Foucault - the History of Sexuality

Foucault, M. 1978[1976 in French]. Method. Part 4 Chapter 2 of: The History of Sexuality: Volume I: An Introduction. R. Hurley, trans. Vintage Books. Pp. 92-102.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/xnwycb62rpebhze/Foucault_1978.pdf?dl=0

• Foucault, M. 1980[1977 interview]. Truth and Power. Chapter 6 of: Power/ Knowledge: Selected Interviews and Other Writings 1972-1977. C. Gordon, Ed. Pantheon Books. Pp. 109-133.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/f595j5nbf49qvt5/Foucault%2B1980-Truth%2Band%2BPower.pdf?dl=0

• Foucault, M. 1983. Afterword: The Subject and Power In: Michel Foucault: Beyond Structuralism and Hermeneutics. 2nd Edition. H.L. Dreyfus

&

P. Rabinow, Eds. University of Chicago Press. Pp. 208-226. (written by Foucault)

https://www.dropbox.com/s/8b91lzyu4n4k6bp/Foucault1983subject_power.pdf?dl=0

A bit ago, I did some working through of the distinctions between the structuralism of Marxism and the 'poststructuralism' of Foucault. Concisely:

Foucault went beyond the transcendence of the subject achieved in the anti-humanism of Althusser to put the object on trial as well, establishing a sort of co-evolutionary relationship between the subject and the object. Foucault’s post-structuralism, therefore, is contrasted with Althusser’s structuralism in this regard. . . . ForAlthusser, the subject is “interpellated” by ideology--a process that assumes the existence of a 'true consciousness' outside of ideology. Foucault doubts the existence of 'true consciousness' on the basis that objects of knowledge themselves are already compromised by the very processes and motivations of knowing. Foucault explains that the process of 'objectivation' and 'subjectivation' occur simultaneously, and that these “are not independent of each other.” For Foucault, “the subject and the object ‘are formed and transformed’ in relation to and in terms of one another” and “from their mutual development and their interconnection, what could be called the ‘games of truth’ come into being—that is, not the discovery of true things but the rules according to which what a subject can say about certain things depends on the question of true and false.” These games of truth position the subject as an object of knowledge, such that the subject is “urged to deploy . . . the game of true and false in regard to themselves.”

In sum, whereas the structuralists doubted the existence of authentic subjects, the so-called 'poststructuralists' doubted the existence of both authentic subjects and objects of knowledge.