Critically discuss Michel Foucault’s concept of knowledge/power

In The company of Things (1973) Michel Foucault describes an episteme as the combination of institutions, discourses, knowledges and practices that calculate the direction we do things, qualification some actions acceptable and otherwises unthinkable. He as well as says these processes of organisation in friendship ar gener all in ally invisible. Critically discuss Michel Foucaults concept of knowledge/ agent with reference to Arthur Millers film The melting pot. Michel Foucaults is a theorist who demonstrates a modernist modal value of thought.Based on one of David Morleys definitions of the postmodern pheno workforceon being a radiation pattern of cultural sensibility and a mode of thought, activateicularly appropriate to analyzing the period (Morley 1996, p. 50), Foucault could be considered a postmodernist and a poststructuralist. However, some whitethorn consider his earlier naturalizes, like The Order of Things, to be structuralist as it may have possibly reflected a lack of distinction at the time it was written and received. Rather than narrating the record of reallyity, Foucault intended to give descriptions of a variety of structures of knowledge also referred to as episteme.Arthur Millers film The Crucible explores issues that ar parallel to Foucaults thoughts of magnate and knowledge, however, Miller uses actual historical events as the background for his modernist beliefs. The concept of knowledge and causality explored in Foucaults text The Order of Things shadow be critically analysed with reference to more contemporary work of Arthur Miller, allowing one to draw distinctions between Foucaults theories and the concepts of collective evil, personal conscience, guilt, love and redemption explored in the film.In The Order of Things, Foucault can give up the philosophy of the subject without depending on predilections from social issues in society, which, according to his have psychoanalysis, ar confined the modern form of kn owledge. Foucault had studied the form of knowledge that appears with the claim of rescuing the intelligible from everything falsifiable, accidental, and particular, and that becomes oddly suitable as medium of motive in particular on account of this pretended withdrawal of validity from genesis (Kelly 1995, p. 82).This lack of empiricism in Foucaults thoughts reflects a modernist way of mentation. The article Conclusion oral presentation as Deputy Sheriff by Osborne and Lewis, has evidence of a similar modernist approach to thinking and lack of empirical theories. It is less focused on the conception that what ever is true should be measured instead it makes statements and develops an analysis based on sciences or theory. An example is when it suggests that a more historically aware approach to thinking about communication in Australia would be a useful place to start (Lewis & Osborne 2001, p212).This modernist approach to thinking about knowledge determines the ensemble of r ules according to which the true and the false are separated and specific make of supply attached to the true (Kelly 1995, p. 82). At the extraction of The Order of Things, Foucault claims for a will that consists of truth for all times and all societies Every society has its regime of truth, its general politics of truth that is, the types of discourse which it accepts and makes it function as true. This ideology is reflected in Arthur Millers film The Crucible which is set in a small town, Salem.The entire colonisation becomes consumed by certain beliefs and certain truths which include their indisputable faith in God and the existence of mesmerisees, witch craft and the devil. The Order of Things is the story of the return of language which explains the fundamental position of literature in our culture. Ours is a period in which language is taken to be at the source of all thought, and this is what extravagantlylights the importance of modernist writing. give out-in is t he strict unfolding of Western culture in accordance with the necessity it imposed upon itself at the beginning of the nineteenth century (Rajchman 1985, p. 3).The significance of language is also reflected in The Crucible when John monitor refuses to sign a false confession, claiming you can non take away my name. He believed this would have happened by sign language the confession onto paper, epitomising the impact that language has when printed on paper. In The Order of Things, Foucault paints a picture of modernist culture in which there is no character of man and science is no longer independent or universal. only scientific, aesthetic, and moral problems are reduced to problems of language, and languages have no warrant or foundation beyond themselves.Rajchman states that diction becomes the limits of our being. It is only in transgressive writing that these limits are transcended writers are the heroes of our age. This is a picture of what I call post-Enlightenment litera ry culture. Many literary modernists, including Rajchman and Foucault, tell the story of how language had returned as the fundamental problem of our period, and our literacy culture which thence finds itself to be telling its own history. Foucault claims that literature in our day s a phenomenon whose necessity has its root in a vast configuration in which the whole structure of our thought and our knowledge is traced (Rajchman 1985, p. 25).In The Order of Things, it is clear that Foucault is hostile to the culture that reifies Man, and urges the withdrawer to embrace the post- pieceist age he foresees. Foucault rejects the traditional (Enlightenment) idea of progress and science, instead he constructs his history of knowledge with a lack of connection, and his literary history contains a hidden teleology prominent way to immediate links to The Crucible.Stuart Hall and Bram Gieben describe the Enlightenment idea of progress as the idea that the natural and social condition of hu man beings could be improved, by the physical exertion of science and reason (Hall & Gieben 1992, p. 22). . Both Miller and Foucault are modernist thinkers as they reject this Enlightenment concepts of progress, for example, the film The Crucible does non end with an improved social condition and happiness instead it comes to an abrupt end by the death of a central character and hero. In The Order of Things we find an attempt to de-anthropologise the concept of freedom.In The Crucible, John Proctor found freedom in the form of death. By not giving up his name in the confession he was condemned to be hung. However, his knowledge of what the real truth was allowed him to be free in his own sense of the word. This relates to Foucaults idea of power that he describes as a way in which certain actions modify others (OFarrell 1989, p. 119). But because of the freedom of the acting subjects, no matter what violence or seduction actions that make up power choose to exercise, the object o f power can last-ditchly duck and refuse power even if only through death.This idea was taken from Foucault who said the exercise of power may produce as much acceptance as may be wished for it can circumstances up the dead and shelter itself base whatever threats it can imagine. In itself the exercise of power is not violence nor is it a consent which implicitly is renewable (Foucault 1977, p. 228). OFarrell and Foucaults ideas are epitomized in the film The Crucible, when John Proctor refused to sign the confession or in this case refused power, he was set free even if it were to be through death.These power relationships were then abolished once the subject was freed and hence there was no possible sign of reversal hence the film was forced to an abrupt end. Foucault also believes there is no suspicion that our language, our work, and our bodies exponent determine the description of our actions and our creative activity in ways we do not realise and cant change. However, t here are many reasons why this theory should be questioned, an example existing in the film The Crucible.The vernal girls who were accused of witchery manifested power over their bodies and their language in order to convince the courts and an entire resolution of the existence of their world and the fact they could see the devil. All this was done in a quest to cover up their actions that was dancing naked around a fire in the forest. This idea creates a contradiction to Foucaults theory. However, Foucault also says that our problem becomes not the possibility of knowledge but the possibility of a primary mis pinch (Rajchman 1985, p. 13) which and then was true in the case of the teen girls of the film. In The Order Of Things, Foucault challenges new intellectual writings in regard to the change in Utopian thought. In the classical period, utopia was the dream of an ideal beginning in which everything would perfectly fit into Tables of Representation.In Foucaults argument he s tates that The great dream of an end of History is the utopia of mundane systems of thought just as the dream of the worlds beginnings was the utopia of the classifying systems of thoughts. In The Crucible the idea of witch craft challenges this world of utopia and one can question who has the authority to classify utopia, Miller or Foucault? Foucaults ideas challenge many of the ideas that run through The Crucible as he wishes not only to de anthropologise any nineteenth century utopian imaginations, dissociate our hopes of ever realising meaning and separate our freedom from philosophical theories about our nature. Much of Foucaults work is unconnected and this confuses anyone trying to analyse meaning in his writings.In The Order of Things he had looked at the way in which the human subject is defined through scientific discourse as a working, living, speaking respective(prenominal) (OLeary 2002, p. 59). However, Foucault deals with a collective and a great deal is to do with his unconscious ideas of perceptions individuals play almost no role in his work. He is not concerned with the discoveries of scientists or other philosophers. However, it is difficult to imagine the human sciences without specific individuals.Thus, Foucault uses individuals much(prenominal) as Ricardo, Cuvier and Bopp in his work, however they are not depicted as real people, no reference is made to their lives and little consideration is apt(p) to the controversies surrounding their ideas, since these issues are regarded as plainly surface phenomena (Spier 1983, p. 166). As a result, the reliability of Foucaults work can be questioned because a crucial part of critical thinking and analysis when investigating other theorists work is their background and what may be the reasons behind their specific way of thinking.However, Foucault justifies himself explaining that he tries to explore scientific discourse not from the point of view of the stiff structures of what they are sayi ng, but from the point of view of the rules that come into play in the very existence of such discourse (Spier 1983, p. 166). Spier raises an interesting critic of Foucault bringing his status as an author-subject into question. If language rather than man speaks, as he claims, and if the statement I am writing is a contradiction comparable to I am lying, then who is the author of the order of things? (Spier 1983, p. 167).This raises the question, is Foucault a universal voice of our time or is he merely speaking for himself. If he is speaking for himself as he suggests, then does he claim that what he is saying is a lie? Much of Foucaults work makes hostile statements and thus is not necessarily accepted when looking for truths, instead his writing is the developing process of his thoughts and is often experimental so should be read with an open mind and thought about critically.Foucaults analyses may be regarded as a contribution to an understanding of the historical conditions of possibility of the human sciences and their social and political effects. The underlying connection within Foucaults work is the sagaciousness of the relation between forms of rationality and forms of power, or of the relation between the emergence of particular forms of knowledge and the exercise of specific forms of power. Foucault believes that power is exercised upon the dominant as well as on the dominated and that there is a process of self-formation or auto-colonisation involved (Smart 1983, p. 4).If we put this theory into practice within The Crucible one can suggest that Foucaults idea of power is quite naive. In The Crucible the young girls were from the dominant culture in Salem and exercised their power over the lower classes (or the dominated). However, there was no retaliation and so power was not exercised onto the girls (the dominant) in any case. Thus, Foucault theory is merely a generalisation and not appropriate as a rule on the whole. Power relations, Foucau lt claims are intentional and non-subjectiveThey are imbued, through and through, with calculation there is no power that is exercised without a series of aims and objectives (Dreyfus & Rabinow 1982, p. 187). This idea states that at the local level there is often a high degree of conscious decision making, planning and plotting. Foucault refers to this as the local cynicism of power (Dreyfus & Rabinow 1982, p. 187). In The Crucible the young girls execute power over the village through their conscious actions to protect themselves, many were young and naive, and precaution was driving them to accuse the innocent.Their actions would ultimately lead the execution of innocent and respected members of the town. Some of the elder girls such as the head Abigail knew very well of her actions and used strategically planned methods of power. The following phrase by Foucault epitomises power very accurately when in relation to these girls from The Crucible People know what they do they oft en know why they do what they do but dont know is what they do does (Dreyfus & Rabinow 1982, p. 187). This theory on power is an example of how both Foucault and Miller may have been influenced by other modernist thinkers such as max Weber, a modernist thinker.He believed that power is the chance of a man or a number of men to realize their own will in a social action even against the resistance of others who are participating in the action (Max Weber, Basic Terms-The Fundamental Concepts of Sociology 1942) In much of Foucaults writing there are seeming contradictions especially in this return to the traditional philosophic view or Enlightenment idea that description and interpretation ultimately must correspond to the way things really are. However, Foucault does admit to his somewhat stilted approach to writing. I am fully aware that I have never written anything other than fiction.For all that, I would want to say that they were outside the truth. It seems plausible to me to ma ke fictions work within truth, to precede truth-effects within a fictional discourse With this is mind one can say that Foucaults writing is quiet informative and helpful in its own right and reveals more about society and its practices than about ultimate reality. In The Order of Things, Foucault does describe an episteme as the combination of institutions, discourses, knowledge and practices that organise the way we do things, making some actions acceptable rather than unthinkable.In many ways Foucaults concepts of knowledge and power are contradictory to his own existing theories. While many of Foucaults ideas are parallel with Arthur Millers film, The Crucible, some of his ideas reject Millers way of thinking. This non-uniformity in Foucaults analysis can however be justified, because it is hard to believe that in any given culture and at any given moment, there is only one episteme that defines the possibility of all knowledge, power relations, the concepts of freedom and tr uth, whether it be in a theory or demonstrated in practice or action.