Foucault, The Punitive Society, lectures 1 and 13

Discussion Questions:

1.  Do we see a relationship between Foucault's conception of power and what Nietzsche was talking about with domination? If there is a connection, why and how does that undercut functionalism? (p. 14)

2. Clarify relationship between operations, tactics, strategies, and civil war qua "matrix of all struggles."

3. Clarify Foucault's discussion of transgression (pp. 5-6).

4. What it is about Durkheim's sociological functionalism that Foucault finds problematic? Is part of Foucault's wanting to get away from functional explanation about wanting an account of origins? Does he take sociological functionalism to be incapable of offering an account of origins? (p. 14)

5. What do we take with Foucault's choice of the term "autonomy"? Are there additional distinctions on autonomy to better understand that? (p. 11)

6. What is the relationship between Foucault's use of habit with his discussion of functionalism? Contract? (pp. 238-39)

7. Is Foucault offering an analysis of levels of function. And why does Foucault reserve the habit discussion until the end of the lectures (p. 239)

8. To what kinds of functional explanation can a genealogist of power be entitled to? (p. 237)

Discussion:

Civil war is the background against struggles of power, it is not something to be avoided (i.e., Hobbes). Tactics as instances of applications of power, strategies as intentional objectives to be achieved? What is operations? 

Why does Foucault propose to shed sociological functionalism? It seems like he's talking about social contract theory:  "transfer of responsibility," "obscure consensus." 

Is Foucault's issue that sociological functionalism naturalizes society? In the sense that functionalism obscures the power relationships that give life to apparent functions. Recognizing functions is not the same thing as providing a functional explanation. 

For Durkheim, the background against which power mechanisms are operationalized is dynamic (social) equilibrium, whereas for Foucault, it's civil war. 

(1) What is the stated purpose or justification of X (which is not a causal explanation in itself)? (2) What does X do actually in a power relation (e.g., marking, confining, etc.)? (3) What are the effects or outcomes of X relative to Y, Z, etc.? 

For Durkeim, function indexes to society as a whole in an "obscure consensus." For Nietzsche, indexed to relations of domination; purpose-imposing agent (the dominators) and the purposed-imposed agent or object (the dominated). Whereas for Foucault, it seems like he's more on Nietzsche's side but has a lot of strategic functionalities claim?

Is Foucault thinking about Durkheim when he rejects sociological functionalism? lol.

As soon as you give up on society as a social totality, you undercut your ability to attribute functions to things because, ultimately, it functions for specific groups and purposes. 

A structural functionalist is interested in function as something that explains persistence but is careful to separate that from origin, whereas Foucault is willing to locate function as a condition for the possibility of power-strategy. 

Conservative functionalism = society is an organic social totality, and functions are that which projects that stability forward. Genealogical or conflict-theoretical conceptions of function, its specific agents (groups) that impose purpose/function.