Discourse Analysis: Ideology or Method? Reflections on the Philosophical-Ideological Foundations of Michel Foucault's Discourse Analysis

In this paper, it will be argued that, contrary to the prevailing practice in Iran from the mid-1990s to the present, Michel Foucault's Discourse Analysis (FDA) cannot be used separatelyas a mere method in various fields of humanities andwithout considering its philosophical-ideological bases. FDA stems from his particular ideological perspective of the course of modern times from the renaissance to the end of the enlightenment (14th to the 18th century) and derives from particular philosophical and ontological sources that Foucault deeply believed them. In other words, there is an organic unity between FDA, as a method, and its philosophical content, and the fact that Foucault turned to Discourse Analysis and adopted it as a seemingly new method in analyzing the history of the new age was notarbitrary but a deliberate choice. In fact, it came from his own philosophical logic; alogic that is consistent with G. W. F. Hegelian historicism, which Foucault ostensibly opposed.Hegelianism, with its deterministic logic, develops an organic view of history that is consistent with Foucault's structural and institutional view of power. . On the other hand, Hegelian historicism does not place importance on the role of humans in the formation of historical events, and this feature is also fully compatible with Foucault's theory of the subject's death.Thus, one can use Foucault's discourse analysis only as a method of analyzing various subjects if one firmly believes in its ideological foundations, such as the death of man.