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Section 69: Political Philosophy.

Title: The problem of critique as a way of life in the Philosophy of Michel
Foucault
Author: Juan Carlos Sanchez Antonio.
Country: Mexico.
Affiliation: PhD student in Philosophy (UNAM).
Email: zarathustra100@hotmail.com
ABSTRACT
The question of "critique" raised in 1978 by Foucault in a conference presented in French
Society of Philosophy, determines, in my opinion, one of the judgments or lines of thought that
have a significant connection with all general approaches outlined in their respective works and
courses. In that conference he determined the notion of critique, and it changes question of
How to be governed and driven? to the question: How not to be governed like that and at that
price? Thereby is easier the opportunity to think back to thefield of freedom" within the power-
knowledge relations described in Archaeology and Genealogy. Thus, critique would have
essentially as function: "break subjection " in the game of we would call the "politics of truth".
But critique is not limited to refuse, to put into question something, but Foucault takes this a little
further to the point of considering it as an attitude, a lifestyle, which not just say no, but in other
side it allows as well "production of subjectivities" and the possibility of establishing "new
lifestyles.

KEY WORDS
1. CRITIQUE, 2. FIELD OF FREEDOM, 3.BREAK SUBJECTION, 4. LIFESTYLES.

In this presentation I want show you is general summaryof my current researches about role
which it will be able to play notion of criticism in order to understand worksmade of Michel
Foucault along his life. This subject has been little worked by specialists because they consider
it with insufficient support. In particular way, I find in the text what is the Enlightenment? (1999),
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and what is Critique? (1999), key elements to understand: "field of freedom" that it has in
relation of power and knowledge.
The question for critique proposed in 1978 by Foucault, determines one of the judgments or
lines of thought which have important connection with almost all general approaches of their
works and courses. Even,It can be considered as a supportthat can give intelligibility to
Archaeological and Genealogical works, and even understand them in the light of work on
technologies of the self-aim.
The Philosophy of Michel Foucault is an: "Ontology of action", essentially a Philosophy of the
present, where the constant critiqueabout: what we are, what we say and what we do, they
never disappears. The conferences presented in 1978 about What is Critique?, Just it tries to
link question about present(it raised bytheEnlightenment) and critique about itself.
That question arises when Foucault askes himself how not to be governed? Question which
answers antithesis Christian pastoral raised in the sixteenth century about How to be governed
and led to salvation?, And which Foucault routesgenealogy of governments arts in two of its
academic courses about: Security, Territory , population (2009), and birth of Bio politic (2009).
In both rounds, makes historical analyses of kinds of political rationality which governs subjects,
who are since liberalism to neoliberalism and its influences on level of thought and practice, and
the way where it has spread in whole social body in so much that all society is correlate about
techniques and control government.
What happens to notion of criticism which has been raised at this conference is that somehow
reverses question to: How to be governed and driven?To question about: How not to be
governed like that and at that price? it opens possibility of think subjectivitiesarent depend on
rationalities imposes by some kind of government. With that will be easy opportunity to rethink
"field of freedom" in relations of power-knowledge. Let's see whats happened.
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First, the "field of freedom" is an aspect that cant be dissociated from the archaeological and
genealogical analysis which diagnosed,in their time,kinds of historic of domination and those
that actually are. The freedom of subject arises when go through limits of knowledge-power
relations and questionthem; this allows that person will be able to think about other kinds of
relationships in order to produce of self and ability to give self his own rules according to truth
and power. Like this:
[] the focus of critique is essentially the key of relationships that ties each other, or one of other
two, power, truth and the subject. And if governmentalization is this movement which was, in the
reality of a social practice of subject individuals through mechanisms of power to call truth, well,
I'dsay that review is the movement by which the subject gives himself the right to question truth
about effects of power and power about its discourses of truth, critique that would be art of
voluntary insubordination, that of reflected intractability.
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Not want to be governed by this way, with that objectives, with these strategies, with that cost is
certainly not accept as true, what authority given as fact, questioning its principles, objectives,
ways and means of conducting the subjectivities, andespecially open time to question carefully
truths which are held power relations. "The Critique would have essentially as function of not
submit in the game that would can called, with a word, and truth politics.
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But critique is not confined only to reject, put into question, to go thought before, rather,
Foucault takes this a little further to the point of considering it as an attitude, as lifestyle, as
transformative practice which opens possibility of introducing new practices.
"Break subjection" is the fundamental key or primary task of the critic. This to wonder askes it
about discursive and power circumstances, that have taken the subject to be as such, it takes to
reflect on limits of these determinations and it invites to modify. Categories which order social
life find their limit when subjects are able to go through them. If subject without subjectivist

1
Michel Foucault. What is the critique?In About Enlightenment.Tecnos. Madrid. 2003. P. 11.
2
Ibdem.Pp. 11.
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arises in the moment when episteme constituted by rationalization show its limit, then "break
subjection determines precisely epistemic and transformability fragility of power.
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When we cross the knowledge-power nexus we can understand how are constituted
acceptability of things and rejecting others that support social system and its problems of its
own (eg hunger, insecurity, inequality, etc).
Extract conditions of acceptability of a system and follow the fault lines that mark its emergence
are two correlative operations [...]. Detection of the acceptability of a system is inseparable from
detecting that made it difficult to accept: its arbitrariness in terms of knowledge, its violence in
terms of power, add its energy.
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The way that power and knowledge are related as a politics of truth, let build singularities,
epistemological figures, positivitieswhich are not unchanged. All archaeological-genealogical
works show precisely that epistemological positivities are historical, and being changed,
produced and bounded into the space of history,they can be changed
The critique permits break subjection, whichproduces casualization of singularities, as well it
offersconditions of intelligibility of a discourse-power, whose basis is not in essence of things,
but in the "multiple and open network" that can be given in different levels and levels of
interaction, with its rules, different strategies, etc., which invites at least to think thattheir
disappearance or transformation is possible.
[]yousee, isnt aboutto the power works(power-knowledge) it canunderstand as domination,
supremacy, as an essentialdata, as single principleof explanation or inescapable law, on the
contrary, it isconsideredit always like indissoluble relationshipin fieldof interactions,it
isthoughtininseparable relationshipwithkind of knowledgeandit is about think it, alwayssuch thatit
is associated with domainof possibilitiesand consequently,reversibility, possible investment..
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Subjectivities not depend entirely on relations between knowledge and power and rationality
that articulates them, but there is always small space that resists and it doesnt allow the

3
Judith, Butler. What is the critique, about Foucaults virtue in,
http://caosmosis.acracia.net/?p=524.
4
Michel Foucault. Op. P. 29. (The notes in parenthesis are mine).
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Ibdem. Pp. 33-34.
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relationtotallinghim. The work of critiquemakes is precisely suspends this relationship and
makes possible others. "The subject will emerge in relation to an established truth order, butalso
it can take a point of view on that established order that retrospectively suspends its own
ontological basis".
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We could say as hypothesis thathistorical and philosophical work of Michel Foucault like
historian of the practices, experiences, subjectivities, etc., cant be without of critique in any
sense. Just because we can find a triple function of critique in all its historical researches:
1. It makes possible to account about historical conditions of emergence of singularities,
"madness", "illness", the "human sciences", etc., (It is work that he star in Archaeology).
2. Review institutional, political and historic limits to that conditions when appear "crime",
"sexuality", etc.,(it work was presented in Genealogy).
3. It makes possible to see in those: "archaeological conditions" of appearance and its
"genealogical limits" training, possibilities to modify and establish itself as a different
subject with new lifestyles and resist (they are the latest research in Ethics).
The issue is to conceive critique as attitude, as practice, as lifestyle, as ethos, that constantly
passes all theorists and practice life of individuals.
Critique as lifestyle " , it would be like thought of limits (which isnt in power side neither do
knowledge side), which always operates in margins, at the contact points, on boundaries that
we can said and thought in social formation. To reflect on these limits about what ways of
thinking are possible. It which leads to say that action also is dangerous. It is dangerous
because just imagine, wants and tries to concretize ways of being that there arent or they have
been coerced by the power-knowledge system.

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Judith Butler. Op. P. 521.
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In this way, the constant critique of our historical being is precisely constant research;
permanent invention of itself is permanent production of chance, of "production of new forms of
subjectivity",
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namely ability to produce fictions. Fictionalize (think) is to throw the field of
freedom as far as possible (as Foucault once said), throw the game of difference, produce the
event means dont accept truths which thepresent can be, but we must think of those
knowledge like effects of circumstances that have date and place and they can be modified.
Finally, the philosophical ethos, or historical-critique attitude, as limit knowledge and dangerous
action are "critical ontology of ourselves" (and I add to the other and the world), "as a historic -
practice test whose limits we can cross boundaries and, therefore, as our work on ourselves as
free beings."
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We must launch the way that invites us to their production.

7
Gilles Deleuze, V. Policy. Control and becoming, en Conversation: 1970-1990.
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Ibdem.P. 93.
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BIBLIOGRAFIA
Butler, Judith. Psychic mechanisms of power. Ctedra. Madrid. 2001.
----------------. What is the critique about Foucaults virtue in,
http://caosmosis.acracia.net/?p=524. EU. 1998.
Deleuze, Gilles. Conversations 1972-1990. Editions de Minuit, Paris, 1996.
Foucault, Michel. About Enlightenment. Tecnos. Madrid.2003.
-----------------------. Bio politic Birth. Economic Culture Fund. Mxico. 2010.
---------------------. Security, territory and population. Economic Culture Fund. Mxico. 2010.