Foucault Means Of Toxic Training

Although Michel Foucault’s philosophies and concepts of power, knowledge, and disciplines were propounded a long time ago, there are still elements of his submissions today. During the classical age, there were several philosophies about the term ‘power’ and one of the more profound theories was that of Michel Foucault, a French philosopher and social theorist, who defined power as “absolutely discreet, for it functions permanently and largely in silence” (Foucault 1984, 192). In ‘The Means of Correct Training’, Foucault explains that he is more concerned with power that is exercised in a subtle and discreet manner as against that which was traditionally exercised through brutality or violence. Foucault maintains that power employs “humble modalities, minor procedures, compared with the majestic rituals of sovereignty or the great apparatuses of the state’ (Foucault 1984, 188).

Foucault states in his book, Discipline and Punish, that power “resides with specialized institutions that use power as an essential instrument for a particular end (schools, hospitals) or by state apparatuses whose major, if not exclusive function is to ensure that discipline reigns over society as a whole” (Foucault 1984, 206). To Foucault, the need to control society as well as to ‘normalize’ members of the society were some of the reasons power was deployed. This essay sets out to analyse Foucault’s theory of power, its linkage to sovereignty, knowledge, academic disciplines, and education; the essay will also analyse some critics against Foucault’s theory of knowledge and power, at the end, it will explore the possibility that some of Foucault’s theories may have been largely influenced by personal reasons as well as the need to recognise other elements in power