Foucault and Power: A Critique and Retheorization

Critical Review: A Journal of Politics and Society 34 (3):341-371 (2022)
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Abstract

From the perspective of sociological theory, Foucault’s concepts of power, power-knowledge, and discipline are one-sided. While Foucault contends that there is no center of power, his account of power remains top-down or structural, missing the interactive and enabling aspects of power. A more balanced view would suggest that all exercises of power include meaningful agency (the ability to do something); social structures (not simply as constraints but as interactive creations); social knowledge (including both reifying truth claims and enabling truth or knowledge); and social-ontological being-in-the-social-world (both as enabling and dominating).

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References found in this work

Intentionality: An Essay in the Philosophy of Mind.John R. Searle - 1983 - New York: Cambridge University Press.
The Logic of Scientific Discovery.Karl Popper - 1959 - Studia Logica 9:262-265.
The psychic life of power: theories in subjection.Judith Butler - 1997 - Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press.
The Subject and Power.Michel Foucault - 1982 - Critical Inquiry 8 (4):777-795.

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