File spoon-archives/foucault.archive/foucault_1994/F-3, message 48


Date: Fri, 21 Oct 1994 12:17:38 +0100
From: Lars Unneberg <lars.unneberg-AT-iks.uio.no>
To: foucault-AT-world.std.com
Subject: Genealogy & Archeology in DP


In Dicipline and Punishment there seems to be an conflict between Foucaults
Archeology and his new-found Genealogy.

First he portrais the systems fo punishment in tree different epistemes.
first under the theater of Torture, where the punisment is an analouge of
the kings power by inscription of pain.

Second, under the humanist reformers, the punishment shall be a sign of the
crime itself. And this sign shall be inscribed in the mind of all who see
the criminal. The punishment shall be in perfect syncronicity with the
crime, so that no force is wasted.

In the third form, the prisons sudden emergence, the crimminal is punished,
not the crime. The crimminal has a psyke that can be changed by prison
disipline.

These three seem to be discontinual forms of punishment, even though there
are elements connecting the first to the second, and others connecting the
second to the third. The notion of independent episteme is futher
strenghtened by the fact that these tree seems to be eqvivallent to the
three episteme in OT. It may not fit perfectly on the time scale, but the
content is the same.

When Foucault writes about the emergence of discipline as an dominating
factor of the modern world, the concept of genealogy seems to be more at
its place. Here he writes about the development of discipline from the
ascetic priest to Benthams panopticon, and how this disciplin through power
- knowledge controls different discourses.

Is this a sign of a problem between genealogy and archeology in Foucault?
Or is the prison, and its sudden dominace,  only explainable on the
background of the subject created by disciplinary techniques. The latter
would tie the two together.


Lars Unneberg
lars.unneberg-AT-iks.uio.no
Student of intellectual history
University of Oslo, Norway


   

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