MICHEL FOUCAULT

and HIS THEORY ON SPACE, POWER AND KNOWLEDGE

HIS LIFE


Born in 15 October 1926 in Poitiers, France, as the son of a notable family, Foucault had a very short but prolific life. He had his Bachelor degree on psychology and interested in clinical psychology, but after further education, he became an important philosopher and generally commented on history, historicity, sexuality and structuralism. For a brief time in his life, he was the member of the French Communist Party, recommended by his mentor Louis Althusser, but he soon saw that there are points he couldnt agree on both in the politics and the philosophy of the party.

He is, in his later life, criticised for his later theories which contradict with the earlier ones. About this situation, Foucault says, in one of his interviews: "When people say, 'Well, you thought this a few years ago and now you say something else,' my answer is [laughs] 'Well, do you think I have worked hard all those years to say the same thing and not to be changed?'"

He always refused to be identified as a structuralist, a Marxist, or even as a philosopher; he did not like to be defined within the limits of a field. Also, he explains many concepts and his own understandings on them, and he asks many questions in his works, but he is famous for giving no answers. He always wanted his works to be: a kind of tool-box others can rummage through to find a tool they can use however they wish in their own area I don't write for an audience, I write for users, not readers."

In 25 June 1984, Foucault died of AIDS in Paris, an illness about which only little was known at that time.

His most notable works:

Madness and Civilization (1961) which was also his doctoral dissertation and his first major work, in which he deals with the treatment of the psychological illnesses from the Middle Ages to 19th century, especially noting the social and physical exclusion of the lepers, and argues that madness was silenced by Reason, and lost its power to signify the limits of social order and to point to the truth.

The Birth of the Clinic (1963): His second major book. In this book, he traces the development of the medical institutions, linking his research to subjecting of social spaces wider than small medical institutions.

The Order of Things (1970): In this work, Foucault claims that there is no period of history that does not possess conditions of truth that constituted what could be expressed as discourse. He gives art, science and culture as examples. For Foucault, these conditions of discourse changes over time. His Nietzschean critique of Enlightenment values has been very influential in cultural studies.

The Archeology of Knowledge (1969) in which Foucault further develops his theories on discourse, its mechanisms, its change through time, its functions, how it is constructed and how it produces meaning. He also asks whether to reach a meaning is possible or not.

Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison (1977): In this work, Foucault explains his theories on discipline, disciplinary punishment, disciplinary power and disciplinary knowledge. He also compares modern society with Jeremy Benthams prison design of Panopticon and explains the relationship between power and knowledge.

The History of Sexuality (1984): He shows the function of sexuality as an analytics of power related to the emergence of a science of sexuality and the emergence of biopower in the West. He deals with the role of sex in the antiquity and then moves on to his new consideration of the examination of conscience and confession in the early Christian literature.

A mere philosopher?
We generally know Michel Foucault as a philosopher because his greatest contributions are on philosophy. But it is wrong to define him a mere philosopher. He has a vast knowledge of most crucial social institutions, especially of psychiatry, medicine, humanities and the prison system, and of fields such as psychology, sexuality, archeology and architecture. He makes use of these institutions in such a way that with his examples taken from these fields, he explains his most crucial theories vividly. His writings on power, knowledge and discourse have been really influential on philosophical, sociological and academic spheres.

As many critics suggest, Foucault believed in the freedom of people above all, and he realized that we, as individuals, react to different situations in different ways, which is one of our inborn rights. For him, the notions of space, and the relations of power and knowledge were among the most significant ones to be well-defined and well-understood. He focuses on the dominant knowledge systems and practices as we observe them throughout different historical periods, and their evolution or their change from one to another due to the different social contexts. He thought that understanding such mechanisms and notions would make the nature of power more clear and more solid than absract.

As he says in one of his interviews that power:



reaches into the very grain of individuals, touches their bodies and inserts itself into their actions and attitudes, their discourses, learning processes and everyday lives. (Foucault 1980,30).

The basis of his most influential theory, which is on space, power and knowledge, is architecture. In his History of Architecture, he examines the notion of space and its meaning to modern architects of the early 20th century. He compares the notion of space for early modern architects with his own understanding of it. The early modern architects understand space as an abstract non-entity. For them, if there is space, then nothing is there. Space is something to be filled, or something that you can fill. This is a practical thought.

But for Foucauldian postmodern philosophy, space is fundamental in any exercise of power.

As Foucault states, architecture became political at the end of the 18th century as the power of governments increased. According to Foucault, architectural space in relation to the power of the government had a major role in expressing and practicing governmental rationality (by governmental rationality we mean the reason as it operates in the governmental institutions). Yes, just as the early modern architectures thought, space is to be filled, but how and by whom it is filled is of utmost importance.

Space can be used as a tool to establish power, because someone will live on that space, and how you arrange the things that you will build on the space will determine how people will live. Spatial distribution in the city planning (the distribution of houses, medical buildings, facilities, governmental buildings, prefectures, etc.) is in accordance with the government. Government is the one who will arrange the buildings that will be built upon the space. Through this specific spatial distribution, the government establishes order and efficient control over the city and its territory. The state as a whole can also be distributed by government in the same way.

From the relationship of space and power, which must be kept in mind as it will be helpful for the explanation of Foucauldian Panopticon, now we move to knowledge and the mutual relationship between power and knowledge. Like many other social theorists, especially like Francis Bacon, Foucault also thinks that knowledge is a form of power, and he takes this thought a step further. He says that power can be achieved by knowledge, and likewise, knowledge can be gained through power. The power-holder can gain further knowledge on his subjects while, at the same time, producing power without preventing it. Thus, knowledge and power are interconnected, and it is impossible to break the relationship between the two once it is established. Foucault often writes these two notions in this way: power/knowledge. Therefore, we can say that knowledge is power.

Knowledge, linked to power, not only assumes the authority of 'the truth' but has the power to make itself true. All knowledge, once applied in the real world, has effects, and in that sense at least, 'becomes true.' Knowledge, once used to regulate the conduct of others, entails constraint, regulation and the disciplining of practice. Thus, 'there is no power relation without the correlative constitution of a field of knowledge, nor any knowledge that does not presuppose, and constitute at the same time, power relations. (Foucault 1977,27)

According to Foucault, power is everywhere. It is homogeneously distributed to everywhere and it comes from everywhere. It acts as a kind of relation among the people. In our relationship to each other, we always act under the oppression of a power. It is a strategy that shapes our behaviour and it causes us to shape one anothers behaviour unconsciously, unwillingly or automatically.

When Foucault examines the effects of power, he employs an ironical tone. For him, the effects of power are not negative; power does not alienate, exclude, repress, censor or conceal, because it is a producer of reality. As it produces the reality that its subjects live in, then it does not need to repress, censor, etc. Of course, this is an ironic remark. The real oppression is the reality that the power produces. As Foucault suggests "it produces domains of objects and rituals of truth" (Foucault 1977,194). For Foucault, the main focus does not lay in the power itself, but in the effect that power has on entire networks of communication and relations, practices, all the world around us and how it affects our behaviour making us accept its reality.

Panopticon!

Panopticon is an architectural structure that was introduced by Jeremy Bentham, the forerunner of Benthamite thinking and utilitarianism, during the Victorian Age, 19th century. As a utilitarian, for Bentham, the good is whatever brings the greatest happiness to the greatest number of people. Everthing should be designed according to the principle of utility. So, he designes a regulatory architectural system applicable to prisons, asylums, hospitals, factories, schools, etc. Instead of using violent methods, such as torture, and leaving hungry and injured prisoners in dungeons to die, which were the means that were used for centuries as tools of oppression and correction, the modern democratic state needed a different sort of system to regulate its citizens. So, Bentham arranged what will be built upon a space in such a way that would enable the power-holder to control all the subjects at the same time.

Panopticon offered such a structure that is so powerful and flawless that it achieves constant observation of the subjects, all of which are seperated from each other in different cells and which are not allowed interaction or communication. This design allows all the guardians to see inside each cell from the tower in the centre, while they remain unseen by the prisoners. Through such a way, constant observation acts as a psychological control mechanism, and it creates a consciousness of constant surveillance. When this consciousness is internalized by the subjects, as Foucault suggests, then there is no need to observe the subjects anymore. As the guards remain unseen, the subjects cannot see whether they are watched or not. But the stress of constant watch would restrict and control their behaviour.

It is just like what happens today in our country. There is a constant feeling that our cellphones are listened to, that there is cameras everywhere we go, that our internet accounts are being watched, that even they place bugs in public places to hear whether we speak against the government or not. This constant stress of being watch and listened controls what we do or say. Once we, the subjects, become paranoid, there remains no need to watch or listen to us.

Panopticon is used as a metaphor by Foucault which enables him to explore two kinds of relationships:  Between systems of social control and people under a discipline  Between power and knowledge

For Foucault, knowledge is gained by equally observing the others, and with the increasing of knowledge, power becomes closer to be indestructable and more disciplinary with every moment controlled and all events recorded. The false reality created by power (the unseen guard in the centre) brings with it a series of regulations and normalization processes. As a result, the subjects accept these regulations and normalization processes, and do not fail to obey. Therefore, behaviour that is suitable or defined as suitable by the dominant discourse is achieved not by means of total surveillance, but by panoptic discipline through which a population is forced to conform through internalization of the false reality. The observer bases his/her actions on the behaviour of the subjects: to observe more, one needs more power, and the more one observes, the more powerful one becomes.

Power and knowledge operates together and: by being combined and generalized, they attained a level at which the formation of knowledge and the increase in power regularly reinforce one another in a circular process. (Foucault 1977)

Here, the danger is not the repression on the individuals, but their internalization of the control over them. By this way, the subjects penetrate the power first into their psychology and second into the way they behave. And the power-holder is always in search of "new objects of knowledge over all the surfaces on which power is exercised" (Foucault 1977).

In conclusion, it can be seen that if the knowledge is only available to a certain person or group of people, oppression can be observed. One of the greatest strategies of the power-holder of such a model is that the power-holder remains invisible to the subjects. The subjects do not know when they are watched and when they are not watched, and more importantly, they do not know to whom they will direct their resistance; as they do not have power, they cannot observe the power-holder, and they cannot obtain the knowledge of him.