What is Foucault theory of subjectivity?

What is Foucault theory of subjectivity?

“Subjectivity” and its cognates are philosophical terms that describe a possibility for lived experience within a larger historical and political context. In French, the key term Foucault uses to capture the emergence of subjectivities (or subject-positions: particular spaces for being a subject) is assujettissement.

What does Foucault say about discourse?

Discourse, as defined by Foucault, refers to: ways of constituting knowledge, together with the social practices, forms of subjectivity and power relations which inhere in such knowledges and relations between them. Discourses are more than ways of thinking and producing meaning.

How does Foucault define discourses of truth?

Discourse is a form of power that circulates in the social field and can attach to strategies of domination as well as those of resistance. Foucault continues his definition of discourse in terms of its effect. When discourse is effective, organizing and regulating relations of power, it is a ‗regime of truth’.

What do we mean by subjectivity?

Subjectivity refers to how someone’s judgment is shaped by personal opinions and feelings instead of outside influences. For example, if you have six sisters, that might influence how you view women or families — it’s part of your subjectivity. Subjectivity is a form of bias and also individuality.

What term did Foucault use to describe a discourse that made universal claims to truth and knowledge?

Foucault defines ‘regimes of truth’ as the historically specific mechanisms which produce discourses which function as true in particular times and places.

What is the subject of Foucault’s discursive subject?

Foucault’s Discursive Subject Foucault is credited with “deconstruction of the subject,” but in reality what Foucault has given us is a critique of the Cartesian subject, the intuitively-given individual subject deemed the original site of all cognitive representation and social action.

What was Foucault’s Critique of the Cartesian subject?

Andy Blunden September 2005. Foucault is credited with “deconstruction of the subject,” but in reality what Foucault has given us is a critique of the Cartesian subject, the intuitively-given individual subject deemed the original site of all cognitive representation and social action.

What does Foucault mean by the constitutive dimension?

Foucault espouses the position of the constitutive dimension of power and knowledge. This suggests that all discursive practices (all the ways a culture creates social and psychological realities) are interpretations imbedded in specific cultural discourse, where the subject is considered created by, and creating of, the cultural discourse.

What does Foucault mean by archaeology of knowledge?

Foucault Archaeology of Knowledge (note 1 above), 221. In his later work Foucault discusses how subjects internalise the order of discourse and reproduce its meaning and truth outwardly through confession or even through their own discourse.