Power
Mike Oren
(Truth and Juridical Forms)
Michel Foucault (2000 [1994 orig.])
Why Questions: (theorist’s broad question) Why were the human sciences established? / Why do we base knowledge on a violation of what
is to be known (destruction of what is to be observed)? (theorist’s social actor question) Why did power, or those who control it, take the
trajectory that led to social orthopedics as the judiciary system?
Motivational-mechanism (short and sweet version): All knowledge is formed through compromise formed through conflict between
powers and juridicial forms throughout history have shown how the initial reification of conflict through a systematized mechanism to the
current state of social orthopedics/prevention/control have worked to hide the origins of knowledge and mitigate the conflicts in favor of the
interests of power.
Foucault’s motivational-mechanisms (more complete): In the first stage of laws, the motivation of laws was to resolve conflicts in a
ritualized manner between two opposing individuals—a test of strength intended to determine the stronger individual, not the individual
who was truthful (17-18 and 38-41). The first stage was established as a forum for limiting the extent of internal conflict—prevent all out
war between two individuals/groups/families. The second stage of laws had the motivation of allowing those in power to acquire and
maintain physically manifested forms of wealth and power (48-49). In the second stage, the ruling power became a third party taking the
side of the victim to resolve conflict and could acquire the property of the accused (68-69). Finally, the third stage of laws had the
motivation of protecting investments that allowed for power to exist as this form of wealth and power was easily stolen by others so
potential thieves had to constantly be monitored to prevent theft. Monarchies were the driving force behind the 2nd stage as they sought to
consolidate power, whereas capitalism was the driving force behind the 3rd stage as they sought to prevent loss of power through theft of the
goods that gave them the wealth necessary to be in power.
Selected Key Terms:
 Knowledge – invented through a spirit of meanness and control (7). a violation of the things to be known, not a perception, a recognition,
an identification of or with those things (9). Formed by a spark from two swords—specifically through the conflict between laughter,
lament, and detestation (11-12).
o Extracted knowledge – knowledge derived from an individual’s behaviors, technical knowledge that enables a strengthening of
controls. This is knowledge that is directly obtained (84).
o Situational knowledge – observed knowledge taken from recording and analysis of actions and comparison of individuals (84).
o Operational knowledge – reifying the observed knowledge through operationalization and then dictating those observations as the
directives that must be followed.
 Power – forces acting upon individuals to implant ‘knowledge’ into them. That which prevents individualism from deviating too far
from the norm (in stage 2) and ties the individual to institutions/forces a norm (in the current stage). In the first stage, power was simply
whoever was stronger and could, literally, force the other to submit to his or her claim when tested.
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o Test – earliest, ritualized method of judicial form where two individuals were pitted against one another and the stronger of the two
won the dispute. Early forms of tests included whether or not an individual would swear their claim was true to the gods so that the
gods would decide. Third party individuals made no decisions, but they did sometimes observe to ensure that rules were followed.
This did not seek to determine the truth but the “importance of the one who spoke” (37). (17-18 and 35-41)
o Inquiry – method employed within the 2nd stage of judiciary forms when the goal was to determine which individual in a dispute
spoke the truth. Here third parties are used as witnesses as well as judges of truth. Later forms of inquiry within the judiciary form
saw the advent of the prosecutor to represent the monarchy/state as another victim of the accused—a violation was thus no longer
that of an individual against another individual but an offense of an individual against the group. The inquiry was a result of changes
in political structure and was focused on the interests of power/person in power rather than that of the individuals directly involved
in the dispute (44-49). Part of the goal of the final stage of inquiry became to exclude individuals that deviated too far from the norm,
as the focus was on forming a coherent group and those who chose to separate from it by breaking the group’s rules were separated
from it (78).
o Panopticism / Examination – “form of power that rists not on the inquiry but on something completely different, which I will call the
‘examination.’ […] there would no longer be inquiry but supervision and examination. […] [knowledge] was about whether an
individual was behaving as he should (59).
Social Orthopedics (57) – disciplinary societies, this judiciary form is no longer seeking to punish those who do harm to an individual
nor those who deviate from the ‘norm’ and harm the state, rather it focuses on prevention and ‘fixing’ individuals by binding them to
social institutions. It does not seek to exclude the individual, rather it seeks to bind the individual in insitutions where the individual can
be the object of constant observation, which may lead to the individual to conform to a ‘norm’ but that is not the goal of this judiciary
form. This allows/creates the need for the human sciences of psychology, sociology, etc. (57-69 & 73-79)
History of Power and Knowledge
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