foucault

The subject of the current article is Foucault's analysis of the ontology of the novel. This research provides an interdisciplinary reading indicating that the ontology of the novel is based on the deconstruction of home’s concept: novel characters, unlike the heroic characters of Greek mythology and the Bible, constantly depart from home to discover the unknown realm of existence or a new dimension of humanity. There is a direct relationship between this transcendental homelessness and the novel's ontology. The results of the current research have shown that the conceptualization of home has yielded specific outcomes: 1. The novel has replaced similarity-based ethics with difference-based ethics. 2. Home is not a fixed and unchanging concept, but rather a construct. 3. The novel's adventure is a journey from the known to the unknown realms. 4. The novel is not in pursuit of utopia but rather maps out heterotopias as realms of diversity and abundance. The clear implication of this research is that the difference between the novel and the epic is not merely a genre difference but rather an ontological difference

Focusing on Heidegger's and Derrida's interpretations of Plato, this paper highlights a line of interpretation in which Plato is seen as the origin of a philosophical understanding that dismisses the hidden aspect of Being and truth. Against this line, Foucault's interpretation of Plato and Greek philosophical practices is elaborated. Considering this interpretation, it becomes clear that we are dealing with two distinct descriptions of Greek philosophical practices and their relation to the rise of modernity: one that views modernity as an extension of the deepest meanings embedded in Greek metaphysics and another that interprets the foundations of modern philosophy in opposition to the basis of Platonic thought, seeing Plato and the ancient philosophical approaches influenced by him as an avenue for resisting modern domination. Although Foucault's project on the art of living owes much to Heidegger's ideas about care of the self and the work of art, it allows Foucault to offer a different interpretation of Plato. We show the methodological considerations that enable Foucault to present this distinct interpretation. To achieve such an interpretation, Foucault focuses on the practices of writing, logos, and truth as parrhesia in Plato's thought and Greek philosophy. Following Foucault's path, we offer an analysis of forms, Agathon, and dialogue that emphasizes their living, engaging, aesthetic, and political aspects. This conceptual and methodological toolkit helps us to introduce and develop an alternative interpretive line of Plato's thought.

This paper, through an interdisciplinary and comparative study, seeks to uncover the connection between Foucault’s approach to the concept of power and Kafka’s perspective in his novel The Trial. The point of convergence between Foucault and Kafka can be found in the concept of biopolitics, where life itself becomes the subject of politics. The emergence of biopolitics marks the distinction between the modern world and the traditional one. In the pre-modern world, power manifested itself in the figure of the executioner and in the moment of death. However, modern power engages in the management of the living and free subject. The case study of this research is Kafka’s The Trial. The character K. (the protagonist) is entangled in the same panoptic power that Foucault describes in his works—a power that pursues not just a specific criminal act, but the entirety of the criminal's life. This is why K. is never accused of a specific crime; instead, he is compelled to narrate and bring to light his entire life, from childhood to the present. According to Foucault, the more modern power hides itself, the more it brings the lives of the masses into the light. Similarly, in Kafka’s novel, K. never gains access to the court, which remains hidden from his view until the end. The court, like Foucault’s diffuse power, is omnipresent and has no fixed location. This paper demonstrates that this omnipresent power is not a theological force but the very biopolitics that Foucault speaks of.

Michel Foucault (1926-1984), a French postmodern philosopher, has reflected on the nature of philosophy and its relationship with modernity in his various books. This article is based on the contemporary controversies about the nature and destiny of philosophy that have been raised under the literature of "metaphilosophy" since the 1970s and by referring to Foucault's key Ideas such as the order of things, the Archeologydg of knowlee, the history of sexuality, power-knowledge. And …. to Analyise the relationships of Foucault's understanding of philosophy (Foucault's metaphilosophy) in connection with his reading of humanism as the foundation of modernity. What in Foucault's opinion is the link between metaphilosophy and modernity is Foucault's theoretical effort in expanding and deepening the intellectual literature of "anti-humanism" in the tradition of continental philosophy.

This article aims to reassess the concepts of power, resistance, and subjectivity by examining the ideas of Hannah Arendt and Michel Foucault. At first glance, it seems that these two thinkers, rooted in different philosophical and theoretical foundations, are in opposition to each other, making a dialogue between their perspectives seemingly impossible. However, this article proposes an alternative approach by highlighting the common grounds and commonalities in their deconstruction of power. Moreover, it argues that their political views can be seen as aligned and complementary, leading to a deepening and development of each other's ideas and the creation of new political approaches. Thus, the central questions addressed in this article are: what forms of agency emerge for the contemporary subject as result of the deconstruction of power in thought of Arendt and Foucault? How does power act as a source of resistance while opening up new possibilities for the subject? The main finding of this study is that, in contrast to traditional and modern interpretations, power in the works of these thinkers is seen as a positive, creative, and productive concept. Based on this understanding, resistance and alternative forms of empowerment for the subject emerge. It should be noted, however, that Arendt’s and Foucault’s interpretation of resistance agency and power may differ due to the primacy of political and social issues in their respective theories.

The development of rational faculties that distinguish humans from other living beings is a topic of interest to scientists and philosophers from various perspectives. It is also a challenging topic in Foucault's intellectual and philosophical system. Therefore, this study examines the rationality in Foucault's thought using a descriptive-analytical method. In this context, relevant documents and sources related to postmodernism and Foucault's views were specifically selected and analyzed to achieve theoretical saturation. The research suggests that Foucault views rationality and knowledge as products of power. He criticizes partial, superficial, and local rationalities and instead focuses on comprehensive and universal rationality and truth. In addition, he views educational spaces, institutions, and organizations as reproductions and instruments of power. Based on this perspective, it can be said that, from Foucault's point of view, the ultimate goal of education is to cultivate critical, active, and creative students who can recognize power relations through deconstruction and analysis of texts and social practices and discover new meanings and interpretations.

In this article, with the help of Heidegger and Foucault's conceptual tools, as well as the achievements of the cognitive science, we try to examine the transition from paper reading to digital reading. This discussion can be a preparation for a philosophical understanding of the digital age. We show that Heidegger's analysis of the ready-to-hand beings and technology can help to understand the reading behaviors of paper and digital readers. We have also use Heidegger's analytical framework for text ontology. On the other hand, Foucault's reflections on the embodied technologies can explain the power-knowledge relationships that is constructed around the reader. In addition, the cognitive science has provided detailed empirical findings on the effects of reading behaviors on the human cognitive biases and skills by examining the various modes of reading. Embodied and skillful cognitive science, by going beyond the computational understanding of human beings, has noticed the various behaviors and states of the body in reading processes and highlighted their effects. To integrate these areas of research, we try to place the findings of the cognitive science within the framework of Heidegger and Foucault's technological understanding of the modern power-knowledge relationships.

Heidegger and Foucault, two influential thinkers of the 20th century, addressed the fundamental issues from different perspectives. In recent years, researches has been done on the relationship between Heidegger and Foucault on various topics in contemporary Western philosophy. One of the most important topics that can be the subject of the encounter is the question of "technology". Heidegger's essay The Question Concerning Technology (1954) and Foucault's book Discipline and Punish: The Birth of Prison (1975) will be the main subject for the encounter and perhaps the interaction of these two thinkers in this article. To understand technology from the perspective of these two thinkers, one must begin with being and power as the basis and background of this encounter.By examining the history of Being, Heidegger reveals different manifestations of the revelation of being. He claims that technology is a way of the revelation of being in modernity, in which beings are revealed as objects. The basis of Foucault's thinking is also the question of power. He examines the relationship between power and technology and leads us from the analysis of the relationship between technology and power to one of the forms of technology, which he calls disciplinary technology. According to Foucault, technology is a disciplinary network of power and knowledge relations that turns humans into subjects by shaping general practices and mechanisms. Therefore, Starting from two different bases (being and power), we thus arrive at the common discussion of technology and then at the parallel concepts of Gestell and discipline. By explaining the function of the Gestell, Heidegger shows how modern technology transforms nature and things into objects and standing reserve (Bestand) through a kind of challenging and discipline, revealing the methods of objectifying of things and nature. At the center of Heidegger's philosophy of technology is the idea that modern technology, "enframing" (Gestell), has changed our relationship to the world and to ourselves. He argues that modern technology is not just a tool or an instrument, but a pervasive force that shapes our entire way of being .For Heidegger, technology reveals itself as a mode that reveals or brings forth truth. It frames the world in a certain way and reduces everything to a calculable and manipulable standing reserve. This instrumental understanding of technology obscures its essence and prevents us from experiencing the world in a more authentic and meaningful way. Heidegger is of the opinion that such an understanding of technology leads to an oblivion of being, in which man is separated from his true essence and the deeper meaning of being. He calls for a reflexive attitude towards technology that enables us to establish a more authentic relationship to the world and to our own being.     Foucault's analysis of power and technology focuses on the ways in which power is exercised through disciplinary technologies in modern societies. He explores how power is exercised not only through direct coercion, but also through systems of control and normalization. Foucault introduces the concept of disciplinary power, which operates through various techniques and technologies to regulate individuals and populations. Disciplinary technologies include institutions such as prisons, schools, hospitals and factories, as well as techniques of surveillance, classification and examination. These disciplinary technologies create a network of power relations that shape and control people’s bodies, behaviors, and identities. They produce specific forms of knowledge, norms, and subjectivities, exerting power over individuals' lives and shaping their understanding of themselves and society.Foucault argues that disciplinary technologies are deeply intertwined with modern forms of knowledge and social control. They serve to enforce conformity, maintain social order and uphold dominant power structures. In his analysis, power is not only imposed from above, but is distributed throughout society and operates at different levels and through different mechanisms. On the other hand, Foucault tries to pay more attention to how subjects are made by technology than to how objects are made by technology. 

After this encounter, the final section sets out the similarities and differences between Heidegger's and Foucault's readings of technology issue, drawing on the opinions of commentators such as Sawicki, Dreyfus, Rayner, Sinnerbrink, and Lagdameo. These similar and different aspects sometimes bring the two thinkers closer and sometimes further apart, resulting from Heidegger's ontological encounter with technology as opposed to Foucault's genealogical encounter with technology. The presence of similarities, however, encourages the reader to merely trace the possible influence of Heidegger on Foucault's thinking about technology. The presence of differences can be also reduced to considering technology on two levels: ontological (Heidegger) and ontic (Foucault), but as a conclusion, this opinion is strengthened: Foucault's narrative of technology (especially disciplinary technology) is not a copy.  The repetition is rather a determined, concrete version and completion of Heidegger's analysis of technology. This shows that although two thinkers have taken different paths (being and power) in the discussion of technology, by taking up the discussion of power and technology, Foucault brings technology into complex, multi-layered relationships. By discussing the disciplinary institutions and techniques of biopolitics, he expands technology ontological dimension (in Heidegger). In this sense, technology as a way of revealing of being in modernity, which begins with Heidegger, is developed, completed, and strengthened in Foucault along the same path but in a different way (with a concrete and historical approach).

Foucault and Hegel are two influential thinkers that were fundamentally involved with the problem of knowledge and history. Without an understanding of the place of history in their thoughts, it seems very difficult, if not impossible, to understand their philosophy correctly. Although Foucault pointed out his ideas about Hegel and his confrontation with him in his conversations and writings, he never explained this important in detail. However, by looking at his works and specifically what he proposes as archaeo-genealogy, we can see a fundamental contrast between this method and Hegel's philosophy of history. This article seeks to show how these two views can be understood in opposition to each other by reading Hegel's view of history as a philosophy of history and Foucault's archaeo-genealogy. Foucault's genealogical view, based on Nietzsche's ideas, is completely opposed to any metaphysics or philosophy of history, as philosophy of history is based on universality, reason and teleology, and the other is based on plurality, discontinuity, and the absence of any universal goal. This article will also try to clarify that these thinkers have commonalities in some aspects of their thinking, including some basic problems in relation to history, although these problems find completely different answers.

The museum, in the form of a cultural and educational institution, has always expressed a kind of deep relationship and a discourse relationship with power, rather than a warehouse space, arranging and displaying this or that object. In the meantime, the reflection of some themes of power in the museum is accompanied by evidence of the concept of "heterotopia" from space, which is visible among the thoughts of Michel Foucault. Through concepts such as "heterotopia or the space of otherness", Foucault has dealt with how power, order, discipline, and knowledge are manifested through institutional forms in specific spaces. Accordingly, the present study, based on Foucault's ideas, tries to critically analyze the position of the museum. The main question is what are the heterotopic features of the museum depending on the power structure and to what extent it can be adapted to this concept. As a result, in addition to the durability and consistency of the six basic principles of heterotopia in a museum, which reflects the disciplinary power and controlled establishment of knowledge, a seventh principle can be added that operates in the position of resistance.

The hermeneutic of the self concept in Foucault’s workprovided a condition for a new form of his study, an analysisof the relationship between truth and the subject, and the development of knowledge into the mechanisms of self-care. For Foucault, the hermeneutics of the subject, unlike its traditional technologies, is not a simple form of an act of self-care to achieve some degree of moral excellence; rather, it formulates and processes the entire humanities system, modern literature, and related sciences. Here it is no longer an external coercion to reveal and interpret oneself, but a kind of morbid desire to empty the inner secrets as a text, and in the presence of the symbolic. This excessive and deviant longing for the symbolic, which targets passive articulation of the subject's desire, can be symptomatic as a pathological thing. In the present study, five clinical symptoms including introspection, narcissistic aspect, masochism, obsession and femininity of language were identified in Foucault's hermeneutics of the subject and within the framework of Freudian psychoanalytic principles. Symptoms that all have neurotic aspects and indicate that hermeneutics can be placed in the category of neuroses in the classification of desire disorders. A disorder whose fundamental characteristic is the defeat of the ego (unconsciousness) as the geometric location of the principle of pleasure, against the principle of reality and its external manifestations (culture, ethics, law, etc.).

In this article, we analyze the basic role of finitude in Heidegger and Foucault’s philosophy. We argue that finitude makes possible Heidegger’s concept of being and the history of being as well as Foucault’s concept of the modernity and the entire history of western thinking in later Foucault. To accomplish this objective, we conduct the following: We analyze the basic finitude in Heidegger’s ontology; We explain “analytic of finitude” in early Foucault’s work namely the birth of the clinic and the order of things; We describe Foucault’s interpretation of Heidegger’s formulation of finitude; We specify the place of partial and relative nothingness in Heidegger and Foucault’s approach to human finitude; We explain that individuality, resistance, truth and historicity are possible by finitude in philosophy of them; And finally, we analyze how Foucault meets Heidegger in passing epistemological understanding of finitude and arriving at practical understanding of self-finitude and outlining the history of being.

The spread of Covid 19 disease in early 2020, which quickly became a global epidemic, drastically changed human relationships. The use of quarantine technique to prevent the spread of the disease has sparked much controversy in the areas of public health and social control. It is necessary to be aware of these widespread changes and the resulting conflicts, to know the history of the epidemic and its effects in the field of public health and its consequences in changing the political pattern and social control. In this article, we first try to briefly describe the evolution of the concept of pandemics from Greece to the Middle Ages, and show that the dominant method of controlling pandemics was segregation. Then we show how in the fourteenth century the quarantine technique was invented to control epidemics. The invention of this technique was the beginning of the emergence of new knowledge such as statistics and social control. Finally, in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, public health became a new object. In fact, urban medicine in the eighteenth century was the continuation and development of the medical-political institution of quarantine in the late Middle Ages, which included the study of places that spread the phenomena of epidemics. In other words, the public health program was introduced as a health regime for the population that required authoritarian medical interventions and controls. .

Kant has noticed and researched the matter of “enlightenment” and at the mean time permits a kind of “rationality”; in other words he believes the enlightenment movement is concordant with a kind of “rationality”. Years later, Foucault presents a special interpretation of “enlightenment” in Kant’s viewpoint. He says enlightenment is as the continuation of the “critical tradition” and “ontology of the present time”. On the other hand the Shi’ite jurisprudence has its own unique rationality system which leads to the dynamism of this religious-intellectual trend when it encounters new issues. I have tried to first explain the characteristics of “rationality” in the opinion of Kant and Foucault in the enlightenment movement in this article and then I have discussed the characteristics of Shi’ite’s jurisprudence and the method of “rationality” of this religious-intellectual trend during the time of absence [of Imams]. Then the “rationality” of the “enlightenment” tradition in Kant and Foucault’s viewpoint are compared with the rationalistic approach present in the Imamiyah [the Twelvers] jurisprudence tradition, the similarities and differences between the two kinds of rationalism is explained, and finally some reasons for the priority of rationality of the religious-intellectual system of Imamiyah jurisprudence over the rationality of the enlightenment movement of Kant and Foucault are mentioned.

Foucault and Levinas are one of the most prominent and important thinkers who have put emphasis on the necessity of the fundamental critique of rational subjectivity. This is an approach that according to these two thinkers since the time of Descartes up to this day has suppressed the ethical capability of body in the interest of consciousness. Foucault and Levinas have studied and analyzed the ethical criterion of the embodied subject and in this respect, they have presented the fundamental and creative description of body and ethics. Accordingly, they have deconstructed the link between the subject and the other from a new perspective. Our main question in the paper is that how have Foucault and Levinas delineated the ethical embodied subjectivity on the base of the features of their intellectual system? What are their differences and similarities on the ethical embodied subjectivity?  The main claim of the paper is that although Foucault and Levinas have presented different methods and understandings on being ethical, but both of them emphasize on the necessity of body as the essential condition to reconstruct ethical subjectivity.  Both have provided specific meanings of ethics and have criticized theories of ethical practice and the set of general laws.  They have also emphasized the importance of the ethical capability of language to explain the essential relationship between subject and the other. By raising serious criticisms of the language of rational subjectivism they have given rise to the truth telling and responsive subject. In general, Foucault and Levine’s ethical embodied subject has common ethical, physical, linguistic, aesthetic, and historical aspects.

Despite Agamben’s assertion that his project somehow corrects or completes Foucault’s political thoughts, it seems that there are some deep and fundamental differences between them. Foucault rejects any kind of theory of power and believes that the analysis of power in the contemporary world should be freed from juridical-theological presuppositions. In contrast, in Agamben’s thought we come across some obvious elements of the classical understating of power and its theological presupposition so that political theology is a basic constituent of his theory about sovereign power. Though Foucault’s aim is mostly to analyze power’s mechanisms according to a micro-politics, he never thinks about the role of a person or state and his/her or its decision as a foundation for political situation. In contrast, he regards such a point of view as the feature of the classical theories about power. For him power is a Nietzschean concept which is the foundation of everything. Agamben, following Schmitt, regards power as the sovereign power. He believes that there is a logic for our contemporary political situation called “the state of exception”, that is the result of sovereign decision. This article tries to analyze the meaning and mechanism of biopower and biopolitics in both thinkers and explain the way that Agamben’s political theory can be said to be rooted in Foucault’s analysis.

The main issue in this paper is to find the relationship between the concepts of Foucauldian dispersed power and Kundera’s kitsch in The Unbearable Lightness of Being a novel authored by Milan Kundera. In other words, the main question here is how the concept of kitsch accompanies and interweaves dispersed power concept. One main objective in this comparative literary study, focusing a Foucauldian reading on The Unbearable Lightness of Being, is to argue that Kitsch phenomenon in  Kundera’s literary work cannot be explained without going beyond power relations in traditional reading. This argument leads us to Foucauldian different reading on the concept of power relations. Foucault and Kundera bring about power without agency/subject: A Empire of the Gaze. In their readings, power/ Kitsch alludes to concepts going beyond communism/liberalism dichotomy. This study discusses decontextualized power versus centralized power, the aesthetics of the accident versus public aesthetics, a unique issue versus ontological similarity, author centeredness versus the death of the author. These dichotomies are the fruits of a paradigmatic shift on power concept in modern era. Therefore, this study can show the consequences of modern power in four aspects, namely politics, aesthetics, ontology and literature. This study, on one hand, has some ramifications on highlighting philosophical criticism in novel criticism, on the other hand, the linkage between post-modern school of thought and Kundera’s novels.

In “Birth of the Clinic” Foucault's shows that it was not the natural sciences but the clinical medicine that laid the foundation for the humanities. At the end of the book The Birth of the Clinic, he argues that the humanities are based on modern clinical medicine. The importance of medical science in the founding of the humanities, he says, is not purely methodological because human existence is defined or perceived as the object of positive science. Of course, Foucault does not make more of his claim and does not expand it. In this article I will try to show how this claim can be defended on the basis of his formulation of clinical medicine, and what implications it will have for the humanities.In order to understand comprehensively the thesis medicine should be framed based on the views of medical philosophers. Without these arrangements, it would be difficult to understand Foucault's claim. It seems that not only he has suspended implicitly or neglected many of philosophical issues of medicine in the Birth of the Clinic, but also his interpreters were unfamiliar with the tradition of medical philosophy. First, I'm trying to show that medicine is a different mode of thinking than the natural sciences, if that were not the case, Foucault's claim would be so trivial: human being has been transformed to the object by medicine, and it was then that the founding of the human sciences was inspired by the natural sciences, which is a mistaken belief. This section will be based on the views of Ludwig Falk on the serious differences between medical thinking and the natural sciences. I describe the structure of clinical medicine and its various disciplines and their interaction. In this is based on Kazem Sadeghzadeh ideas. In the next section, I will attempt to show how Foucault has formulated modern clinical medicine and its evolution in the form of three-level spatialization. In the final chapter, I will show how Foucault's formulation of clinical medicine can form the basis of the humanities. Thus this article appears to be an attempt to link the philosophy of medicine and the philosophy of the humanities through a new reading of the Birth of a Clinic

Ibn Habib Neyshaboory in self' book –that it is classified as sufi literature- considers the kinds of madness. In this classification, never madness isn't conceived as illness and it isn't the contrast with rationality. A madman is a man who he chooses different style with public life and refuses formal normal. At a conclusion, a madman is representated as critic of society and politics. Madness is language of outcasts and isolated persons. Therefore, it is irony and overturne ethics-knowledge regime.Foucault, also, criticizes psychiatry' dividing practices that constitutes reason-madness polarity and denies a different ways of thinking. In view of Foucault, psychiatry is a apparatus for social control and rejaction of singular subjects. In this approach, Foucault's perpective becomes similar to Ibn Habib's.But, Foucault, against Ibn Habib, avoids romantic or essentialist interpretation about a innocent essence. Foucault considers refrence to pre-modern discourses as a regressive approach. He pays attention to madness concept because it make possible forms of informal politics: ways of practicing power down to up and pass out of dividing practices. It is beyond of good-bad or truth-false. But Ibn Habib, in sufi discourse, constitutes madness language as hegemonic discourse against philosophical discourse. This article make a comparison between Foucault and Ibn Habib and it transfers superficial similarity to discoursive difference.

The present study shows that how Michel Foucault is inclined to the art of self-invention in his final works through referring to some enlightenment doctrines. Reviewing basic concepts of enlightenment in late Foucault's works is along with a new understanding on the part of Kant and Subject. By placing aesthetic theories regarding to the self in the text of enlightenment thinking, Foucault shows that not only he doesn't ignore enlightenment values (on the contrary to his previous works), but also addresses restructuring some of these concepts. Such enlightenment reflects itself in that ethics implying rapport à soi. The formation of such ethics is possible with the help of Foucault's research regarding ethics in Greece and Rome from the one hand, and referring to Nietzsche as well as Charles Baudelaire's doctrines from the other. The ethics in ancient world is seeking to offer a method to nurture creativity, which faces them with their presence at first, and then the self in order to think in another way and change their life; i.e, to create themselves. Baudelaire, too, interprets being modern as creativity and dynamicity and believes that the person's life should be concomitant to self- invention and change like an artistic work. Our objective in the present study is to investigate an aspect of Foucault is thinking that has less been attended to which is invention and beautiful living.