The Enlightenment, Which Discovered the Liberties, also Invented the Disciplines by Foucault - Essay Example

The “Enlightenment”, which discovered the liberties, also invented the disciplines’ (Foucault). Discuss. 
 Introduction The epoch of Enlightenment is the period in the history of the Western culture and thought, dating back its rise to the middle of the seventeenth century (Bristow, 2011). This movement was recognised to be a “bridge” between the medieval world-perception and the modern western world-view (Bristow, 2011). It was the period of the scientific revolution, which has undermined old scientific and ancient geocentric conceptions of the cosmos and proposed new approach to explaining the world, social order, and other concepts. It has brought dramatic revolutions in philosophy, science, politics and society, enlightened by the ideals of freedom, democracy, liberty, and equality for everybody. While the period of Enlightenment is recognized to be a period of democracy and liberalization, Foucault (1977: 222) believed that the “Enlightenment”, which discovered the liberties, also invented the disciplines”. The aim of this essay is to analyse the views of Foucault on the discipline invented by during the Enlightenment period. Enlightenment Kant vs Foucault Kant explains Enlightenment as “the way out”, which implies a process that releases people from a state of immaturity and tutelage (Seppä, 2004). Tutelage in this case is a human state of mind, which makes people to accept the authority of someone else. Therefore, Kant defines Enlightenment as a “man’s release from his self-incurred tutelage”, release from “man’s inability to make use of his reason without direction from one-another” (Kant, 1996). Self-incurred tutelage is a tutelage caused because of lack of resolution and courage to use it without somebody’s authority or direction (Seppä, 2004). To have courage to use own reason was the Kant’s motto towards Enlightenment. According to Kant, the only way an individual could assure his autonomy was through the legitimate use of reason (Seppä, 2004). Foucault has criticised the concepts laid out by Kant on enlightenment in the work of 1784 “What is Enlightenment”, undermining the credibility of rationality of his views and the ideas that an individual could free himself from the domination/authority of others (Seppä, 2004). Foucault, in contrast to Kant, viewed the main problem of Enlightenment in the attempt to react to one’s historical situation in a creative and critical way (Seppä, 2004). Despite this criticism, Foucault supported some of the important Kant’s views and ideas on Enlightenment. Foucault on enlightenment, power and liberty Furthermore, Foucault has challenged the belief in gradual growth of freedom and liberty over the past two centuries. Foucault in his works has addressed a number of key social transformations especially those that have taken place during the Enlightenment epoch (Schrag, 1999). For Foucault, until the 18th century there existed an institution of power “in which only a few, those at the apex of formal, explicit structures, truly were individuals: the monarch was individuality’s archetype, and individuality was the greatest at the top of political pyramid (Gruber, 1989: 615). Before the Enlightenment era, individuality was viewed as a privilege in the society and was an honour/rank occupied by the monarchy, by a king and his family. This type of power had only one direction, radiating from a focus (Gruber, 1989). Blood heritage and the chronicles of monumental deeds were two features of individuality differentiating power holders from the mass (Gruber, 1989). Thus, monarchy was the major power supporting and serving pre-existing individuality of the rest. However, this period has been replaced by a period of liberalism and democratisation, granting each person with a status of individuality (Gruber, 1989). In history, this period is well known under the name “Enlightenment”. In contrast to the judicial investigation based on the old procedures of oath, the judgement of God, the ordeal existing in the Middle Ages, the eighteenth century invented discipline and examination based on the empirical sciences and investigations to psychology, criminology, pedagogy and other sciences (Foucault, 1977). According to Foucault, the emergence of new sciences in the 18th and the 19th century (the Enlightenment era) was intimately connected with disciplinary power (Schrag, 1999). As it has been already mentioned by Foucault, on the one hand, the Enlightenment was viewed as a period which discovered liberty, on the other hand, it has invented discipline (Schrag, 1999). Before going to further discussion it is important to understand clearly, what does Foucault means by a word “discipline”? According to his definition, discipline “may be identified neither with an institution nor with apparatus; it is a type of power, a modality of exercise, comprising a whole set of instruments, techniques, procedures, levels of application, targets; it is a ‘physics’ or an ‘anatomy’ of power, a technology” (Foucault, 1977:215). In his popular work Discipline and Punish (1977:146), Foucault said that “One should not forget that, generally speaking, the Roman model, at the Enlightenment, played a dual role: in its republican aspect, it was the very embodiment of liberty; in its military aspect, it was the ideal schema of discipline”. By claiming that ‘Enlightenment which discovered the liberties, also invented the disciplines’, Foucault assumed that liberty and discipline where the two sides of a coin, whereas one side was not capable to exist without the other side (Schrag, 1999). It was a double game, whereas on the surface, the society lived with rights, representation and liberty, and beneath the surface was hidden a world of coercion (Scmidtt, 2014). The society became even more disciplinary due to a hidden approach to power concept. Foucault explained that the effects of power were everywhere in the society, even though the instruments of power were different. Foucault (1980:158) compared disciplinary power with ‘a machine that no individual or group is in charge of’. Moreover, the power was viewed by Foucault as a new instrument creating reality and discipline. In this situation, discipline was one of the mechanisms of power function substituting the formal legal/governmental framework (Foucault, 1977). Discipline: Panopticon In order to better illustrate the Foucault’s statement on liberty and discipline discovered during the Enlightenment period it is possible to explain in more details the concept of disciplinary practice through the Panopticon effect. Foucault has compared Panapticon – an architectural design of an annular building with a tower at the centre. The tower has wide windows that open a view onto the inner side of the ring (Foucault, 1977). Initially, Jeremy Bentham proposed this design in the late 18th century as a solution for better surveillance in prisons. The whole building was divided into cells with two windows, one on the outside, the second one on the inside. This design enabled a guardian to stand in the middle of the tower and to have permanent visual accessibility to those who were located in the cells. Thus, prisoners who were around the tower had a permanent feel that they were observed by a guard from a tower. They did not know for sure whether somebody was watching them at a given moment but they knew that they could be watched and observed every minute. Thus, there are two major principles of power laid in this approach: it should be visible but unverifiable. While the power is visible as individuals in cells are visible on a permanent basis, the power is unverifiable as it is impossible to know for sure whether an individual is being looked and when (Foucault, 1977). The effect was grandiose, as the prisoners did not need an external guard to control them, they had developed their own internal guards living inside their minds. As a result, this self-disciplinary approach has helped to change the mind-sets of prisoners and to “polish” their behaviour to the guards’ expectations. Permanent visibility assures the functioning of power in automatic regime (Foucault, 1977). Thus, Foucault illustrates the power of an invisible eye, which disciplines individuals without no direct interaction with them. In his work, Foucault refers to the disciplines not only in relation to the penal system, but also to the disciplines adopted by educational institutions (Flynn, 2002). To Foucault, prisons resemble schools, factories, hospitals, barracks, and other institutions (Flynn, 2002). He said that there could be locked anybody, from a madman and a patient to a schoolboy or a worker (Foucault, 1977). By referring to the Panapticon construction in his work “Discipline and Punish” Foucault explains that “it is not necessary to use force to constrain the convict to good behaviour, the madman to calm, the worker to work, the schoolboy to application, the patient to the observation of the regulations” (1977). The mechanism of Panapticon itself produces homogeneous power, which sets the frames of expected behaviour of individuals (Foucault, 1977). The author conducts a parallel with the systems introduced during the Enlightenment period, illustrating how the people are given freedom to do what they want but within a set of frameworks established by legal, social and political systems. Thus, for example, Foucault explains that the politically dominant class has hidden itself by masking over the formally egalitarian juridical framework. In this case, “Panopticism constituted the technique, universally widespread, of coercion. It continued to work in depth on the juridical structures of societies, in order to make effective mechanisms of power function in opposition to the formal framework that it had required” (Foucault cited in Gavin and Levin, 1998: 444). Thus, Foucault sees the Enlightenment not as an extension of liberation, but instead, as increased private and public surveillance (Gavin and Levin, 1998). Foucault believes that the model based on law is only a more effective substitution of direct power and monarchy authority. Referring back to the statement discussed in the essay it is possible to say that Enlightenment definitely discovered the liberties but these liberties had illusionary form, based on the feel of constant surveillance and risk of systemic punishment. The system introduced during this epoch has also invented the disciplines, which have formed a framework of expected behaviour among the masses. Foucault views this approach a perfect exercise of power as it enables to reduce the number of those who exercise it but to increase the number of those on whom this power is exercised (Foucault, 1977). The power is exercised with minimal efforts, but with great output and efficiency, often not notable by others. Thus, Foucault implies that the Enlightenment discovered liberty but also invented discipline. People are managed by an invisible eye and invisible power, while being simultaneously manipulated with illusions of acquired freedom and liberty. Foucault views the Enlightenment as the disciplinary mechanism, which is democratically controlled. Everybody has a right to access the great tribunal committee and observes other observers (for example in the court). Thus, the society as whole now can perform a role of supervisor and exercise power through established institutions and other Panopticon-type machines/instruments. Conclusion The epoch of Enlightenment was a prominent period in the history of the Western culture and thought, dating back its rise to the middle of the seventeenth century. It was the period of the scientific revolution and brought dramatic revolutions in philosophy, science, politics and society, enlightened by the ideals of freedom, democracy, liberty, and equality for everybody. However, in addition to the principles of liberty and democracy, the Enlightenment has invented the discipline. The major figurant discussed in this essay was Michael Foucault who has criticised the concepts laid out by Kant on enlightenment and offered a new view on the situation by challenging new order with a help of Bentham’s panopticon. In his claim on Enlightenment, Foucault has challenged the aspect of liberal and democratic state order, arguing that invisible power performs control and limits freedom through an automatic power tools. In order to support his claims, author has carried out a parallel with the systems introduced during the Enlightenment period, illustrating how the people were given freedom to do what they wanted but within a set of frameworks established by legal, social, political and other systems. Foucault viewed the Enlightenment not as an extension of liberation, but instead, as increased private and public surveillance. Both the governing bodies and the society as whole could perform a role of supervisor and exercise power through established institutions and other Panopticon-type machines/instruments. References: Bristow, W. (2011), "Enlightenment", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Summer 2011 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), Available at http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2011/entries/enlightenment/ Flynn, E. (2002). Feminism beyond Modernism. Carbondale and Edwardsville: Southern Illinois University Press, p.37. Foucault, M. (1977). Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison, trans. Alan Sheridan (New York: Vintage Books). Gavin and Levin, D. (1999). Sites of vision. Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press. Gruber, D. (1989). ‘Foucault’s Critique of the Liberal Individual’, The Journal of Philosophy, 86 (11), Eighty-Sixth Annual Meeting American Philosophical Association, Eastern division, pp. 615-621. Kant, I. (1996). Practical Philosophy, ed. and translated by Mary J. Gregor (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1996). Seppä, A. (2004). Foucault, Enlightenment and the Aesthetics of the Self. Contemporary Aesthetics. Available at http://quod.lib.umich.edu/c/ca/7523862.0002.004?rgn=main;view=fulltext#N6 Schrag, F. (1999), Why Foucault now?, Journal Of Curriculum Studies, 31, 4, p. 375, Academic Search Complete, EBSCOhost, viewed 17 March 2015. Schmidt, J. (2014). Foucault on ‘Enlightenment’ in Discipline and Punish. [online] Persistent Enlightenment. Available at: https://persistentenlightenment.wordpress.com/2014/06/15/foucault-on-enlightenment-in-discipline-and-punish/ Read More