Michel Foucault (1926-1984) was a French philosopher and historian of ideas who analyzed how knowledge, institutions, and power shape what can be said and done. His work is central to critical theory, especially studies of discourse, knowledge, and social control.
Core ideas
- Discourse: systems of language and practice that define what counts as knowledge in a domain.
- Archaeology: a method for analyzing historical layers of discourse.
- Genealogy: a method for tracing how concepts are produced through contingencies, institutions, and power relations.
- Power/knowledge: the claim that power and knowledge are co-constitutive; knowledge both enables and is enabled by power.
- Biopower and governmentality: ways institutions manage bodies and populations through policy, norms, and expertise.
Related theories
Notable works
- Discipline and Punish
- The History of Sexuality (vols. 1-3)
- The Archaeology of Knowledge