Michel Foucault | |
---|---|
Born | 15 October 1926 Poitiers, France |
Died | 25 June 1984 Paris, France |
(aged 57)
Alma mater |
École Normale Supérieure University of Paris (Sorbonne) |
Era | 20th-century philosophy |
Region | Western philosophy |
School |
Continental philosophy Post-structuralism |
Institutions |
École Normale Supérieure (1951–55) Université de Lille (1953–54) Uppsala University University of Warsaw Institut français Hamburg University of Clermont-Ferrand Tunis University University of Paris VIII Collège de France University at Buffalo University of California, Berkeley New York University |
Main interests
|
History of ideas, epistemology, historical epistemology, ethics, political philosophy, philosophy of literature, philosophy of technology |
Notable ideas
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Biopolitics, Biopower, disciplinary institution, discourse analysis, discursive formation, dispositif, épistème, "genealogy", governmentality, heterotopia, limit-experience, power-knowledge, panopticism, subjectivation (assujettissement) |
Influenced
|
Michel Foucault (French: [miʃɛl fuko]; born Paul-Michel Foucault, 15 October 1926 – 25 June 1984) was a French philosopher, historian of ideas, social theorist, and literary critic. His theories addressed the relationship between power and knowledge, and how they are used as a form of social control through societal institutions. Though often cited as a post-structuralist and postmodernist, Foucault rejected these labels, preferring to present his thought as a critical history of modernity. His thought has been highly influential both for academic and for activist groups, especially those working within contemporary sociology, cultural studies, and critical theory.
Born in Poitiers, France, into an upper-middle-class family, Foucault was educated at the Lycée Henri-IV, at the École Normale Supérieure, where he developed an interest in philosophy and came under the influence of his tutors Jean Hyppolite and Louis Althusser, and at the University of Paris (Sorbonne), where he earned degrees in philosophy and psychology. After several years as a cultural diplomat abroad, he returned to France and published his first major book, The History of Madness. After obtaining work between 1960 and 1966 at the University of Clermont-Ferrand, he produced The Birth of the Clinic and The Order of Things, publications which displayed his increasing involvement with structuralism, a theoretical movement in social anthropology from which he later distanced himself. These first three histories exemplified a historiographical technique Foucault was developing called "archaeology".