Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour 29:3

0021–8308

Michel Foucault, The History of Sexuality,1 and

the Reformulation of Social Theory
T. J. BERARD

No one knows who will live in this cage in the future, or whether at the end of this
tremendous development entirely new prophets will arise, or there will be a great rebirth of
old ideas and ideals. . . . The next task would be . . . to show the significance of ascetic
rationalism . . . for the content of practical social ethics, thus for the types of organization and
the functions of social groups from the conventicle to the State.
Max Weber,
The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism2

FOUCAULT’S HISTORY OF SEXUALITY

The first thing which needs to be said about The History of Sexuality is that it is
neither about history nor sexuality. Foucault never evidences an interest in
history, except in so far as it could be used to clarify the nature of the present,
or problematize certain current ideas or practices. 3 In The History of Sexuality
Foucault is interested in techniques of the self, techniques by which individuals
form themselves and relate to themselves as subjects of certain practices,
discourses, and rationalities, which in The History of Sexuality just happen to
concern sexuality (Foucault, 1983b, p. 229).
If the object of The History of Sexuality is not really sexuality at all, but the
manner in which human beings constitute themselves and relate to themselves
as subjects, about the social constitution of ‘self’ and ‘subjectivity’, and the
socially constituted practices by which individuals come to govern themselves
as ‘selves’ and ‘subjects’, why does Foucault choose to deal almost
exhaustively with sexuality? Why is it that ‘‘the project of a science of the
subject has gravitated, in ever narrowing circles, around the question of sex[?]’’
(Foucault, 1978, p. 70).
As Deleuze argues, Foucault is following his familiar strategy of identifying
the specific means by which the constitution of an object of power/knowledge

© The Executive Management Committee/Blackwell Publishers Ltd. 1999. Published by Blackwell Publishers 108 Cowley
Road, Oxford, OX4 1JF UK and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA.
204 T. J.
Berard
is carried out. The constitution of subjectivity, Foucault suggests, is largely
carried out through a rationality organized around the themes of sex and desire;
‘‘it is in sexuality that [the relation to oneself] is established or carried out’’
(Deleuze, 1986, p. 102). As Foucault states, we have been led ‘‘to direct the
question of what we are, to sex’’, and this discourse of sexuality has brought us
‘‘almost entirely—our bodies, our minds, our individuality, our history—under
the sway of a logic of concupiscence and desire. Whenever it is a question of
knowing who we are, it is this logic that henceforth serves as our master key’’
(1978, p. 78).
But Foucault also offers us a much more substantial illustration of the
centrality of sexuality for larger questions of knowledge, power, and
subjectivity:

[Sex] was at the pivot of the two axes along which developed the entire political
technology of life. On the one hand it was tied to the disciplines of the body: the
harnessing, intensification, and distribution of forces, the adjustment and economy of
energies. On the other hand, it was applied to the regulation of populations. It
fitted in both categories at once, giving rise to infinitesimal surveillances, permanent
controls, extremely meticulous orderings of space, indeterminate medical or psycho-
logical examinations, to an entire micro-power concerned with the body. But it gave
rise as well to comprehensive measures, statistical assessments, and interventions
aimed at the entire social body or at groups taken as a whole. Sex was a means of
access both to the life of the body and the life of the species. It was employed as a
standard for the disciplines and as a basis for regulations. This is why in the nineteenth
century sexuality was sought out in the smallest details of individual existences; it was
tracked down in behavior, pursued in dreams; it was suspected of underlying the least
follies, it was traced back into the earliest years of childhood; it became the stamp of
individuality – at the same time what enabled one to analyze the latter and what made
it possible to master it. But one also sees it becoming the theme of political operations,
economic interventions (through incitements to or curbs on procreation), and
ideological campaigns for raising standards of morality and responsibility: it was put
forward as the index of a society’s strength, revealing both its political energy and its
biological vigor. Spread out from one pole to the other of this technology of sex was a
whole series of different tactics that combined in varying proportions the objective of
disciplining the body and that of regulating populations (Foucault, 1978, p. 146).4

Hence sexuality occupies a strategic position in the intersecting applications of

various modern technologies of power, and for the same reason assumes a strategic
importance for the analysis and unmasking of these technologies of power.

THE HISTORY OF SEXUALITY AS A CONTINUATION OF EARLIER WORK

In several different ways, The History of Sexuality can be seen as a continuation

of Foucault’s earlier work. Foucault himself repeatedly draws attention to the
continuities, and it is well worth the effort to recall continuities before
introducing the discontinuities.
© The Executive Management Committee/Blackwell Publishers Ltd. 1999
 One of the problems which has always occupied his attention, Foucault
claims, is ‘‘the question of truth, of telling the truth, the wahr-sagen—what it is
to tell the truth—and the relation between ‘telling the truth’ and forms of
reflexivity, of self upon self’’ (1988b, p. 33). In this light The History of
Sexuality is a project in the history of truth, as truth was constituted in the
discourse on sexuality, and especially as truth was sought and divulged on the
basis of a ‘hermeneutics of desire’ which the individual practices on himself or
herself (see, e.g., Foucault, 1985, p. 5; 1988a, pp. 238–240; 1978, p. 79;
1985, pp. 6, 11).
Previous works can be seen as histories of truth as it was constituted in
discourses concerning man as sick or insane (The Birth of the Clinic, Madness and
Civilization), as worker, as speaker, and as biological being (The Order of
Things), and as criminal (Discipline and Punish).
Foucault also claims that his History of Sexuality is a continuation of a project
which could be called a ‘history of the subject of reason’. This project first
addressed subjects as they were constituted as subjects of medicine (the Birth of
the Clinic, Madness and Civilization), then as they were constituted as subjects
of the disciplines of grammar, natural history, and economics (The Order of
Things), then subjects as subjects of punitive discourse and practices (Discipline
and Punish). In The History of Sexuality he turns to yet another mode of
constituting the subject, this time constituted as the subject of knowledge about
the self, particularly about the sexuality of the self (Foucault, 1988b, p. 30).
In another context, Foucault argues that the objective of his work has been
to ‘‘create a history of the different modes by which, in our culture, human
beings are made subejcts’’. He then identifies three different modes by which
human beings are transformed into subjects, (1) those which strive to the status
of sciences, e.g. general grammar, philology, linguistics, economics, natural
history, biology (treated in The Order of Things), (2) those which use ‘dividing
practices’ either to divide the subject within himself or from others, e.g.
medical, psychiatric, punitive modes (treated in Madness and Civilization, The
Birth of the Clinic, Discipline and Punish), and (3) those which human beings
use to turn themselves into subjects, e.g. into subjects of a discourse on
‘sexuality’ (treated in The History of Sexuality) (Foucault, 1983a, p. 208).
In The Use of Pleasure, among other places, Foucault argues for a very
similar notion of continuity, this time emphasizing the continuing theme of
problematization:

There was the problematization of madness and illness arising out of social and
medical practices, and defining a certain pattern of ‘normalization’; a problematization
of life, language, and labor in discursive practices that conformed to certain
‘epistemic’ rules; and a problematizatin of crime and criminal behavior emerging from
certain punitive practices conforming to a ‘disciplinary’ model. And now I would like
to show how, in classical antiquity, sexual activity and sexual pleasures were
problematized through practices of the self, bringing into play the criteria of
‘aesthetics of existence’ (1985, pp. 10–12; cf. 1988c, p. 257).
 At another time, Foucault claims that what interests him is, ‘‘. . . precisely
the forms of rationality applied by the human subject to itself . . . how is
it that the human subject took itself as the object of possible knowledge?
Through what forms of rationality and historical conditions? And finally at
what price? This is my question: at what price can subjects speak the truth
about themselves?’’ (1988b, pp. 29–30). Foucault relates this rationalization
of subjectivity to the manner in which relations of power are rationalized
(cf. Foucault, 1988a, p. 84). The ability to speak the truth about one’s
subjectivity thus exacts the high price of subjecting oneself to rationalized
relations of power. Foucault shows us, in effect, ‘‘how self-control is integrated
into the practice of controlling others’’, (Foucault, 1988c, p. 258), bringing
us full circle through Foucault’s works to an obviously Weberian theme.5
One could make a similar case for conceiving ‘the will to knowledge’ as
a recurring theme, one which acknowledges the Nietzschean influence. 6 In
this light, Foucault’s works can be seen as describing the strategies of power
which are immanent in various manifestations or applications of the will to
knowledge, and The History of Sexuality can be seen as attempting the ‘political
economy’ of a will to knowledge about sexuality (see, e.g., Foucault, 1978,
p. 73).
In 1983, Foucault places his works in the context of a continued interest
in a genealogy of ourselves in relation to (1) ‘‘truth through which we
constitute ourselves as subjects of knowledge’’, (2) ‘‘a field of power through
which we constitute ourselves as subjects acting on others’’, and (3) ‘‘ethics
through which we constitute ourselves as moral agents’’ (1983b, p. 237).
In 1984 (the year of his death), he suggests that he has continually ‘‘tried
to locate three major types of problems: the problem of truth, the problem
of power, and the problem of individual conduct’’ (Foucault, 1988a, p. 243).
In another 1984 interview, Foucault emphasizes the theme of subjectivity
and truth, how the subject enters into games of truth (Foucault, 1987, p. 1).
The interest in practices of the self then can be seen as a third way of
facing the problem of the relationship between the subject and games of
truth (Foucault, 1985, p. 2). At other times the theme is simply power, but
power intimately related to knowledge and subjectivity, especially modern
power, or what Halperin has called liberal power (1995, pp. 18–19).
What is worth noticing is that there exists a marked continuity between
all these different statements of continuity; whether Foucault is speaking of a
history of the subject, a history or political economy of the will to truth, a
history of truth, a history of problematizations, the rationalization of power
relations, a re-elaboration of the theory of power, the genealogy of the
present, the genealogy of ethics, or a dozen other projects, he is still referring
to one and the same body of work, one might even call it a research
programme, to which The History of Sexuality clearly belongs, and of which
The History of Sexuality was Foucault’s last contribution.
 THE HISTORY OF SEXUALITY AS A BREAK WITH EARLIER WORKS

But The History of Sexuality, although motivated by very similar interests, is

more than a continuation of earlier works, more than just the same type of study
with a new object. This became especially clear with the publication of the
second volume, which substantially reformulates the basic problems and
methods of the project as they were set forth in the first. The most superficial
indication of this break is the eight year period between the first and second
volumes of The History of Sexuality. What exactly happened to disrupt the
original plans for The History of Sexuality? Foucault explains the difficulty as
the realization that he lacked the needed theoretical tools:

To speak of ‘sexuality’ as a historically singular experience . . . presupposed the

availability of tools capable of analyzing the peculiar characteristics and interrelations
of the three axes that constitute it: (1) the formation of sciences (savoirs) that refer to
it,
(2) the systems of power that regulate its practice, (3) the forms within which
individuals are able, are obliged, to recognize themselves as subjects of this sexuality.
Now, as to the first two points, the work I had undertaken previously—having to do
first with medicine and psychiatry, and then with punitive power and disciplinary
practices— provided me with the tools I needed. The analysis of discursive practices
made it possible to trace the formation of disciplines (savoirs) while escaping the
dilemma of science versus ideology. And the analysis of power relations and their
technologies made it possible to view them as open strategies, while escaping the
alternative of a power conceived of as domination or exposed as a simulacrum. But
when I came to study the modes according to which individuals are given to recognize
themselves as sexual subjects, the problems were much greater (1985, pp. 4–5).

Addressing these problems required, in sum, a rejection of the dominant,

ahistorical, a priori conception of the subject (Foucault, 1985, pp. 4–5; 1987,
p. 10; 1983b, p. 252). In order to carry through this rejection, Foucault returns
to Nietzsche (see, e.g., Foucault, 1988b, p. 23). From the return to Nietzsche, it
is a very small step indeed to the decision to undertake a ‘genealogy’ of the
modern subject, which is exactly how Foucault describes his solution to the
dilemma facing him in the writing of the second volume (Foucault, 1985, p. 5).
He thus effects a ‘‘problematization of the constitution of the self as subject’’
(Foucault, 1988a, p. 253), historicizing and politicizing the very constitution of
the self.
Hence Foucault’s treatment of the subject breaks with several features of his
earlier treatment of subjectivity, especially as of the second volume. First and
foremost, his prediction of the end of ‘man’ as an object and subject of his/her
own sciences in The Order of Things is quietly revoked, and there is a renewed
interest, and completely new emphasis, on the continuing, insidious threat
posed, no longer by ‘man’, but by ‘subjectivity’ as an object of sustained
reflexive attention, an emphasis captured in the momentous question: ‘‘at what
price can subjects speak the truth about themselves[?]’’ (Foucault, 1988b, p.
30).
 Second, with the focus on sexuality, Foucault is focusing on yet another
‘marginal’ experience, but this time one which we all share; the discourse on
sexuality brings Foucault’s message ‘home’ to the reader who might previously
have thought his work irrelevant and/or esoteric.
Third, Foucault moves beyond many earlier conceptions of subjectivity. The
concept of ‘interiorisation’, which he used to describe the manner in which
prisoners came to practice surveillance on themselves, disappears, as does
‘alienation’, the manner in which the mad were led to conceive of themselves
as mad (e.g. Foucault, 1965, pp. 183, 158, 246–247, 250, 261), as does
‘internalization’, e.g. the ‘internalization’ of norms in the form of a conscience
(Foucault, 1965, p. 267). These concepts still treated authority as something
distinct from, albeit within, the self (see, e.g., Foucault, 1980a, p. 186), much
like Freud’s ‘superego’ and Marx’s ‘false consciousness’. Also gone are the
awkward, vague expressions which tried to do justice to the relationship
between power, knowledge, and subjectivity, such as Foucault’s claim in
Discipline and Punish that the body was ‘invested’ by power relations
(Foucault, 1977a, p. 24), and in the first volume of The History of Sexuality that
the relations of power to sex ‘penetrated modes of conduct’ (Foucault, 1978, p.
48). Gone as well is the vague notion of the modern ‘soul’ which Discipline and
Punish tried to characterize, at least in part (Foucault, 1977a, pp. 29, 23). We
also find that, beginning in The Use of Pleasure, Foucault is no longer
interested in the constitution of passive subjects, such as the constitution of
medical patients by medical and psychiatric discourse or prisoners by a punitive
discourse (see, e.g., Foucault, 1965, pp. 246–247).
In place of all these Foucault focuses on the role of power in the constitution
of active subjects, the way in which individuals actively constitute themselves
and assert themselves as subjects of and subject to various rationalities and
practices such as are embodied in conscience and self-knowledge, at the most
general level, and the deployment of ‘sexuality’ in particular (Foucault, 1987, p.
11; 1983a, p. 212). He thus radically reconceptualizes the relations between
power, knowledge and subjectivity.
Foucault’s radical reconceptualization of these relations challenge a wide
variety of preconceptions, theoretical commitments, and political strategies. He
suggests, for example, that power and subjugation act through subjectivity
instead of upon it (see e.g. Foucault, 1978, pp. 97–98), as in Critical Theory and
much feminist theory, especially before Foucault. He suggests, as well, that
power does not always work by means of repression and illusion, but that it is
often productive (see, e.g., Foucault, 1988a, p. 118), not only of knowledge and
practices, as is already clear in Discipline and Punish (Foucault, 1977a, p. 194)
and Volume I, but also of subjects themselves, through the will to know
subjectivity and the practices by which it is known.
Given Foucault’s renewed and reformulated interest in the subject, the
tremendous expansion of his critical vision to include entire populations and the
social history of rationalization, and his radical reconceptualization of the
relations between power, knowledge, and subjectivity, it is necessary to take
stock of Foucault’s later works before settling into a comfortable position on his
contributions to social theory. The ‘critiques’ which have enjoyed the most
currency to this point have largely failed to investigate Foucault’s late works, or
have refused to seriously engage with them.

FAMOUS CRITIQUES OF FOUCAULT REVISITED

Foucault has received an enormous amount of critical attention, but the most
prominent and influential of it misses the significance of his final works, the
second and third volumes of The History of Sexuality, and the articles and
interviews concerning this project. Not only does Foucault deserve to be
remembered for his thought at its latest stage of development, but many readers
deserve a more adequate statement of Foucault’s contributions to social theory.
What follows will be structured as a series of responses to some of the most
frequent and famous criticisms of Foucault’s studies, methods, and politics. A
discussion of more worthy but less influential criticisms is beyond the scope of
this project, which aspires merely to defend the sensibility of doing and reading
such work.
In the process of addressing criticisms, I will attempt to delineate an implicit
social theory in Foucault’s works. The task of delineating an implicit social
theory is no less possible, and no less desirable, for all of Foucault’s persistence
in refusing to outline a social theory and refusing to prescribe methods. His
protestations do speak for his intellectual integrity, but they also obscure the
coherence of his works (which has been challenged by, e.g., Taylor [1986, p. 83]
and Jameson [1998, p. 106]) and obscure his reasons for breaking with
established traditions in philosophy and social theory.

Neo-Conservatism & Fatalism: Two of the most famous criticisms leveled at

Foucault are that his theory of power is neo-conservative and fatalistic, or at
least neo- conservative and fatalistic in effect. Habermas, Lukes, Walzer, Taylor,
Jameson, Geertz, and Hartsock all participate in this critique in one form or
another (Hoy, 1986b; Bove´, 1986, p. xix; Kritzman, 1988, p. xi). Taylor
paraphrases Foucault’s thoughts on liberation thus: ‘‘In going for liberation, we
see ourselves as escaping a power understood on the old model. But in fact we
live under a power of a new kind, and this we are not escaping; far from it, we
are playing its game, we are assuming the shape it has molded for us’’ (1986, p.
79). Drawing on such an understanding, Taylor complains, ‘‘he seems to raise a
question whether there is such a thing as a way out’’ (1986, p. 69). According to
Giddens, ‘‘The individuals who appear in Foucault’s analyses seem impotent to
determine their own destinies’’ (1987, p. 214), and he characterizes Foucault
as a ‘new
conservative’ or a ‘neo-conservative’ (1983), just as Habermas called Foucault a
‘young conservative’ (1983, p. 14). Rorty speaks of Foucault as offering a
‘rationalization of hopelessness’ (1998, p. 38). Hartsock claims that Foucault’s
writings lead to passivity and immobility (1996, p. 45; 1990, p. 167). Jameson
argues,

What happens is that the more powerful the vision of some increasingly total system
or logic—the Foucault of the prisons book is the most obvious example—the more
powerless the reader comes to feel. Insofar as the theorist wins, therefore, by
constructing an increasingly closed and terrifying machine, to that very degree he
loses, since the critical capacity of his work is thereby paralyzed, and the impulses of
negation and revolt, not to speak of those of social transformation, are increasingly
perceived as vain and trivial. . . (Quoted in Hoy, 1986b, p. 11).

Such criticisms are common, and famous, but miss the mark, and at best
fault Foucault for the way he has been received by some academics, these being
either the critics themselves, or unspecified, perhaps even hypothetical victims
of theoretically induced political paralysis. The failure of these criticisms is
suggested not only by the substance of Foucault’s writings and interviews, but
more importantly, by the fact that his ideas not only allowed for his own
activism and that of others who draw on his work, but demonstrably provide
resources and inspiration for such activism.
Politically, Foucault’s insights did not prevent him from being an activist for,
e.g., mental patients, prisoners, and homosexuals, nor have all social critics and
activists rejected his theories (cf. Halperin, 1995, p. 23). But Foucault’s works
must be seen, not only as compatible with activism, but more positively as
having contributed to significant movements in social criticism, and by
extension political activism, including his own, but also Said’s critique of
orientalism (1978), a variety of intelligent critiques of modern institutions and
discourses (e.g. Caputo & Yount, 1993), including ground-level, practical
critiques of penal and psychiatric institutions, and many works in feminist and
queer theory, including Butler’s (1990; 1993), but also those of, e.g., Aladjem,
Bordo, Flax, Grimshaw, Halperin, Hekman, Jagose, Lloyd, Probyn, Sawicki,
and Soper.
Theoretically, neither Foucault’s theory of power nor his theory of
subjectivity allow for the charges of neo-conservatism and fatalism.
Foucault’s theory of power explicitly rejects the position that ‘you are
always- already trapped’’ (Foucault, 1978, p. 83; cf. 1997, p. 157). Power,
according to Foucault, is never a monolithic entity, wielded by one individual or
group against another. Power, understood as inherently relational, presupposes
‘at least a certain form of liberty’ and the possibility of resistance (see, e.g.,
Foucault, 1978, p. 95; 1987, pp. 11–13). For a power relationship to obtain,
according to Foucault, the victim must be recognized as a person who acts, and
the exercise of power is therefore viewed as ‘‘a total structure of actions
brought to bear upon possible actions . . . always a way of acting upon an
acting subject or acting subjects by
virtue of their acting or being capable of action’’ (Foucault, 1983a, p. 220).
Elsewhere he argues, ‘‘Power is exercised only over free subjects, and only
insofar as they are free’’ (1983a, p. 221). The victim of power, as an actual or
potential actor, always retains the possibility of acting in a manner which resists
the power which victimizes him. Power is therefore understood as a
‘multiplicity of force relations’, which allows for resistance and the occasional
reversal of force relations, both logically, due to its relational nature, and
structurally, in the form of disjunctions and contradictions which provide
spaces or footholds for resistance (see, esp. Foucault, 1978, pp. 92–93). It
follows that, even though ‘‘one can never be ‘outside’ power’’ (1980a, p. 141),
‘‘[this] is not to say either that those [power relations] which are established are
necessary, or, in any case, that power constitutes a fatality at the heart of
societies, such that it cannot be undermined’’ (Foucault, 1983b, pp. 222–223;
cf. 1981, p. 8). Indeed, if power is everywhere, by Foucault’s thinking this
means that the possibility of resistance is everywhere, too (see esp. Foucault,
1978, p. 96).
Foucault’s theory of subjectivity, similarly, does not lend itself to
conservatism or fatalism, when properly understood. According to Foucault, the
subject (or individual, or agent) cannot simply be counterpoised to power.
Subjectivity is no longer thought of as if it might suffer from false
consciousness as if from an operable tumor, or as if society were present as an
occupying force in the commonwealth of the psyche, as with the super-ego.
Subjectivity is seen instead as constituted by social practices, rationalities,
discourses etc., which are positive as well as negative, productive as well as
repressive. Foucault is therefore arguing neither that subjectivity has been
colonized by power, nor that it has been placed on a short leash, both of which
remain caught within a ‘metaphysics of external relations’ (Butler, 1993, p. 34),
but rather that power is a constituent element of subjectivity, that subjectivity
and power cannot be understood as antagonistic forces at all (cf. Butler, 1993,
p. 15; Halperin, 1995, pp. 18–19).
It is true that Foucault forwards a powerful challenge to any belief in the
autonomous individual or the free agent, conceived of as independent from
‘ideology’ and power relations. But he has not denied a degree of voluntarism
or agency (see, esp., Foucault, 1997, pp. 32, 61). As Butler observes, subjects
who are socially constructed are not thereby determined (1990, p. 143; 195a,
p. 46). Rather, Foucault’s analysis centers on what might be called a political
will (see, esp., Foucault, 1997, pp. 32, 61), capable of critically reassessing the
self’s mode of constituting itself as a subject, as subject to subjectivity (cf.
Foucault, 1983b, p. 252). This is not fatalism, but a rejection of the episteme in
which the fate of the subject vis-a`-vis power is an intelligible question (cf. Butler,
1995a, p. 46).
But Foucault’s theories of power and subjectivity are not even political
theories, so much as empirical theories with consequential political
implications. The prominent critics tend to either miss Foucault’s
reconceptualizataion of the relations between subjectivity and power, or fault it
for its political implications.
 But they therefore avoid the empirical claim which is the most original and most
provocative thesis of The History of Sexuality. This thesis suggests that the way
we experience and relate to ourselves as subjects, e.g. through the deployment
of sexuality, is the most insidious and entrenched strategy of subjugation in
the modern state, which subjugates us all the more if we rely upon our
subjectivities or sexualities as the foundation of resistance or liberation (cf.
1977a, pp. 102–103). In judging such a claim, critics have routinely neglected a
fundamental consideration; the truth value of empirical claims cannot be deduced
from political commitments, either foundational or strategic. The objection that
the individual is logically distinct from, and can be liberated from, ‘ideology’
and power, for example, is not so much an engagement with Foucault’s claims
as a vehement reiteration of the very presuppositions which Foucault rejects as
both
mistaken and self-defeating (cf. Touey, 1998, p. 96).
But on a more substantive note, the implication of Foucault’s claim is not
that resistance is futile, or that no freedoms can be gained. The implication is
that, in the development of critical instruments, one should be ‘‘suspicious of
one’s own inscription within the power/knowledge apparatus’’ and be aware of
the limitations of one’s critical instruments (Bove´, 1986, pp. xxvii-xviii; cf.
Bordo, 1993, p. 167; 1989, p. 15; Butler, 1995a).
That such reflexive, critical attention to strategies of resistance need not lead
to fatalism or conservatism is perhaps best illustrated by recent feminist
appropriations of Foucault. Most commonly, feminists appreciate Foucault for
providing critical methods which denaturalize and de-reify subjugating
institutions and modes of thought (Probyn, 1993) and disrupt and erode
discourses that legitimate patterns of liberal domination (Flax, 1990a, p. 39).
Somewhat more positively, feminists have used Foucault’s insights to expose
and reject presuppositions about the body and subjectivity which undermine or
betray feminist goals (Bordo, 1989; Butler, 1990, p. 93; 1995a, pp. 48, 54), and
also to expose and reject authoritative or representational claims which
marginalize, exclude or suppress others (Flax, 1990b, pp. 48–49; 1990a, p. 183;
Butler, 1995a,
p. 50; 1990, p. 4). Most positively, Butler’s Foucauldian reconceptualization of
identity as socially produced ‘‘opens up possibilities of ‘agency’ that are
insidiously foreclosed by [foundational] positions’’ (1990, p. 147; cf. 1995a, p.
50).
But Foucault’s theory does more than argue for the logical possibility of
resistance, and the obsolescence of any subject/power antagonism. Even though
Foucault was very guarded in forwarding positive suggestions, let alone an
agenda, there are several points at which Foucault identifies what might be
fruitful directions for liberatory struggles. One passage from the first volume of
The History of Sexuality which clearly suggests a basis and direction for
liberatory struggles is the following:
It is the agency of sex that we must break away from, if we aim—through a tactical
reversal of the various mechanisms of sexuality—to counter the grips of power with
 the claims of bodies, pleasures, and knowledges, in their multiplicity and their
possibility of resistance. The rallying point for the counterattack against the
deployment of sexuality ought not to be sex-desire, but bodies and pleasures
(Foucault, 1978, p. 157).

This reliance on bodies and pleasures can best be understood, I think, as trying
to establish a basis for resistance which is universal and pre-discursive and
therefore doubly innocent. Admittedly, this is not a well-developed strategy for
resistance or liberation, and it is not much of a political platform; it refuses to
put faith in a singular source of resistance or a singular counter-knowledge, and
it seems to reject discursively constituted phenomena (e.g. sex, desire) as an
adequate basis for resistance, in favor of bodies and pleasures, which are not
only individual but which are given to the individual (logically and historically)
prior to subjectivity.7
But there are also more positive, perhaps more viable, suggestions for
liberatory movements, which are forwarded after the first volume. These
involve not the rejection of subjectivity in favor of bodies and pleasures, nor the
rejection of subjectivity in favor of a willed ignorance (de-problematization) of
the self, but the creation or fostering of new forms of subjectivity (see, e.g.,
Foucault, 1983a.
p. 216; Halperin, 1995. pp. 67–73, 109–112), especially through the
development of a new ethics (Foucault, 1983b, p. 231; cf. Dreyfus and
Rabinow, 1986, p. 121; Sawicki, 1996, pp. 174–175).
Despite Foucault’s vehement objections to some aspects of Greek ethics,
especially their presupposition and perpetuation of social inequalities, Foucault
took from Greek ethics, or ‘aesthetics of existence’, the idea that subjectivity
was not inherently subjugating. In volume II he writes, ‘‘in classical Greek
thought, the ‘ascetics’ that enabled one to make oneself into an ethical subject
was an integral part—down to its very form—of the practice of a virtuous life,
wich was also the life of a ‘free’ man in the full, positive and political sense of
the word’’ (1985, p. 77). In volume III he observes ‘‘the subject is constituted
through practices of subjection, or, in a more autonomous way, through
practices of liberation, of liberty, as in Antiquity’’ (1988a, p. 51). Elsewhere
Foucault speaks of the attractions and potential of a creative and aesthetically
based ethics, instead of an ethics based on codes and prohibitions (Christian or
juridico-discursive ethics) or upon the notion of a true self (Sartrean
authenticity) (Foucault, 1983b, pp. 236–237, 231; 1991a, p. 49; Kritzman, 1988,
pp. xxiv-xxv; cf. Berard, 1999; Bernauer & Mahon, 1994, p. 155). Such forms
of subjectivity would still be socially constituted, of course (Foucault, 1988a, p.
51), but they would be less subjugating and more autonomous (Foucault, 1987;
1988a, p. 51; cf. Deleuze, 1986, p. 101).
Even if such suggestions do not form an agenda, and even if they are rather
abstract, it should be clear that Foucault did not advocate fatalistic or
conservative theories of the subject and power, but was interested in replacing
the conventional modes of resistance by more viable ones (see, e.g., Foucault,
1991a, p. 173), with the
clear goal of fostering some form of freedom (cf. Flax, 1990a, p. 209; Sawicki,
1996, pp. 170, 174).
The fact that Foucault and many others have found his theories to be
compatible with, useful for, or inspiring of political activism should tell us that
paralysis or fatalism is only one possible response to Foucault’s writing. The
question now becomes: what accounts for the difference in reception? Foucault
suggests that the suspicion of fatalism follows from the very presuppositions
about power which he calls into question (Foucault, 1983a, pp. 216–217). It is
also worth pointing out that Foucault wrote primarily for people, like himself,
who did not feel free, with the aim of showing people that ‘‘they are freer than
they feel’’ (Martin, Gutman & Hutton, 1988, pp. 10–11). Perhaps those critics
who only feel trapped after reading Foucault might profit from a second
reading, now that they have fallen into the intended audience.
Whatever the case, there is a sharp distinction to be drawn between a neo-
conservative or fatalist and an author who, through misunderstanding or
divergent interpretations, has a neo-conservative effect on a subset of his
readers, especially if this subset turns out to be a rhetorical artifice.

Neutrality, Relativism, and Nihilism. The charges of neutrality, relativism and

nihilism, forwarded by such critics as Taylor, Habermas, Walzer, and Hartsock
also need to be addressed. Before doing so, I need to distinguish between types
of relativism, and between moral relativism, neutrality, and nihilism. Some
critics seem to accuse Foucault of truth-relativism, e.g. the belief that
knowledge is a mere affect of power. This is quite different from moral
relativism, e.g. the belief that there are no grounds for critique or resistance
aside from idiosyncratic preferences. Moral relativists can still have and act
upon morals, and are thus not necessarily neutral. Nihilism, as an
undiscriminating and unrelenting critique, is radically distinct from both moral
relativism and neutrality, in that it can be neither moral nor neutral. Foucault’s
critics, unfortunately, rarely concern themselves with such definitions or
distinctions, as if the connotation were all that is important.
Foucault has been accused of truth relativism, especially for what is
commonly known as his ‘power/knowledge’ thesis. This thesis is often
misunderstood as identifying or reducing knowledge to power (e.g. Jameson,
1998, p. 107). Taylor, for example, accuses Foucault and Nietzsche of a
‘‘refusal of the notion of truth as having any meaning outside a given order of
power’’ (1986, p. 77). And according to Hartsock, Foucault argues ‘‘that truth
must be seen as simply legitimized errors’’ (1996, p. 44; cf. 1990, pp. 164–165).
I believe this line of critique can best be summarized as claiming that, according
to Foucault, all knowledge is (mere) ideology, i.e. beliefs which have no truth
value, only a strategic function.
Such criticism fails, because, as was indicated above, Foucault avoids the
dilemma of science vs. ideology, and his reconceptualization of power relations
and their technologies as open and productive strategies escapes the alternative
of viewing power as either domination or as mere simulacrum (Foucault, 1985,
pp. 4–5). He refuses the standard critical positions on ideology and repres-
sion as partial, incomplete, and misleading, and expands upon these by
attending to power in its positive, productive and resourceful aspects (see, e.g.,
Foucault, 1988a, p. 118; 1978, pp. 73, 86). Instead of seeking the ‘economics of
untruth’, he attends to the ‘politics of truth’ (Foucault, 1988a, p. 118; cf. 1980b,
pp. 97–98; 1970, p. xi; Philp, 1985, p. 74). Foucault avoids standard ideology
critique and seeks, ‘‘to search instead for instances of discursive production
(which also administer silences, to be sure), of the production of power (which
sometimes have the function of prohibiting), of the propagation of knowledge
(which often cause mistaken beliefs or systematic misconceptions to circulate)’’
(Foucault, 1978, p. 12).
Foucault’s refusal to practice ideology critique and his distinction between
untruth and truth, and between knowledge and beliefs or misconceptions, give
little foothold to the interpretation that knowledge can be reduced to ideology.
He argued, in fact, that ‘‘one can in no way say that the games of truth are
nothing else than the games of power’’, 8 suggesting that in some games of truth
the truth is not (merely) a construct, and rejecting the common view that truth
is necessarily impugned by its relations with power (Foucault, 1987, pp. 16–17;
cf. 1991a, pp. 63–64). Foucault’s work is informed by the precept that ‘‘effects
of truth are produced within discourses which in themselves are neither true
nor false’’ (Foucault, 1980a, p. 118), reminiscent of Wittgenstein. But this is not
to say that truth is merely a common or authoritative belief. Foucault’s
comments on the historicity of rationalities are highly instructive here: he
suggests that the historicity of rationalities does not mean that they are
irrational, merely that ‘‘they reside on a base of human practice and human
history’’ (1988b, pp. 36– 37). Foucault therefore evidences a sophistication
which is ignored by his critics, a sophistication which allows him to escape the
kind of epistemological dilemma which could lead to truth relativism. His
epistemology, at least insofar as it is outlined, differs from an objectivist or
naive realist one, most definitely, and also suggests that ‘relative’ need not be a
pejorative term, but it clearly avoids making the epistemological claim that truth
is relative, as it clearly avoids outlining or employing epistemological criteria
for evaluating or dismissing knowledge claims, as in ideology critique.
Foucault is also charged with a kind of moral relativism, if indirectly, by critics
such as Taylor, Habermas & Fraser. Habermas argues that Foucault deprives
his critique of the necessary normative yardsticks (1986, p. 108). Taylor
suggests, similarly, that for Nietzsche and Foucault there are no grounds for
evaluting between different ways of life (1986, p. 93). Fraser claims that
Foucault ‘‘has explicitly removed the moral-theoretical resources necessary to
aaccount [sic.] for [his] own implicit normative judgments’’ (1995, p. 162). Hoy
summarizes similar criticisms, saying that Foucault seems to some critics
to deny ‘‘the
possibility of an independent standpoint’’ (1986b, p. 10). At the extreme,
Yeatman claims that Foucault is required to assume that might makes right
(1990, p. 292). But it is a mistake to think that social criticism and political
activism need the kind of philosophical foundation which Foucault allegedly
lacks, or even undermines (Touey, 1988, pp. 100–102; Butler, 1995b, pp. 128–
129). One might even argue, with Nietzsche, that impugning a morality for its lack
of a (transcendental) foundation expresses an entrenched and insidious form of
nihilism, i.e. a hostility to what is ‘merely’ human.
It is true that Foucault does not set himself up as an authority in moral or
political matters, nor even allow himself to be set up as an authority in these
matters. But this is due to his understanding of the theorist’s role, not out of
any moral wavering. Rather than speaking for individuals or dictating to
individuals, he provides resources and opportunities for the self-directed. For
deeply moral reasons, he advocates a reformation of the individual’s relation to
self, which might be fruitfully compared to Martin Luther’s advocacy of a
reformation in the individual’s relation to God (cf. Foucault, 1997, p. 64). As
with Martin Luther, the importance of Foucault’s moral project lays entirely in
freeing a space from institutions and dogmas, rather than proposing new ones.
As Soper suggests, Foucault advocates an individualistic conception of
liberation (1993, pp. 35–36), and necessarily leaves many important choices to
the individual, but he does not for that reason sacrifice his ability to choose, or
his ability to distinguish better choices from worse (cf. Sawicki, 1996, p. 174).
The charge of moral relativism loses its teeth either if one questions the need
for (transcendental) foundations, or if one acknowledges that Foucault was as
capable as anyone of claiming a foundation, but chose to proceed in a different
tradition of critical thought, one which strives for intellectual integrity rather
than authority, and follows an ethic of responsibility rather than an ethic of
ultimate ends (Weber, 1946a, pp. 120–122).
Similarly, the charge of neutrality, even a Nietzschean stance of neutrality!
(Taylor, 1986, pp. 73, 79–80), is based upon nothing more than Foucault’s
refusal to engage in normative or Utopian theorizing, and his ‘failure’ to derive
norms from his empirical theory. But there is clearly a political vision and
political strategy in Foucault’s theorizing, and Foucault’s politics is no less
political for its lack of a theoretical proof (in the sense of a proof of the
existence of God). It is perhaps more political for this very reason.

Genealogical Critique. A discussion of genealogical critique will further dispel

any question of fatalism, conservatism, relativism or neutrality, and allow quick
dismissal of the charge of nihilism.
All of the charges discussed above should appear suspicious even at first
glance, because when one looks at the body of Foucault’s works, the great
majority are social criticism. Importantly, this social criticism is neither
indiscriminate nor universal, but is directed at examples of modern
power/knowledge which
Foucault sees as particularly subtle, insidious, dangerous and objectionable (see,
e.g., Foucault, 1977c, p. 208). The form that such criticism takes, especially in
Discipline and Punish, Madness and Civilization, and The History of Sexuality, is
that of genealogy, taken from Nietzsche (see, esp., Foucault, 1984b; 1991b, p.
74) and markedly developed. Although genealogies are empirically based, they
are inherently critical, unlike histories. Genealogies are motivated by normative
commitments, and aim at changing specific aspects of present thought and
action (cf. Foucault, 1988b, pp. 36–37; 1985, p. 9). They do so by undermining
the self-evident character of the objects of genealogical inquiry (see, e.g.,
Foucault, 1988b; 36–37; Rabinow, 1984, p. 389), and setting up a conflict
between readers’ values and previously unrecognized details of their lives,
individually or collectively. Showing the object of critique to be historically
constituted is but a means to the end of problematizing it, allowing for its
political destruction (cf. Foucault, 1997, pp. 161–162).
For example, Nietzsche in the Genealogy of Morals sought by a genealogical
inquiry into the origins of Christian morality to show that this morality was
created by humans, and moreover that its creation was motivated by a weariness
with life, resentment of social superiors, and a cunning will to power. His
genealogy was motivated by the conviction that Christian morality was hostile
to life and needed to be exposed as having a base and human origin so that it
would no longer be a tenable item of faith. Foucault, in his genealogy of the
modern subject, seeks by a genealogical inquiry into the constitution of
subjectivity to demonstrate that subjectivity is a historical construct which
cannot be understood outside relations of power and knowledge. His genealogy
is motivated by the conviction that in the modern West the most dangerous form
of power operates in and through the very subjectivity of subjects, by which
individuals unwittingly aid in their own subjugation. In both cases, we have a
normative commitment (i.e. to a new vision of morality, a new vision of
subjectivity) which motivates a critical study of some social phenomena
contemporaneous with the author/social critic which is thought to need
problematizing and ultimately replacing (see, e.g., Foucault, 1988c, p. 262;
Rabinow, 1984, p. 389). This method is clearly neither neutral nor fatalistic, as
should be clear enough from the fact that genealogy has also been called
‘critical history’ (by Nietzsche) and ‘effective history’ (by Foucault).
Genealogy therefore bears some important resemblances to Marxist and
especially Critical Theoretical ideology critique; it is premised on the insight
that modern power relations are masked, and that power increases as the
mechanisms of power are better and better hidden from view (Foucault, 1978,
p. 86). Further, it attempts to unmask the workings of power (see, e.g., Foucault,
1978, p. 101; 1982, pp. 33–34), in order to weaken, change, or overthrow
existent power structures.
The primary difference between the genealogist and the Marxist critic is that
the genealogist refuses to develop a political program or prescribe his/her own
normative commitments (see, e.g., Rabinow, 1984, p. 375; Philp, 1985, p. 77),
due to a skepticism and suspicion of normative theory and Utopian politics.
Foucault, for example, refused the idea of a Revolution, or a liberation, or even
a ‘convulsion’, contra Rorty, arguing that liberatory theories aiming at one last
removal of power or one last reversal of power are simplistic and Utopian (see,
e.g., Foucault, 1978, p. 96). Freedom is seen as a practice instead of something
which could be acquired once in the course of a great liberation (Foucault,
1987, pp. 2–4), and questioning power becomes a ‘‘permanent task inherent in
all social existence’’ (Foucault, 1983b, pp. 223, 232). Foucault’s talks,
therefore, of a ‘‘hyper- and pessimistic activism’’ (Foucault, 1983b, pp. 231–
232; cf. Foucault, 1997, p. 144). Racevskis summarizes this position well,
arguing ‘‘There are no solutions or victories to be anticipated, only a constant
resistance to be maintained’’ (Racevskis, 1987, p. 32).
Rather than buying into prescriptive theory or eschatological politics, and far
from surrendering to power, Foucault takes the long view and initiates the slow
and tedious process of attacking the roots of political rationality, undermining
the manner in which relations of power are rationalized (1988a, pp. 84–85; cf.
1983a, p. 212). This involves not only the problematization of knowledges, but
the problematization of practices and technologies, such as those which
constitute subjects. This project is both more substantial than standard
critiques of repression (cf. Foucault, 1985, p. 10), and, Foucault suggests, a
more viable political strategy than any which relies upon a great reversal to
bring about Utopia. Foucault is not only concerned that revolutionary or
Utopian political movements are unviable, but also that they are potentially
repressive. He suspects that they have the potential to be distorted by success
and become new sources of subjugation (see, e.g., Foucault, 1988b, p. 32). This
is true, not just of Marxism, as Taylor reads Foucault, but of all liberatory
movements. Just as charismatic movements become institutionalized in
Weber’s thought, resistance
movements can become stifling in Foucault’s (cf. Bove´, 1986, pp. xxx, xxiv).
Foucault is sceptical, not only of conventional forms of political resistance,
but also of the knowledges and the subjectivities which they often claim as
foundational. Since knowledge is irreparably entangled within power relations,
any use of knowledge for liberatory struggles must be limited and circumspect
(cf. Foucault, 1983b, p. 243), informed by the insight that knowledge is never
inherently liberatory, but can be put to different uses in different circumstances.
Foucault therefore questions the usefulness of truth and knowledge for
strategies of resistance (Foucault, 1978, p. 60; 1988a, p. 14; 1991a, pp. 118,
165–166; 1988a, p. 254; 1984b, p. 95), and parts ways with Critical
Theorists and, e.g., Taylor.
For example, the bourgeois invention ‘sexuality’ started as a positive means
of asserting the new power of a new class (Foucault, 1978, pp. 122–127), but
was eventually subsumed into strategies for the control of entire populations,
including the bourgeois. Something similar happened with the notion of the
humanity of criminals—it was originally invoked in criticism of cruel
punishment, but eventually allowed more subtle and effective forms of power to
arise which punished people in and through their ‘humanity’ (see, e.g.,
Foucault, 1977a,
p. 74). A similar, if longer process saw practices of the self transformed from
virtuous and autonomous exercises of freedom and civic duties to principles of
subjugation.
This concern and sensitivity is far from unique to Foucault, but Foucault’s
response was perhaps unique, and his critics often miss or ignore the fact that
his refusal to practice conventional ideology critique needs to be understood in
this context. Foucault does not want to ‘‘offer a new orthodoxy, and thus a new
tyranny’’ (Philp, 1985, p. 68; c.f. Foucault, 1987, p. 2). And, consistent with his
idea of the ‘specific intellectual’ who refuses to traffic in reified concepts or
prescribe an agenda (see, e.g., Foucault, 1980a, p. 126), Foucault does not want
to speak for the masses (see, e.g., Foucault, 1977c, pp. 207–208). As Foucault
argues, ‘‘it is not up to [intellectuals/social critics] to propose. As soon as one
‘proposes’ – one proposes a vocabulary, an ideology, which can only have
effects of domination. What we have to present are instruments and tools that
people might find useful’’ (1980a, p. 197). Elsewhere he argues, much like
Weber, that ‘‘The work of an intellectual is not to shape others’ political will; it
is, through the analyses that he carries out in his own field, to question over and
over again what is postulated as self-evident . . . to reexamine rules and
institutions . . . to particpate in the formation of a political will’’ (Kritzman,
1988, p. xvi; cf. Foucault, 1985, pp. 8–9). The kind of criticism advocated by
Foucault is both localized and non-prescriptive, ‘‘an autonomous, non-
centralised kind of theoretical production’’ (Foucault, 1980b, pp. 80–81).
Following from all of the above considerations, critique becomes a kind
of asceticism which denies Utopian, teleological, eschatological, universalist,
foundationalist, and essentialist politics (cf. Poster, 1986, pp. 209, 212; Weber,
1946a, pp. 115–117). It could therefore be described, not as a refusal of critique,
nor as a failed critique, nor as an incoherent critique, but rather as a disciplined
or mature critique (cf. Dreyfus & Rabinow, 1986, p. 118; Owen, 1994; Weber,
1946a, p. 127).
This variety of critique achieves its efficacy, not by proselytizing a party line
or a revolutionary platform, but by describing the present and the origins of
present knowledges and practices in such a way that readers’ own frustrations
and values might be constructively mobilized, to allow for the opening of ‘‘a
free space for innovation and creativity’’ (Foucault, 1988d, p. 163) so that
readers themselves, using their own experiences and hopes, can re-evaluate
specific ideas and practices, and begin changing them, if they are so motivated.
Genealogy is therefore a method of immanent social criticism, as Hoy suggests,
‘‘one that can work without presupposing an independent, utopian
standpoint . . . Borrowing from Nietzsche, [Foucault’s] method is not to
construct an alternative model, but to get us to recognize . . . the motivation for
the criticism of the present, in
ourselves as well’’ (1986b, pp. 13–14; cf. 1986c, pp. 134–141; Dreyfus &
Rabinow, 1986, p. 115).
To some extent, Foucault’s practice of critique is even modelled upon
Marx’s; just as Marx replaced Utopian socialism and the denunciation of theft
with the analysis of capitalist production, Foucault replaces Utopian and
prescriptive criticism and finger pointing with the analysis of the production of
knowledges and selves (cf. Foucault, 1988a, p. 13).
Lastly, the charge of nihilism, levelled by, e.g., Walzer and Yeatman, should
now be recognized as absurd. This is especially clear when one considers the
profoundly normative nature of genealogical criticism, and appreciates
Foucault’s attempts to found or foster new subjectivities and new ethics, a new
rapport a` soi (relation to oneself). Far from lacking a politics, Foucault actually
has a ‘twin politics’, (Lloyd, 1996), a practice of critique paired with, and
opening up the space for, a new ethics.
What has been illustrated above is a consistent pattern of criticism which fails
to engage seriously with Foucault’s work, and exerts little effort to determine its
content, let alone what norms and what theoretical problems motivate it, what
methods it proposes or rejects and why, what its goals are, what its theoretical
and political implications are, how it resembles or differs from more
conventional theories, how it conceives of the relation between theory and
practice, and similar such questions which are necessary if one is concerned to
do justice to a thinker. Bove´ notices this pattern and summarizes it very well as
‘critical blindness’. He argues, for example, that much of the reception of
Foucault’s work functions to dissipate its critical force; that a strategy is taken
by Habermas, Taylor, and Fraser, for example, of ‘‘trying to oblige Foucault to
answer questions about issues raised within the very systems of discourse that,
as Foucault put it once, come from the very ‘mind set’ he was trying to
critique’’. He therefore speaks of such critiques as ‘‘self-defensive but
aggressively blind moves’’ (Bove´, 1986, pp. viii–xi, xvii).

FOUCAULT’S REFORMULATION OF SOCIAL THEORY

When one acknowledges Foucault’s mutually complementary and elaborative

reformulations of the theories of power, knowledge, and subjectivity, and
considers these alongside his sophisticated, principled conception of the
intellectual’s role, and then also his systematic, empirically rich practice of an
immanent, genealogical criticism, one can perhaps begin to appreciate
Foucault’s reformul- ation of social theory.
To summarize briefly, this reformulation of social theory advises us, (1) that
power is everywhere, but not necessarily evil and never monolithic. One cannot
hope to be liberated from it, but one can hope to lessen the abusive use of
power and/or substitute less abusive forms of power for more abusive ones; (2)
that knowledge is intimately related to power, but that this does not necessarily
impugn the validity of knowledge, nor does it mean that knowledge is
inherently subjugating, just as it is not inherently liberating; (3) that
‘subjectivity’ is socially constituted, but that this need not inform a strategy
which employs subjects in their own subjugation, but could possibly be
incorporated into the growth of a new ethic which collectively provides to
individuals new ‘techniques of the self’ and new power relations which allow
for greater autonomy.
More generally, Foucault’s work draws upon a unique combination of
sources for theoretical and methodological inspiration. We can recognize that
Foucault’s work, (1) is heavily informed by the works of Nietzsche, Weber, and
the Frankfurt School (Hoy, 1986a, p. 22; cf. Owen, 1994), although breaking
with each of these on several issues, (2) is empirical in nature, with a penchant
for historically oriented genealogical and archaeological inquiries (see, e.g.,
Foucault, 1984b,
p. 76; 1988a, p. 106), and (3) is pragmatic, critical, and normatively motivated
without being prescriptive, in many cases seeking to mobilize readers’ own
values against previously unrecognized problems.
Now such a reformulation of social theory surely deserves to be received
critically, in regards to its philosophy of science, its politics and its
methodology as well as in regards to its theories of power, knowledge, and the
subject. It has been suggested above that we stand to gain quite a lot from such a
critical reception, and in fact the above discussion has sought to outline
Foucault’s thought in such a way that it would appear worthy of such a critical
reception. Unfortunately, many of Foucault’s critics forward their critiques in
such a manner that the possibility of a considered reception of Foucault’s works
appears neither likely nor appealing. Even more unfortunately, these critics have
been rather successful in tarnishing Foucault’s name merely by invoking
hackneyed slogans such as fatalism and relativism, or even by resorting to ad
hominem attacks (e.g. Rorty, 1986, p. 47). This success is deplorable in two
senses: first, the charges are either wrong, misleading, or irrelevant, and second,
they do not substantively address any of Foucault’s studies or face squarely any
of Foucault’s arguments.
A further problem is that even many of the intelligent and sympathetic
treatments have failed to provide the kind of critical reception which Foucault’s
works deserve. Dreyfus and Rabinow, for example, fault Foucault with
neglecting the notion of ‘bio-power’, developed in the first volume of The
History of Sexuality (1978, pp. 139–141; cf. 1988e), in favor of digging around
in classical texts in pursuit of the genealogy of the subject (1983, pp. 254, 264).
But this betrays a wish to reduce Foucault to the status of a French contributor
to the Frankfurt School’s critique of late capitalism, a critique to which he did
contribute, true, but which he also claimed to have decentered and superseded.
This opportunity can be taken to suggest some more fruitful lines of criticism
which stand to improve our understanding of Foucault as well as contribute to
the advancement of Foucault’s life-work in its singularity and promise.
 First, we can turn one of Foucault’s questions back on himself – if Foucault
asks at what price the subject can speak the truth about him/herself, we can
ask Foucault at what price we can ask about this price. Are we all capable of
having our self-evidences continually undermined, thinking what thought
silently thinks so that we can think differently, endlessly transforming
ourselves, forever seeking to escape from the confines of identity, always
resisting the powers that be (no matter which they are), and, in a word, living a
life of ‘hyper- and pessimistic activism’? Are we even capable of witnessing
very much of such activism? In the same essay in which Nietzsche introduces
the notion of ‘critical history’, (‘On The Uses and Disadvantages of History for
Life’ [1983, pp. 57– 123]), he argued for the necessity of forgetting, of bounded
horizons to thought, especially as correctives to the explosion of historical
knowledge in the modern period. Does Foucault provide us with a satisfactory
reason for historicizing more and more Western experiences and neglecting
what Nietzsche saw as the ‘disadvantages’ of historical knowledge? (cf.
Probyn, 1993, p. 115).
Following from this, a second criticism; If only some of us are capable of
attaining the lifestyle envisioned by Foucault, either in regards to critical
activism or an ‘aesthetics of existence’, such as was the case with the Greeks, is
it plausible that this minority would not form either an elite or a marginal
minority? As Bourdieu argues, aesthetic taste is often divisive (1984). Given
that Foucault is aware of the subjugating effects of the Greek aesthetics of
existence, what leads him to believe that an aesthetic ‘mode of subjection’ to
ethics holds any promise of reducing the abusive use of power in modern
society?
A third avenue for criticism lies in pursuing an irony which can be detected if
one counterpoises the logic of Foucault’s genealogical method with his denial of
relativism. The irony arises in that, on the one hand, the strategy of genealogical
criticism is to undermine the power exercised on our minds (strictly speaking, in
and through our thinking) by an idea, discourse, practice, institution, etc., by
exposing its strategic function, its contribution to our subjugation (cf. Davidson,
1986, pp. 224–225); but, on the other hand, Foucault rejects the very logic by
which knowledge, rationalities, etc. are inferred to be merely ‘ideological’,
given their embeddedness in power relations. Genealogical criticism is effective
due to the commonly held belief that knowledge cannot be valid, practices
cannot be authentic, etc., if power has any role in its constitution, but this is a
relativistic logic which Foucault himself explicitly rejects.
These questions and observations, I suggest, point to the possibility of
making critical contributions to the still growing literature on Foucault without
either sidestepping Foucault’s arguments or faulting Foucault for not falling into
a standard critical position.
T. J. Berard
4788 NE 178th St.
Lake Forest Park, WA
USA
Acknowledgements An earlier version of this paper was honored with the Shils-
Coleman Prize from the American Sociological Association’s Theory Section.
Thanks to Jon Goldberg-Hiller and Jeff Coulter for the inspiration and
opportunities necessary for developing the above arguments, and to referees of
The Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour for constructive criticism.

NOTES
1
The History of Sexuality comprises three volumes: The History of Sexuality, The Use
of Pleasure, and The Care of the Self, in that order. To avoid confusion, ‘The History of
Sexuality’ will refer to the three-volume series, not the first volume.
2
Weber (1958, pp. 182–183). Cf. Foucault (1997, p. 43).
3
See, e.g., Foucault (1977a, p. 31). More accurately, Foucault was interested in
archaeology and genealogy, both distinct from intellectual history. Briefly, and roughly,
archaeology studies the implicit, underlying rules, shared by disparate bodies of
knowledge in a certain historical period, which inform the definition of the objects of
study, the formation of concepts and the manner of theory-building, and not what was
said, who said what, and in what order. See, e.g., Foucault (1970, p. xi; 1988b, p. 31).
Genealogy can be likened to a historical knowledge of struggles which is tactically
useful for contemporary struggles. See Foucault (1980b, p. 83).
4
Cf. the discussion of docile bodies in Foucault (1977a, pp. 136–139).
5
There is much to be gained by the comparison of Foucault’s studies to Weber’s
Protestant Ethic: both studied the secularization of ascetic practices and the increasing
rationalization of modern life, and both were critical of the fact that what at first were
the elective virtues and spiritually meaningful practices of an elite became inescapable
and onerous burdens for everyone.
6
See, esp., Foucault (1988b, pp. 31–33, 8). The History of Sexuality can be seen as an
elaboration and substantiation of Nietzsche’s theory of ‘pastoral power’ (1967).
7
Butler, in an intelligent treatment of supposedly prediscursive phenomena, rejects
even this slender and elusive grounding as romanticism and sentimental indulgence, and
yet still demonstrates that Foucault is an invaluable resource for feminist/queer critiques
(1990, pp. 96–98; 1993; cf. Foucault, 1980c).
8
Here Foucault means by ‘game’, ‘an ensemble of rules for the production of truth’.

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