Abstract

My dissertation addresses the transformation of ethical discourse made possible by Michel Foucault. My thesis is that Foucault does not demand the rejection of normative structures; rather, his work transforms the conception and practice of what philosophy understands as 'ethics'. Foucault emphasizes the strategic, critical aspect of ethics and continually questions accepted structures of value. The ethical is always contextually bound, and, having no access to the transcendental, the absolute, or the essential, it remains contingent. ;To explore the implications of Foucault's work, I examine his methodological shifts and the range of topics upon which he writes. Drawing from thinkers as diverse as Nietzsche, Wittgenstein, James, hooks, and Spivak, I analyze misunderstood areas of Foucault's thought, including truth, games of truth, relations of power, practices of freedom, and resistance. I employ essays and articles written by Foucault for the French press to illustrate his critical discussions of his own work as well as the ways social and political change occurs and can occur as a result of intellectual social critique. ;Foucault's emphasis on the critical, questioning aspect of the ethical leads to his suggestion that critique can take place at two levels. The first, commonly understood as liberal, focuses on particular institutional reform. The second, commonly understood as radical, focuses on challenges to the institutions themselves and the values that support them. Foucault did not give us all the possible implications and social uses of his work. Instead, he intended for others to take up where he left off, using his strategies, but also challenging and changing them. I conclude with the suggestion that while Foucault showed the ever-present possibility of change, he overestimated the access of certain oppressed groups to the knowledge of that possibility. The means of providing such access, and thus, the production of more subjugated knowledges is the direction I intend to pursue in the future