Rethinking Foucault's "Analytic of Power"

フーコー ケンリョクロン サイコウ

オオサカ ダイガク ニンゲン カガクブ シャカイガク ニンゲンガク ジンルイガク ケンキュウシツ

英語

実践の連関

諸力の関係

metatheoretical postulates

a configuration of practices

relationships of forces

This paper attempts to clarify the uniqueness of Michel Foucault's conceot of 'power' and its sighnificance for sociology, and to remove some sociologists' misunderstandings of Foucault's discussion of 'power.' In order to achieve these aims, I focus on the metatheoretical postulates / foundational assumptions of his conceptualization of 'power,' and show how they differ from those of his critics. It is already well-known that Foucault used the model of 'struggle' in order to conceptualize power relations. Some sociologists, for example, A. Honneth, misinterpreted this as a struggle between human subjects, and criticized Foucault based on this misinterpretation. These misunderstandings stem from their metatheoretical postulates that I call the "metaphysics of the subject." Many of Foucault's critics place the abstract human subject at the starting point of their reasoning, making 'human' prior to and constitutive of history, and the origin of action and power in general. I shall make it clear that Foucault's discussion itself destroys any idea of the "metapysics of the subject" - idealistic postulations of the human subject. He makes the distinctive assumption that the subject is not precursory to experiences, but that a human being is constituted as a specific subject within a configuration of contingent historical practices. He problematizes 'subjectivation.' His analytic of power is part of the 'tools' of specific research in various subjectivation in Western history. A specific subjectivation takes place in complex relationships and dynamic processes. Multiple relations of forces are immanent in these processes. Foucault's model of struggle and conception of power was an attempt to grasp these relationships of forces prior to the transformation to a subject. My conclusion is that Foucault's discussion of 'power,' and especially his concept of relations of forces prior to subjectivation, is based on a sort of relationalistic vitalism, 'a profound Nietzscheanism.' Any sociologist who reads Foucault's writings must consider this philosophical background.

英語