The Elements of Foucault

A new conceptual diagram of Foucaults original vision of the biopolitical order

 

The history around the critical reception of Michel Foucaults published writings is troubled, according to Gregg Lambert, especially in light of the controversy surrounding his late lectures on biopolitics and neoliberal governmentality. In this book, Lamberts unique approach distills Foucaults thought into its most basic components in order to more fully understand its method and its own immanent rules of construction.

The Elements of Foucault presents a critical study of Foucaults concept of method from the earlier History of Sexuality, Volume 1, to his later lectures. Lambert breaks down Foucaults post-1975 analysis of the idea of biopower into four elements: the method, the conceptual device (i.e., dispositif), the grid of intelligibility, and the notion of milieu. Taken together, these elements compose the diagram of Foucaults early analysis and the emergence of the neoliberal political economy. Lambert further delves into how Foucaults works have been used and misused over time, challenging the periodization of Foucaults later thought in scholarship as well as the major and most influential readings of Foucault by other contemporary philosophersin particular Gilles Deleuze and Giorgio Agamben. 

The Elements of Foucault is the first generally accessible, yet rigorous and comprehensive, discussion of lectures and major published works of Foucaults post-1975 theory of biopower and of the major innovation of the concept of dispositif. It is also the first critical work to address the important influence of French philosopher Georges Canghuilhem on Foucaults thought.