Foucalt's concept of the relationships between power and knowledge

Abstract

For Foucault power and knowledge are not seen as independent entities but are inextricable and related to each other - knowledge is always an exercise or power, and power is always a function of knowledge. It is important to say that Foucault understands power/knowledge as productive and constraining as well. Foucault also connects power and discipline. It is mechanism of power that regulates the thought and behaviour of social actors through subtle means. Modern society is a disciplinary one - power is exercised through disciplinary means in a variety of institutions (prison, schools, hospitals, militaries). Foucault's concept of power and knowledge fits into his critique of the Enlightenment era based on reason and individualism. There is no individual and universal view on the world, and no objective truth. Foucault's conception of postmodernism is subject to critique, especially by Habermas and Baudrillard. For Habermas, reason is not capacity or feature. Postmodernism is the project which rejects self, reason and consensus. They favorise discontinuity, so that modernism does not have to be abandoned, but completed. Baudrillard, from his point of view, although belongs to postmodernism, criticizes Foucault's conception of power and knowledge and speaks about its disappearance.

Keywords

• foucault
• habermas
• power
• knowledge
• postmodernism
• enlightenment
• critique