Fall 1999 Cyberseminar in Objectivist Studies:
"The Continental Origins of Postmodernism"

Week 6: October 18-October 24

David L. Potts Reviews Michel Foucault's "History of Sexuality, Volume I"

Sent: Friday, October 22, 1999 10:58 AM

Subject: Cyberseminar: DP Foucault Review

[Moderator's note: this is the second Foucault review essay, which was
scheduled for this week]

[From: David L. Potts]

"Knowledge and Power in Foucault's History of Sexuality"


To properly interpret [Michel] Foucault's statements in _The History of
Sexuality: An Introduction_ ("HSI," Vintage Books, 1990; first published
1976), I believe it is necessary to understand his more fundamental
philosophical framework, especially his views on epistemology.
Accordingly I will begin, in section I, with a brief exposition of his
"first philosophy," as I understand it. Then, in section II, I will attempt
to relate Foucault's epistemology to his doctrine of "power" in HSI. Section
III will then interpret Foucault's views on sexuality in light of the
framework developed in sections I and II. Finally, in section IV I raise
some additional questions and issues.

To support some of my claims about Foucault I have occasionally made
recourse to his writings outside the assigned material. I have tried to keep
these to a minimum, but I felt that at least some were necessary to
establish a context, especially in epistemology, in which to understand the
assigned pages.

I. EPISTEMOLOGICAL BACKGROUND

A nice summary of Foucault's basic philosophical framework occurs in his
preface to his book _The Order of Things_ ("OT," Vintage Books, 1973; first
published 1966).

Any intelligible ordering requires a "system of elements" or grid in terms
of which similarities and differences, or any other basis of organization,
may be cast (OT xx). For example, when we group objects together or
distinguish them from one another on the basis of shared or different
properties, it is this system of properties that comprises the grid in
question. And, to repeat, there is no organization, no intelligibility,
without an antecedent grid.

We make reality intelligible by not just one grid but by a whole complex of
grids, arranged in three levels. At the most basic level are "primary
codes," which include grids comprised of language (the words we apply to
things), the schemata of sense perception, and assorted cultural practices,
techniques, and values (OT xx). These grids are basic in the sense that they
determine the "empirical," which is of course something of a mirage inasmuch
as it is determined by a priori grids. The primary codes are transparent, at
least at first; we do not experience the spectrum of colors, for example, as
a "grid" but as simply _there_, as an aspect of the way things are.

At the other end of the scale of grids, at the most derivative level, are
our schemes of conceptual understanding, our systems of categories, our
scientific theories.

In the middle level lies the grid which is the most fundamental and
important but also the most difficult to grasp, which Foucault calls the
"episteme." We experience the episteme as the principle of _order itself_.
Is order "continuous and graduated or discontinuous and piecemeal, linked to
space or constituted anew at each instant by the driving force of time,
related to a series of variables or defined by separate systems of
coherences..." (OT xxi)? These are the sorts of questions determined by the
episteme. Foucault introduces the idea of the episteme with a tale from the
Argentinean writer Borges about a supposed Chinese encyclopedia that
classifies animals as: (a) belonging to the Emperor, (b) embalmed, (c) tame,
(d) sucking pigs, (e) sirens, (f) fabulous, (g) stray dogs, (h) included in
the present classification, (i) frenzied, (j) innumerable, (k) drawn with a
very fine camel hair brush, (l) et cetera, (m) having just broken the water
pitcher, (n) that from a long way off look like flies. The main thing that
strikes us about this taxonomy is that it transcends questions about better
or worse, valid or invalid. For it mixes up the very principles from which
taxonomies proceed. That is, it is not a _possible_ taxonomy. The Chinese
encyclopedia violates our sense of order itself, a sense we aren't even
aware of having until we feel it violated by pathological phenomena such as
the Chinese taxonomy.

It is an episteme that supplies us with this sense of order per se. The
episteme allows us to critique our grids at both the theoretical and the
primary coding levels. The episteme is the "firm foundation" for general
theories, that which provides the reference standard on which they are built
and by which they are appraised, and which is more true than any theory. In
conflicts between theory and empirical evidence, the evidence may have to be
revised, but not the episteme. Indeed, it is by reference to the episteme
that we can use theory to force revisions to our perceptual judgments.
Foucault pictures the episteme as an "epistemological field" or "space of
knowledge" (OT xxii) within which competing theories and concepts exist and
are evaluated - and without which they could not be. The episteme is the
"condition of possibility" of all knowledge.

However, the episteme is not built into our consciousness like the Kantian
categories. It is culturally and historically determined. It is said to be
"constructed" - and Foucault's view may be called "constructionism" -
although the term is perhaps misleading inasmuch as the construction is
neither conscious nor deliberate. Between different cultures, or between
different epochs of the same culture, there may be radically different
epistemes. Foucault is saying, therefore, that, for example, Borges' Chinese
taxonomy of animals is only impossible within our Western epistemological
field and that it is entirely possible that a radically different culture
would find the Chinese taxonomy not only possible but reasonable.

As I have already remarked, we are largely unaware of the episteme and to
become aware of it is difficult. Yet it is important to try to do so, since
it is the episteme that sets the terms for all knowledge and it is the
episteme of a culture or epoch that must be grasped to correctly understand
the beliefs and practices of that culture or epoch. Foucault calls the
project of trying to elicit the episteme of a culture or epoch "archeology."
(The subtitle of OT is _An Archeology of the Human Sciences_.)

In his own work Foucault did not examine foreign cultures but different
epochs of Western European civilization, mostly within just the last few
hundred years. He believes there have been three distinct epochs during this
period. First, the Renaissance, which ended about 1650. Then the "classical"
epoch, from 1650 to 1800. Then the "modern" epoch, from 1800 to the present.
Further, he thinks the modern episteme has about run its course and is due
to be replaced by a new one (OT xxiv), a postmodern epoch.

Thus, Foucault's view is not particularly unique but has clear lines back to
Kant. The contemporary figure to whom I find it most helpful to compare
Foucault is Kuhn. For episteme read "paradigm." For epoch read "period of
normal science." Both authors find it difficult to say there is progress in
the history of knowledge - particularly not if progress means that we
discover more of the truth. Both deny that there is any "theory neutral"
access to the way the world is. Both have difficulty saying exactly what a
paradigm/episteme is. And both hold that paradigms/epistemes are largely
unconscious and are cultural creations which can suddenly dissolve and be
reconstituted. The chief difference is that Foucault's vision is
considerably more grandiose than Kuhn's. Kuhn restricts himself to the
domain of scientific theories, and even that only in fields of science that
are relatively well developed. Foucault on the other hand wants to cover all
knowledge in any human culture. His concept of "episteme" is accordingly
broader than "paradigm." Whereas a paradigm determines a particular theory,
an episteme determines what theories are _possible_.

II. POWER

Foucault and Kuhn also both hold that the adoption of a given
episteme/paradigm is not rational. It could hardly be, since only _within_
an epistemological field can there be standards of rationality. Therefore,
an episteme/paradigm being a social construct, the forces governing its
change must be social. For Kuhn the change is precipitated by a crisis of
confidence in the scientific community and then by the outcome of a sort of
popularity contest of competing theories and scientists. Lakatos goes so far
as to call Kuhn's process a matter of "mob psychology" (_The methodology of
scientific research programmes_, Cambridge UP, 1978, 91). True or false,
Kuhn's is a relatively simple process to describe. Kuhn's theory after all
applies only to the members of a comparatively tiny scientific community,
and only to a portion of their lives - their scientific work.

Foucault's theory by contrast is supposed to apply to every member of an
entire culture and to every aspect of knowledge and cultural activity.
People do not make organized, explicit decisions about social knowledge and
publish them in journals. The determinants of an episteme must therefore be
pervasive, governing all aspects of social practice and belief from the
bottom up. For Foucault, the mechanism that does this is, apparently, power.

I say "apparently" because Foucault never talks about epistemes in HSI, and
so I feel slightly uncomfortable speculating about their relation to power,
which is the central concept of HSI. Foucault speaks of the mechanisms of
power as "a grid of intelligibility of the social order" (HSI 93), which is
tantalizing inasmuch as an episteme is also a grid of intelligibility. But
doesn't this conflate two separate issues? For I began by asking what
determines a _change_ of episteme, but now I am asking whether the field of
power relations might not _be_ the episteme. Of course, the answer to both
questions could be the same. The field of power relations could comprise the
episteme, and then perforce any reconstitution of that field would comprise
a change of episteme.

Whether or not the field of power _is_ the epistemological field, it is
evident that "power" is in the driver's seat in the world of HSI and
therefore must, almost by default, govern changes of episteme. Power and
knowledge are intimately tied. According to the "Rule of Immanence" (HSI
98), for example, knowledge and power are internally related. Sexuality can
become an area of investigation only when power establishes it as such, and
at the same time power can operate (to control people) through knowledge of
sexuality only after sexuality has been constructed by the sciences.
Therefore the constructs of knowledge and the strategies of power mutually
emerge in and through one another.

Again, truth is a "production" "thoroughly imbued with relations of power"
(HSI 60). For example, in the nineteenth century bourgeois society "put into
operation an entire machinery for producing true discourses concerning
[sex]. Not only did it speak of sex and compel everyone else to do so; it
also set out to formulate the uniform truth of sex. ... Causality in the
subject [i.e., human being], the unconscious of the subject, the truth of
the subject in the other who knows, the knowledge he holds unbeknown to him,
all this found an opportunity to deploy itself in the discourse of sex. Not,
however, by reason of some natural property inherent in sex itself, but by
virtue of the tactics of power immanent in this discourse" (HSI 69-70). In
other words, sex is not "in fact" a particularly significant aspect of human
life - facts are ultimately historical constructs. Rather, sex _emerged_, in
the field of power relations at this juncture in history, as an object,
discourse around which was encouraged by the then-current tactics of power.
Therefore "sexuality" - the knowledge structure designed to embody the
truths constructed about sex (HSI 68) - was invented and "deployed" by the
bourgeoisie as a political tool (HSI 120-127).

Although I have used intentional language just now, and Foucault uses it
constantly, to describe how the mechanisms of power determine scientific
theories, knowledge, and ultimately truth itself, it must not be thought
that power is wielded by any central, guiding hand. Rather, power is
dispersed throughout society in all the multitudinous "tactical" power
relations between people as individuals. "And 'Power,' insofar as it is
permanent, repetitious, inert, and self-reproducing, is simply the over-all
effect that emerges from all these mobilities." (HSI 93). In other words,
the power of people in the aggregate of classes and institutions emerges as
the recurrent patterns and strategies implicit at the individual level.
Power grows from the bottom up - from any social relationship in which there
is inequality (HSI 93) - and thus suffuses society. Still, it is
"intentional" (HSI 94), since strategies of power in the aggregate inherit
the aims and objectives of the tactics by which individuals wield power (HSI
95).

Thus large scale enterprises, such as the sciences of medicine, pedagogy,
and economics, and other forms of discourse, are deployed so that knowledge
can be wielded as an instrument of power. And this is deliberate although no
one is in charge. There are two further points to make about this.

First, the internal relations between power and knowledge do not directly
determine what is true or sayable but only make a certain _space_ of
argument - er, excuse me, "discourse" - available. For example, although
sodomy was recognized, there was no clinical category of homosexuality until
the late nineteenth century. The development of homosexuality as an object
of medical research and social concern enabled "homosexuals" to be submitted
to the legal system, medical and penal institutions, and other apparatuses
of power. The same space, however, allowed homosexuals eventually to speak
in their own behalf, demand recognition and tolerance, claim normalcy, and
so forth (HSI 101-2).

Second, there is a deeper sense in which no one is in charge than the point
made earlier about there being no central authority. For Kuhn, the
scientific community is small and identifiable, and their problem well
defined and of limited scope. Foucault on the other hand is talking about
entire civilizations and the entirety of their knowledge and institutions.
Therefore, Kuhn's scientists may lack rational grounds for their decisions,
but at least they decide. People in Foucault's world, by contrast, seem
reduced to cogs in a machine, able only to choose from among the culturally
available tactics of "power-knowledge." What adds particularly to this sense
of pettiness is the fact that our knowledge choices do not bring us any
closer to reality nor represent success in dealing with nature. Foucault
repeatedly emphasizes that, in investigating our sexuality we are not
learning about ourselves, not if that means probing the whys and wherefores
of our inner selves (e.g., HSI 105-6). Sexuality is not something _in_ us to
be discovered; it exists only in the _discourses_ we construct as moves in
our power struggles. Indeed, the only reality, it would seem, is what we
construct in the course of our collective personal struggles in Foucault's
sunshiny world of semi-sadistic relations of power.

III. SEXUALITY

Sexuality, then, is a historical construct (HSI 105). What _is_ the history
of sexuality? It seems to be rather short, actually, sexuality having only
been invented at the end of the eighteenth century. Its roots go back much
further, however. Remembering the historical epochs mentioned at the end of
section I above, we could say that sex began to be "put into discourse" at
the dawn of the classical epoch (HSI 12). Prior to that, people just had
sexual relations, of sundry kinds, and although this aspect of life was
hardly invisible, it was not considered to hold the keys to human nature,
any more than, say, people's different eating practices.

During the classical epoch, the "great prohibitions" concerning sex were
invented (HSI 115): "the exclusive promotion of adult marital sexuality, the
imperatives of decency, the obligatory concealment of the body, the
reduction to silence and mandatory reticences of language."

Then, at the beginning of the modern epoch there emerged "a completely new
technology of sex" (HSI 116) through the institution of medicine especially
but also through pedagogy and economics. There were "four great strategies"
(HSI 103-5). (1) The "hysterization of women's bodies," in which women were
identified as especially determined by sexuality, and their sexuality was
claimed to be critical to the maintenance of children and the family but at
the same time prone to pathology. (2) The "pedagogization of children's
sex," by which Foucault means obsession with child masturbation. (3) The
"socialization of procreative behavior," meaning that population control
came to be regarded as a legitimate province of state and societal concern
and intervention. (4) The "psychiatrization of perverse pleasure," in which
deviant sexual practices began to be attributed, by the medical community,
to underlying pathologies of "sexuality" (e.g., as previously mentioned, the
conversion of sodomites into "homosexuals," "sexual inverts," etc., with a
nature, an etiology, in short a "sexuality" to be investigated and from
which society had to be protected).

It is to these modern epoch "technologies" that Foucault seems to be
referring most of the time by "sexuality." (Example: "'Sexuality': the
correlative of that slowly developed discursive practice which constitutes
the _scientia sexualis_" (HSI 68).) Their utility as instruments by which
some people can get others in their power is obvious. It is Foucault's
thesis that that is exactly what they are for. That in fact must be why
sexuality is interesting to Foucault to begin with. He is hardly in a
position to claim that he is probing human nature, after all. Sexuality
"appears rather as an especially dense transfer point for relations of
power... Sexuality is not the most intractable element in power relations,
but rather one of those endowed with the greatest instrumentality: useful
for the greatest number of maneuvers..." (HSI 103). To a person who thinks
social/political power is the root cause of everything, sexuality is a field
with especially rich soil.

Foucault hints, however, that sexuality may not last forever. What society
creates, society can destroy. People of the future may look back in
amazement at the importance we attribute to sex (HSI 157-9). Just as the
modern epoch may be drawing to a close, so sexuality may be rupturing in the
twentieth century as we see a new period of sexual tolerance, the lifting of
taboos, and the loosening of other mechanisms of repression (HSI 115; it is
worth remembering here that HSI was written in the '70s).

IV. CONCLUSION

By way of wrapping up, there are two additional issues I want to briefly
raise. First, how accurate is Foucault as history? Is he an accurate
historian with a bizarre interpretive overlay or does his philosophy distort
his history? I believe the answer is more the former than the latter. I am
unfamiliar with most of the historical facts Foucault discusses in HSI, and
I have not yet read volume 2, _The Use of Pleasure_ (Vintage Books, 1990;
first published 1984), which discusses sex in Greek antiquity. If one may
judge from David Halperin's _100 Years of Homosexuality_ (Routledge, 1990),
however, a Foucaultite tract which has been extremely influential in recent
years and which is meant to extend and support Foucault's claims about sex
in ancient Greece, distorting the facts is not the problem. The problems
rather are three. First, the facts are constantly interpreted in terms that
must seem bizarre to those who are not true believers in Foucault's vision.
Second, Halperin seems not really interested in any facts not relevant, pro
or con, to his philosophical program. Despite cascades of footnotes
(literally hundreds per chapter), the book contains no original research on
antiquity and very little about Greek sexuality that can't be found, sans
Foucaultite jargon (i.e., relentless use of words like "discourse," "power,"
"inscribed," "constitute," "text," etc.), in K. J. Dover's excellent _Greek
Homosexuality_ (Harvard U.P., 1978). In short this is "activist scholarship"
and is therefore less interested in discovery or even in understanding than
in making a case. Halperin does not, however, so far as I can see, distort
or otherwise play fast and loose with the evidence. Third, there is a
tendency to exaggerate discontinuities in history. This is an inevitable
consequence of the thesis that history is not continuous, and so something
to watch out for in these authors. Kuhn, needless to say, is also criticized
for this.

Finally, readers may recall a previous post in which I asked whether
Heidegger's arguments matter. The question bears repeating in the case of
Foucault. Does Foucault offer any _reasons_ to suppose, for example, that
sexuality is a historical construction? Any reasons, that is, that don't
presuppose his own philosophical framework? He does finally consider, near
the end of HSI (152-7), the objection that in studying sexuality people may
be trying to understand our underlying sexual nature. His answer is entirely
to be expected: "it is precisely this idea of sex _in itself_ that we cannot
accept without examination" (HSI 152). That is, the whole idea of there
being an underlying sexual nature which it is important to discover is
simply false; or rather, it is a "truth" which _sexuality_ constructed! It
is after all Foucault's whole thesis that sexuality is just that knowledge
structure according to which sex is a deeply rooted and critically important
aspect of "human nature" which must be investigated, understood, and
controlled. Sex therefore, as an "underlying reality," proceeds from
sexuality, not vice versa. One might say that this reply is fine if you
already accept that sexuality is a social construction, but what if you
don't?
Doesn't Foucault dodge the issue it seemed he was about to engage, viz.,
_whether_ sexuality is a social construction, not our conception of our
sexual nature as it exists independently of our understanding of it? If so,
I have found no other place where Foucault engages this question.

[David L. Potts]