CRIM 2650 Lecture Notes - Lecture 8: Biopolitics, Political Philosophy, Social Forces
Document Summary
Foucault is highly suspicious of claims to universal truths (they are grounded in different rationalities that shift over time and history), interested in how ideas are elevated to the level of truth. Problematizes free will- individual does not exist apart from broader social forces. One of the hallmarks of western political philosophy has been its devotions to abstractions of an ideal society, just social orders, searching for general principles that can be used to evaluate existing conditions against previous conditions (utopian normative) He aims to criticize the working on institutions which appear to be both neutral and independent, criticize the political violence which has always exercised itself obscurely through them. Political struggles aim to alter power relations, knowledge is a tool that can be used in these struggles. Knowledge and power are intertwined (e. g. psychiatry"s role in dictating the fate of criminals through psychiatric assessment, risk of offending) Different modes of making humans subjects of power:
