have actually become the logos
2. Reason / A. Nature of Reason / 7. Status of Reason
21945 Foucault originally felt that liberating reason had become an instrument of domination [Gutting]
3. Truth / A. Truth Problems / 4. Uses of Truth
15044 'Truth' is the procedures for controlling which statements are acceptable
3. Truth / A. Truth Problems / 9. Rejecting Truth
15042 Truth doesn't arise from solitary freedom, but from societies with constraints
11. Knowledge Aims / A. Knowledge / 1. Knowledge
15037 Why does knowledge appear in sudden bursts, and not in a smooth continuous development?
13. Knowledge Criteria / E. Relativism / 1. Relativism
21942 Foucault challenges knowledge in psychology and sociology, not in the basic sciences [Gutting]
7424 Saying games of truth were merely power relations would be a horrible exaggeration
15. Nature of Minds / B. Features of Minds / 1. Consciousness / a. Consciousness
21941 Unlike Marxists, Foucault explains thought internally, without deference to conscious ideas [Gutting]
16. Persons / E. Rejecting the Self / 2. Self as Social Construct
7422 A subject is a form which can change, in (say) political or sexual situations
18. Thought / A. Modes of Thought / 3. Emotions / a. Nature of emotions
22235 Feelings are not unchanging, but have a history (especially if they are noble)
21. Aesthetics / B. Nature of Art / 8. The Arts / b. Literature
21939 The author function of any text is a plurality of selves [Gutting]
22. Metaethics / A. Ethics Foundations / 1. Nature of Ethics / b. Defining ethics
7419 Ethics is the conscious practice of freedom
22. Metaethics / B. Value / 2. Values / h. Fine deeds
7501 Why couldn't a person's life become a work of art?
22. Metaethics / C. The Good / 3. Pleasure / b. Types of pleasure
7498 Greeks and early Christians were much more concerned about food than about sex
24. Political Theory / A. Basis of a State / 3. Natural Values / c. Natural rights
21940 Nature is not the basis of rights, but the willingness to risk death in asserting them
24. Political Theory / B. Nature of a State / 1. Purpose of a State
15043 Every society has a politics of truth, concerning its values, functions, prestige and mechanisms
24. Political Theory / C. Ruling a State / 1. Social Power
15040 Marxists denounced power as class domination, but never analysed its mechanics
15041 Power doesn't just repress, but entices us with pleasure, artefacts, knowledge and discourse
8991 Foucault can't accept that power is sometimes decent and benign [Scruton]
7425 The aim is not to eliminate power relations, but to reduce domination
24. Political Theory / C. Ruling a State / 3. Government / a. Government
22236 The big question of the Renaissance was how to govern everything, from the state to children
24. Political Theory / C. Ruling a State / 4. Changing the State / a. Centralisation
21947 Power is localised, so we either have totalitarian centralisation, or local politics [Gutting]
25. Social Practice / A. Freedoms / 5. Freedom of lifestyle
21946 Prisons gradually became our models for schools, hospitals and factories [Gutting]
7418 The idea of liberation suggests there is a human nature which has been repressed
25. Social Practice / D. Justice / 3. Punishment / d. Reform of offenders
21116 Power is used to create identities and ways of life for other people [Shorten]
25. Social Practice / E. Policies / 5. Education / d. Study of history
15039 History lacks 'meaning', but it can be analysed in terms of its struggles