Subject and Power

The texts brought together in Subject and Power represent a new way of thinking that shakes the dominance of the philosophy of subject and consciousness, which has held an almost indispensable place in Western thought from Descartes to the present day. This new way of thinking, which emerged from the 1960s onwards, especially under the influence of Nietzsche and Heidegger, targeted the tradition that Foucault called "anthropologism", which primarily took humanity and human nature as the starting point for philosophical thought, and specifically concentrated on the subject and consciousness. .

The place that Foucault, who directly targets the subject problem in his own works, holds in this new critical perspective is very important. Showing that in order to explain subjective experience, it is necessary to make a historical analysis not of the subject and consciousness, but of the discourse that establishes that experience and the power systems with which the discourse is in a mutual and inevitable relationship, that is, knowledge/power, Foucault, on the one hand, underlined the inseparable relationship between power and subjectivity: on the other hand, this He brought a very strong criticism of science by revealing the role played by human sciences in establishing the relationship. The model of power that Foucault developed and used in these analyzes is radically different from the model used by classical political philosophies. Starting from a new understanding of power, Foucault showed how important his techniques are in defining the modern individual, from forms of experience that have not been sufficiently emphasized before, from madness to crime, from health to sexuality.

On the other hand, Foucault insistently states that this determination does not exclude freedom and resistance against power, on the contrary, what lies at the core of the power relationship is the "obstinacy of freedom". According to Foucault, the use of freedom should take the form of "moral subjectivization", that is, re-establishing ourselves as subjects, and make it possible to resist power without producing new forms of domination. Subject and Power contains articles and interviews in which these groundbreaking ideas are elaborated in political philosophy and human sciences.



Number of Pages: 315

Year of Printing: 2016


Language: Turkish
Publisher: Details Publications

First Printing Year: 2000

Number of Pages: 315

Language Turkish