Dr Barry Stocker
Assistant Professor
Department of Philosophy
Boğaziçi University
barry.stocker@boun.edu.tr
FOUCAULT
PHIL 585
SPRING SEMESTER, 2024
COURSE OUTLINE
Michel Foucault (1926-1984) was a major philosopher, and a major thinker in many fields,
due to the highly inter-disciplinary nature of his work. It is close to impossible to cover all
his major contributions in many fields in one semester. The course is an attempt to look at
Foucault’s core philosophical achievements as they relate to aesthetics, literary writing,
ethics, power, government, society, the self, political philosophy, philosophical method,
language and discourse, political speech, law and jurisprudence, and philosophy of
history, amongst other things. Mostly the course concentrates on short texts in order to
maximise the range of texts discussed. The course does begin with an entire book,
Archaeology of Knowledge, which is the closest Foucault comes to a programmatic
statement of his philosophical project (along with The Order of Discourse, which is also in
the course. It is not really a complete program, but it is well worth studying in full due to
its elaborate articulation of the discourse appropriate to many fields of knowledge and
modes of knowing. It would be a mistake though to see it as a detached objective work in
relation to knowledge. Though it may sometimes appear to be so, in reality it is one step
in Foucault’s explorations of the ways in which knowledge is connected with the subject,
the individual (which is trying to know), and its ways of forming a world for itself. We will
try to follow Foucault’s path through the possibilities of different kinds of knowledge,
object of knowledge and knowing subjects. They are also aesthetic, political, conscious
interpreting individuals, caught up in forms of power, discourse, subjectivity and ethical
relations, as well as self-relations. The course also ends with a book, but it is a collection
of lectures rather than an integrated monograph, Fearless Speech which brings together
Foucault’s thoughts towards the end of his sadly curtailed life about ancient tragedy,
ancient politics, self creation, democracy, institutions, freedom and political speech. In the
middle of the course ‘Truth and Juridical Form’ gives the course two weeks on Foucault’s
investigations of the intersections of truth, power, law, courts, police and prisons in the
relations between individuals, institutions and state sovereignty.
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SCHEDULE
(Publication information about these texts and online links to pdf version can be found on
pages four and five of this document. Please make sure you download these texts and
use them in all class discussions, class presentations, and course assessments, in order
to avoid confusion about page numbers, translations used etc, or use printed versions of
the same texts with the same pagination)
Week One
Archaeology of Knowledge
Part I Introduction
Week Two
Archaeology of Knowledge
Part II The Discursive Regularities
Week Three
Archaeology of Knowledge
Part III The Statement and the Archive
Week Four
Archaeology of Knowledge
Part IV Archaeological Description, V Conclusion
Week Five
‘Order of Discourse’, ‘Nietzsche, Genealogy, History’
Week Six
‘Truth and Juridical Form’. Sections I, II and III
Week Seven
‘Truth and Juridical Form’. Sections IV and V.
Week Eight
‘What is an Author’, ‘Technologies of the Self’
Week Nine
‘What is Enlightenment’, ‘Self Writing’, ‘Language to Infinity’, ‘The Hermeneutic of the
Subject’
Week Ten
‘“Omnes et Singulatum: Toward a Critique of Political Reason’, ‘The Subject and Power’
Week Eleven
‘The Thought of the Outside’
Week Twelve
Fearless Speech
Chapter 1 The Word Parrhesia
Week Thirteen
Fearless Speech
Chapter 2 Parrhesia in Euripides
Chapter 3 Parrhesia in the Crisis of Democratic Institutions
Week Fourteen
Fearless Speech
Chapter 4 Parrhesia in the Care of the Self
Concluding Remarks
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CLASSES
The first class will be an hour of the instructor introducing the course followed by two hours of
introduction and discussion of the reading for the first week.
Subsequent classes will have an hour for a student presentation on the material introduced in the
preceding week, followed by two hours of introduction and discussion for the reading for the
week concerned.
As this is a graduate class, there is a strong expectation that students will read the texts for the
class carefully before the class, as well as other relevant material, so that they will be ready for an
informed discussion. Students are also expected to always have the necessary texts with them in
class, in printed form or on electronic devices.
Students are required to give a minimum number of 2 seminar papers in the course and possibly
more, depending on how large the group is. Written up versions of seminar papers are graded as
part of the course assessment.
Presenting a seminar paper on the scheduled day is compulsory. Failure to do so will result in
automatically failing the course. You can give a computer presentation through a projector, but
this is not required and I cannot guarantee an ideal technical situation with regard to a functioning
projector, which connects with your computing device. Mac users should bring the appropriate
adaptor for connecting to a projector. Speak slowly and clearly. Do your best to look at the class
while speaking and do your best to give an energetic stimulating presentation. Aim to speak for
at least 30 minutes. When you are not presenting, do not be passive. Study the relevant texts
beforehand, and be ready to ask polite but challenging questions, or make counter points in a
lively and informed discussion.
ASSESSMENT
Two seminar papers (One third of course grade)
Each seminar paper should be 1000 words at least
(your 2 best seminar papers if you give more than 2 seminars)
First term paper (One third of course grade)
At least 2000 words
Second term paper (One third of course grade)
At least 2000 words
After grading the first seminar paper and after grading the first term paper, the instructor will send
an email to students explaining the grade with regard to strengths and weaknesses of the paper.
The instructor will make suggestions with regard to making the second seminar paper and the
second term paper better.
Term papers may build on the seminar papers, incorporating material into an expanded and
improved discussion.
All assessments must be submitted on time to pass the course. Failure to do so leads to an
automatic F.
Deadlines:
Term Paper One: Friday 21st May, 18:00
Term Paper Two: Friday 7th June, 18:00
All papers should be submitted as email attachments.
Papers should definitely quote from the assigned texts by Foucault, preferably with reference to
other relevant texts by Foucault and from relevant texts by other authors.
Plans of papers and drafts can be sent to the instructor for feedback. This is strongly encouraged.
Term Paper One should refer to texts by Foucault assigned for weeks one to seven.
Term Paper Two should refer to texts by Foucault assigned for weeks eight to fourteen.
Please check with me if you are uncertain about how appropriate your paper topics are.
You may discuss texts by Foucault not discussed in the course and relevant texts by other
authors, but at least half of any paper should focus on a text, or texts, assigned in the course.
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COURSE TEXTS
PUBLICATION DETAILS AND ONLINE LINKS
A significant proportion of the course texts are from the three volumes which make up
Essential Works of Foucault, 1954-1984. Edited by Paul Rabinow.
Volume 1. Ethics. Subjectivity and Truth
Edited by Paul Rabinow
New Press, 1997/Penguin Books, 2000
https://monoskop.org/images/0/00/Foucault_Michel_Ethics_Subjectivity_and_Truth.pdf
Volume 2. Aesthetics, Method, and Epistemology
Edited by James D. Faubion
New Press, 1998/Penguin Books, 2000
https://monoskop.org/images/c/cf/
Foucault_Michel_Aesthetics_Method_and_Epistemology_1998.pdf
Volume 3. Power
Edited by James B. Faubion.
New Press and Penguin Books, 2000
https://monoskop.org/images/b/b9/Foucault_Michel_Power_2000.pdf
Full list of of course texts with online link to pdf.
Archaeology of Knowledge [L’Archéologie du savoir, 1969]
Translated by A.M. Sheridan, Tavistock Institute/Pantheon Books, 1972
https://monoskop.org/images/9/90/Foucault_Michel_Archaeology_of_Knowledge.pdf
Fearless Speech (1983 lectures at Berkeley)
Edited by Joseph Pearson, Semiotext(e), 2001
https://monoskop.org/images/b/ba/Foucault_Michel_Fearless_Speech.pdf
‘What is Enlightenment?’ [‘Qu’est ce que les Lumières?’, 1983)
Translated by Catherine Porter
In Essential Works of Foucault: Ethics
https://monoskop.org/images/0/00/Foucault_Michel_Ethics_Subjectivity_and_Truth.pdf
‘The Subject and Power’ [written in English by Foucault 1982]
In Essential Works of Foucault: Power
https://monoskop.org/images/b/b9/Foucault_Michel_Power_2000.pdf
‘The Order of Discourse’ [L’Ordre du discours, 1971]
Translated by Ian McLeod
In Untying the Text, edited by Robert Young, Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1981.
https://monoskop.org/images/7/78/
Foucault_Michel_1970_1981_The_Order_of_Discourse.pdf
5
‘Nietzsche, Genealogy, History’ [‘Nietzsche, la généalogie, l’histoire’, 1971]
Translated by Donald F. Brouchard and Sherry Simon
In Essential Works of Foucault: Aesthetics
https://monoskop.org/images/c/cf/
Foucault_Michel_Aesthetics_Method_and_Epistemology_1998.pdf
‘The Thought of the Outside’ [‘La pensée du dehors’, 1966]
Translated by Brian Massumi
In Essential Works of Foucault: Aesthetics
https://monoskop.org/images/c/cf/
Foucault_Michel_Aesthetics_Method_and_Epistemology_1998.pdf
‘Language to Infinity’ [‘Le langage à l’infini’, 1963]
Translated by Donald F. Brouchard and Sherry Simon
In Essential Works of Foucault: Aesthetics
https://monoskop.org/images/c/cf/
Foucault_Michel_Aesthetics_Method_and_Epistemology_1998.pdf
‘What is an Author?’ [‘Qu’est-ce qu’un auteur’, 1969]
Translated by Josué V. Harari
In Essential Works of Foucault: Aesthetics
https://monoskop.org/images/c/cf/
Foucault_Michel_Aesthetics_Method_and_Epistemology_1998.pdf
‘“Omnes et Singulatum”: Toward a Critique of Political Reason’ [Tanner Lectures, Stanford
University, 1979]
In Essential Works of Foucault Power
In Essential Works of Foucault: Aesthetics
https://monoskop.org/images/c/cf/
Foucault_Michel_Aesthetics_Method_and_Epistemology_1998.pdf
‘Truth and Juridical Forms’ [‘La Vérité et les formes juridiques’, lectures at Ponitifical
Catholic University of Rio de Janiro, 1973]
Translated by Robert Hurley
In Essential Works of Foucault: Power
https://monoskop.org/images/b/b9/Foucault_Michel_Power_2000.pdf
‘Technologies of the Self’ [Lecture at the University of Vermont, 1982]
In Essential Works of Foucault: Ethics
https://monoskop.org/images/0/00/Foucault_Michel_Ethics_Subjectivity_and_Truth.pdf
‘Self Writing’ [Lecture at the University of Vermont, 1982]
In Essential Works of Foucault: Ethics
https://monoskop.org/images/0/00/Foucault_Michel_Ethics_Subjectivity_and_Truth.pdf
‘The Hermeneutic of the Subject’ [‘L’Herméneutique du sujet: Résumé du cours’, 1982]
Translated by Robert Hurley
In Essential Works of Foucault: Ethics
https://monoskop.org/images/0/00/Foucault_Michel_Ethics_Subjectivity_and_Truth.pdf
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Further Readings
A separate document will be circulated later to students containing detailed suggestions
for further reading.
The obvious starting point is to read other texts by Foucault.
For secondary readings, begin with Gary Gutting and Johanna Oksala’s contribution to
the online Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, both for its interpretation of Foucault and
for its bibliographical suggestions.
Other prominent Foucault commentators and interpreters, or well known writers who have
engaged with Foucault include: Ian Hacking, Quentin Skinner, Daniele Lorenzini, Ben
Golder, Stuart Elden, Thomas Lemke, Barry Allen, Pierre Hadot, G.C. Prado, Peter
Sloterdijk, Jürgen Habermas, Gilles Deleuze, Jean Baudrillard, Jacques Derrida, Samuel
Fleischacker, Maurice Blanchot, Roberto Esposito, Judith Butler, Giorgio Agamben,
Edward Said, Axel Honneth, Peter Brown.
Peter Brown is a very major figure in the history of late antiquity who had a significant
influence on Foucault’s work on this period and who was himself interested in Foucault’s
ideas.
The whole field of biopolitics/biopower (which includes Lemke, Esposito and Agamben) is
heavily influenced by Foucault.
Nearly all recent discussion of the Ancient Greek word for free and provocative speech,
parrhesia, is marked by Foucault's work on this.
Similar comments apply to the cultural and social history of madness, sexuality, and selfcreation, along with work on the role of discourse in the shaping of knowledge.
Students are very welcome to contact me for suggesting readings related to particular
interests in Foucault and connections or comparisons with Foucault.
Pre-existing or new interests in figures who influenced Foucault will help you understand
Foucault by putting him in context.
Foucault draws on many influences. The most obvious one is Friedrich Nietzsche. Other
philosophers Foucault studied deeply include Immanuel Kant, G.W.F. Hegel, and Edmund
Husserl. His teachers included Maurice Merleau-Ponty and Louis Althusser.
In social theory, his work shows, directly or indirectly, deep awareness of the great
classical sociological theorists: Karl Marx, Émile Durkheim, Max Weber.
He sometimes refers to the work of his mentor Georges Dumézil (who was a Professor at
the University of Istanbul from 1925-1931, and conducted field research in Turkey every
year after relocating), a major figure in ancient mythology, religion, and linguistics.
Foucault often refers to tragic drama, particularly the Ancient Greek tragedies of
Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides. He refers to and discusses Sophocles’ tragedy
Oedipus the King on many occasions.
Amongst modern literary writers, Foucault makes brief but significant reference to Franz
Kafka, Samuel Beckett and Jorge Luis Borges.
Earlier French thinkers who leave a significant mark on Foucault include: the 16th century
philosopher and essayist Michel de Montaigne; the eighteenth century writer on law,
history, politics and society, as well as novelist, Montesquieu; the eighteenth century
libertine essayist and novelist, the Marquis de Sade; the twentieth century literary critic,
literary writer, theorist of society, religion and psychology, Georges Bataille.
Foucault’s politics is a very complex and interesting subject. He has influenced radical
leftists and free market libertarian capitalists, as well as many people in between.