Michel Foucault: biography and work

Michel Foucault has been considered one of the great thinkers of the 20th century. This philosopher, psychologist, social theorist and historian developed different ideas that marked French culture. Although his contributions go beyond his borders and the limits between the various areas in which he stood out.

Very prolific, he achieved worldwide fame and notoriety thanks to his research on numerous subjects such as psychiatry. His studies on human sexuality, the health system and even social institutions also stand out, with special emphasis on prisons. And this thinker, in addition to being an activist, He was a very restless and active person. in their research and studies. All this was reflected in his work and in the intensity that characterized his life.

Michel Foucault, first steps

Michel Foucault was born in Poitiers, France, on October 15, 1926.. Being the son of a prestigious French surgeon, his family expected him to follow in his father’s footsteps. He grew up in a family that placed great value on studies, considering that knowledge was essential for the person. This environment would lead him to attend very important schools, although he was not always a great student. He achieved success and recognition in academics, but also accumulated failures.

Foucault studied at the prestigious Ecole Normande Supérieure, a school in which the best humanities thinkers and specialists in France were trained. Although, for Michel Foucaulthis passage through it was tragic, since He suffered depression and even several suicide attempts. For this reason, he received psychiatric treatment already in his youth.

Michel Foucault and psychology

As a result of his contact with psychiatry as a patient, his other great passion arose: psychology. His premature contact with this discipline led him to study it within the academic field. He obtained his bachelor’s degree in Psychology, in addition to his training in Philosophy. His prestige was such that he remained as a teacher at the same center he had attended.

Although, shortly after, he obtained a position as a professor of psychology at the well-known University of Lille. Later, he joined the Philosophy department of the Clermont-Ferrand University, in order to complete his doctorate. It was during this period that he wrote most of his works on psychiatry, psychology and mental health. Being those of sexuality, politics and social issues after this stage.

Subsequently, The famous student revolts of May 1968 left an important mark on Michel Foucaultdeveloping great political activism and causing him to join the Philosophy department of the Paris VIII Experimental University, a university that had been founded in those years.

Finally, he was elected to the academic staff of the College of France, a position of recognized prestige that allowed him to travel around the world giving classes and conferences, which increased his participation in political life.

These were the years in which He was accused of changing his mind and ideas. Something that he defended and considered a normal fact when acquiring knowledge and experience. However, this led him to destroy much of his work and prohibit the publication of the writings that remained. Finally, after a life of emotional ups and downs and great dedication to study and research, Michel Foucault died from complications derived from AIDS in 1984.

Work by Michel Foucault

Michel Foucault He detected existing insufficiencies in the main currents that dealt with psychopathology, especially psychoanalysis, phenomenology and evolutionism. After, based his theory on the global interpretation of mental illness, from two new points of view so far: the cultural and the social.

For Foucault, Power comes from all areas of society and, as a consequence, proposed to analyze the existing power relations in the social environment, according to your criteria. He saw in philosophy and research weapons of analysis that could build changes in society. For this reason, he considered that the role of thinkers was to contribute to society.

Foucault analyzed how the psychological subject was constructed from the three fundamental knowledge of man:

First of all, the psychology and psychiatry.Secondly, the power exercises, both normalizing and institutional. Finally, he highlighted the power of subjectificationcomposed of examination, confession and moral guilt.

The thinker went further in his research, providing a historiographical component which was new. That is, he decided to give an account of how certain issues had been treated throughout history and, in this way, he was able to verify and argue the changes that occur in different periods. A diachronic view of a problem provides an objective view of the same event in the present.

How has madness been treated throughout history? And sexuality? What conclusions can we draw from this? He captured all this in his works, among which the following stand out: History of madness in classical times, The words and the things, The archeology of knowledge, Watch out and punish, history of sexuality, The birth of the clinicetc.

Foucault’s genealogy of power

Michel Foucault’s The Genealogy of Power analyzed economic thought and other human sciences to understand how people became subjects in modernity. As Foucault came to realize that power is not only repressive, but productive, that is, it produces subjects, behaviors, and patterns, he shifted his analyzes from disciplinary power to biopolitics.

To continue with a genealogy of power relations, Foucault had to change the conception that power is repressive and punitive. Although Foucault initially investigated disciplinary power and its institutions of diffusion (prison, school, hospital, etc.), he later turned to another form of power: that which develops relations of productivity in human life. He called this form of power “biopower.”

The constitution of this power over life was based on two essential foundations: one was established during the 17th century and involved anatomopolitics (disciplinary power); another emerged at the end of the 18th century, the biopolitics of the population, which organized power over life in its collective form. The latter built power relations focused on the biological processes of life: birth, reproduction, growth, productivity, health, etc.

The division of biopower was intended to control and produce subjects . However, Foucault highlighted the differences that make up disciplinary power and biopolitical practices. The latter considered the human being in his multiplicity, not in his individuality, as disciplinary power does. So that, Individuals were understood as constituents of a global mass that is affected by various processes.

The techniques of biopolitics required a new set of knowledge through which they sought to help the control and maintenance of life. These techniques included statistical devices, demography, public policies and legitimacy of discourse. This knowledge provided regulatory mechanisms that had balance and stability as their main objective.

On the other hand, while individualization, punishment and exclusion of abnormality were the practical tools of disciplinary power to control and discipline, biopolitics began to use security devices either devices to regulate the masses through the notion of balance and normality. The main purpose of these devices was, therefore, to normalize the population and ensure that all activities associated with balance and normality worked well (Guizzo and de Lima, 2015).

Main works

Foucault distinguished himself as a prolific writer. Below we review some of his most notable and important works.

1. History of madness in classical times

In it he analyzes and reviews the treatment given to the concept of madness throughout history, emphasizing the evolution of the treatment given to the patient.

2. Words and things

Foucault reflects on how all historical periods are distinguished by presenting a series of fundamental conditions of truth that establish what is acceptable, and how these conditions change over time.

3. The archeology of knowledge

Another of the most relevant works of the French thinker in which he examines the functionality and power of sentences as basic units of discourse.

4. Monitor and punish

Here Foucault reflects on the functioning of penitentiary institutions, with the intention of understanding the evolution that the ways in which convicts are punished experience over the years.

5. History of sexuality

This work reviews the use of sexuality as a regime of power, as well as the use of sexual pleasures throughout history.

To conclude, Michel Foucault has been considered one of the great thinkers of France in the last century. His thinking greatly influenced the philosophy and psychology of the 20th century. Furthermore, today, many of his works continue to be published and generate an impact on society.

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