Michel Foucault

knowledge and power

For Foucault, power is not mere prohibition but a productive network generating knowledge and self-images.

💡 Did you know? Foucault showed how closely knowledge and power are entwined: whoever controls knowledge wields power.

Discipline and Punish

Published in 1975: from the public spectacle of torture to the modern disciplinary society.

💡 Did you know? The book traces the shift from public execution to invisible discipline in prison, school and factory.

Panopticon

The invisible watchman at the centre: whoever believes himself watched, watches himself.

💡 Did you know? Bentham's circular prison, in which everyone feels constantly watched, becomes for Foucault the symbol of the modern control society.

Madness and Civilization

A history of how reason locked madness away: also his doctoral thesis.

💡 Did you know? Foucault examined how „madness“ was historically defined and excluded, as a matter of power, not merely medicine.

archaeology and genealogy

He excavates what an epoch can think and say at all: 'The Archaeology of Knowledge' (1969) explains the programme.

💡 Did you know? His „archaeology“ and „genealogy“ dig up hidden orders of thought and their history of power.

Collège de France

He named his own chair: 'History of Systems of Thought'.

💡 Did you know? The chair at the Collège de France is among France's highest academic honours; his lectures were packed.

The History of Sexuality

Volume 1, 'The Will to Knowledge' (1976): the fourth volume appeared only in 2018 from his papers.

💡 Did you know? His last, unfinished major project examined how societies regulate sexuality and thereby exercise power.

as a productive network

Power works through normalisation, examination, self-surveillance: not only through repression.

💡 Did you know? For Foucault power is not just prohibition from above but a fine web running through all of society, shaping behaviour.

prisoners

The 'Groupe d'information sur les prisons' (1971) let prisoners speak for themselves.

💡 Did you know? Foucault founded a „prison information group“ to expose conditions behind bars: philosophy as activism.

for the Iranian revolution

Reporting from Tehran, he underestimated the character of the new regime; the criticism has accompanied his work ever since.

💡 Did you know? His initial sympathy for the 1979 Iranian revolution is today seen as a serious misjudgement.

most cited author

Concepts like 'discourse', 'disciplinary society' and 'biopower' shape countless disciplines.

💡 Did you know? His concept of 'biopower' was rediscovered in the pandemic debates.

AIDS

One of the first prominent figures in France to do so; the disease was barely understood at the time.

💡 Did you know? Foucault died in 1984 as one of the first prominent people to die of AIDS: when the disease was still barely understood.

Michel Foucault

Michel Foucault was a French philosopher who examined how knowledge and power permeate institutions like the prison, the clinic and the school.

💡 Did you know? His book „Discipline and Punish“ made Bentham's circular prison, the „Panopticon“, a symbol of the surveillance society.