This article interprets the state of “subjection,” which Foucault took to be characteristic of the modern subject of power/knowledge, as an abiding psychic disposition analogous to Heidegger’s “inauthentic self-understanding.” The author begins by arguing, against prevailing orthodoxy, that in Discipline and Punish, Foucault is already centrally concerned with the power effects of forms of psychic self-relation. He then argues that the psychic state of subjection should not be understood as a constellation of ideas, beliefs, or other “representations” but along de-essentialized Heideggerian/Aristotelian lines as a “habit” of the soul—the effect of training and technology rather than ideology.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
Aristotle. 1976. The ethics of Aristotle. Translated by J. A. K. Thompson. London: Penguin.
2.
Bernauer, J., and M. Mahon. 1994. The ethics of Michel Foucault.” In The Cambridge companion to Foucault, edited by Gary Gutting. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
3.
Davidson, A.1986. Archaeology, genealogy, ethics. In Foucault: A critical reader, edited by David Couzens Hoy.Oxford: Blackwell.
4.
Dreyfus, H., and P. Rabinow. 1982. Michel Foucault: Beyond structuralism and hermeneutics. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
5.
Foucault, M.1966. The order of things. London: Tavistock/Routledge.
6.
Foucault, M.1972. The archaeology of knowledge. Translated by A. M. Sheridan Smith. London: Routledge.
7.
Foucault, M.1977. Discipline and punish. Translated by Alan Sheridan. London: Penguin.
8.
Foucault, M.1978. The history of sexuality I: The will to knowledge. Translated by Robert Hurley. London: Penguin.
9.
Foucault, M.1980. The eye of power. In Power/knowledge, edited by Colin Gordon. Brighton, UK: Harvester.
10.
Foucault, M.1982. The subject and power. In Michel Foucault: Beyond structuralism and hermeneutics, edited by H. Dreyfus and P. Rabinow. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
11.
Foucault, M.1985. The history of sexuality II: The use of pleasure. Translated by Robert Hurley. London: Penguin.
12.
Foucault, M.1986. The history of sexuality III: The care of the self. Translated by Robert Hurley. London: Penguin.
13.
Foucault, M.1988a. Critical theory/intellectual history. In Michel Foucault: Politics, philosophy, culture, edited by Lawrence D. Kritzman. London: Routledge.
14.
Foucault, M.1988b. Politics and reason. In Michel Foucault: Politics, philosophy, culture, edited by Lawrence D. Kritzman. London: Routledge.
15.
Foucault, M.1988c. The return of morality. In Michel Foucault: Politics, philosophy, culture, edited by Lawrence D. Kritzman. London: Routledge.
16.
Gutting, G.1994. Michel Foucault: A user’s manual. In The Cambridge companion to Foucault, edited by Gary Gutting. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
17.
Heidegger, M.1962. Being and time. Translated by John Macquarrie and Edward Robinson. Oxford: Blackwell.
18.
Heidegger, M.1977. The question concerning technology. In The question concerning technology and other essays, edited by William Lovitt. New York: Harper and Row.
19.
Heidegger, M.1982. The basic problems of phenomenology. Translated by Albert Hofstadter. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
20.
Poster, M.1993. Foucault and the problem of self-constitution. In Foucault and the critique of institutions, edited by John Caputo and Mark Yount. Philadelphia: Pennsylvania State University Press.
21.
Volpi, F.1996. Dasein as praxis: The Heideggerian assimilation and radicalization of the practical philosophy of Aristotle. In Critical Heidegger, edited by Christopher Macann. London: Routledge.
