Who is Michel Foucault? Eyan Littleton Mrs.

Thomas-Bowens 5th hr May 13, 2012

Who is Michel Foucault? Born Paul-Michel Foucault on October 15, 1926 he was a French philosopher, social theorist and historian of ideas. His radical political views kept in him in constant street battles with police. He also fathered the idea of panopticism. Hes most noted for coining the idea of biopower. Hes easily one of the best 20th century philosphers. Paul-Michel Foucault was born on October 15, 1926 in Poitiers, France, to a notable provincial family. His father, Paul Foucualt, was an eminent surgeon and hoped his son would join him in the profession. His eaerly education was a mix of success and mediocrity until he attended the Jesuit Collge Saint-Stanislas, where he excelled. During this period, Foucault learned philosophy with Louis Girad. After Would War II, Foucault was admitted to the presitigious coel Normale Suprieure, the traditional gateway to an academic career in the humanities in France. Foucaults radical political views kept him in constant battle with the police. In the aftermath of the 1968 student riots at the University of Tunis Foucault was named the first head of the philosophy department at the experimental university, Paris VIII, at Vincennes. Foucault aoopointed mostly young leftist academics whose radicalism provoked the Ministry of Education. Foucault notoriously also joined students in occupying administration buildings and fighting with police. His political activisim contributed a lot to the development of the ultra-Maoist Gauche Proletarenne (GP). Foucault fathered panopticism. Panopticism is a social theory developed by Foucault in his book, Discipline and Punish. A panopticon is a circular building with an observation tower in the center of an open space surrounded by an outer wall. This wall contains cells for occupants (for example, inmates in a prison). This design increases security by facilitating more effective surveillance. Residing within cells flooded with light, occupants are readily distinguishable and visible to a guard/official invisibly positioned in the central tower. Conversely, occupatns are invisible to each other, with concrete walls dividing their cells. In Discipline and Punish, Michel Foucault builds on Jeremy Bentham's conceptualization of a panopticon as he elaborates upon the function of disciplinary mechanisms in the prison and illustrates the function of discipline as an apparatus of power. Foucault also coined the term biopower. It relates to the practice of modern nation states and their regulation of their subjests through and explosion of numerous and diverse techniques for achieving the subjugations of bodies and the control of populations. Foucault first used the term in his lecture courses at the Collge de France, but the term first appeared in print in The Will to Knowledge, Foucaults first volume of The History of Sexuality. In Foucaults work, it has been used to refer to practices of public health, regulation of heredity, and risk regulation, among many other regulatory mechanisms oftern linked less directly with leteral physical heath.

Foucault is on the greatest philosophers not only of the 20th century but of all time. His works have been influential too many philosophers after him. He was name 2007s most cited scholar in humanities. Foucaults ideas arent dated at all either, each of his ideologies is applicable to todays society. Panopticism, and Biopolitics are still relevant topics today. Foucault will forever live on in his wonderous works of literature and thought.