Before Discipline and Punish: Foucault’s Early Work and the Educated Subject
Abstract
While Foucault’s theory of power/knowledge has arguably become the most prominent of his work, Foucault makes little mention of relations of power prior to the publication of Discipline and Punish. Before that time, his work primarily centered around understanding how constructions of knowledge formed to produce Subjects. As Foucault stated, even after the publication of Discipline and Punish, his focus had never been on power specifically but rather, the different ways that “human beings are made subjects” (Foucault, 1982, p. 777) . The key to his project lies in his conceptualization of knowledge and the nuances of language that he utilizes. Foucault deploys two different French words for knowledge: savoir and connaissance. While both of these words translate in English to knowledge, Foucault uses them in very different ways distinguishing between knowledge that occurs on a local level (connaissance) and knowledge that forms the “conditions that are necessary in a particular period for this or that type of object to be given to connaissance” (Foucault, 1972, p. 15) . These different constructions of knowledge form the foundation for how he then develops an understanding of Discourse. This chapter explores the subject and educative spaces using Foucault’s early work and uncovers the savoir within educational discourse that make possible a student that is both subject and object, knowing and known. Considering early educational thinkers such as Horace Mann, Herbert Spencer, Frederick Taylor, Edward Thorndike, John Bobbitt and others reveals a Discourse continuously bound by the confines of knowledge that made their thought possible. Our project works to put this early Foucauldian analysis to work in the effort to understand contemporary educational Discourse and uncovers the ways that not only the subject has been defined but similarly, education itself.
Presentation Description
N/A
Location
Room 1
Publication Type and Release Option
Presentation (Open Access)
Recommended Citation
Cook, Matthew and Helfenbein, Robert J., "Before Discipline and Punish: Foucault’s Early Work and the Educated Subject" (2025). Curriculum Studies Summer Collaborative. 30.
https://digitalcommons.georgiasouthern.edu/cssc/2025/2025/30
Before Discipline and Punish: Foucault’s Early Work and the Educated Subject
Room 1
While Foucault’s theory of power/knowledge has arguably become the most prominent of his work, Foucault makes little mention of relations of power prior to the publication of Discipline and Punish. Before that time, his work primarily centered around understanding how constructions of knowledge formed to produce Subjects. As Foucault stated, even after the publication of Discipline and Punish, his focus had never been on power specifically but rather, the different ways that “human beings are made subjects” (Foucault, 1982, p. 777) . The key to his project lies in his conceptualization of knowledge and the nuances of language that he utilizes. Foucault deploys two different French words for knowledge: savoir and connaissance. While both of these words translate in English to knowledge, Foucault uses them in very different ways distinguishing between knowledge that occurs on a local level (connaissance) and knowledge that forms the “conditions that are necessary in a particular period for this or that type of object to be given to connaissance” (Foucault, 1972, p. 15) . These different constructions of knowledge form the foundation for how he then develops an understanding of Discourse. This chapter explores the subject and educative spaces using Foucault’s early work and uncovers the savoir within educational discourse that make possible a student that is both subject and object, knowing and known. Considering early educational thinkers such as Horace Mann, Herbert Spencer, Frederick Taylor, Edward Thorndike, John Bobbitt and others reveals a Discourse continuously bound by the confines of knowledge that made their thought possible. Our project works to put this early Foucauldian analysis to work in the effort to understand contemporary educational Discourse and uncovers the ways that not only the subject has been defined but similarly, education itself.
