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The Soul Is The Prison Of The Body
A close critical reading of “The Body of the Condemned” in Foucault’s Discipline & Punish
In Discipline and Punish, Foucault begins with ‘The body of the condemned’, an introductory chapter that aims to put into perspective his objectives for the book, and the method of his inquiry. These, however, are not immediately apparent because the chapter opens with a historical narrative of penal styles in 18th and 19th century France.
Here, it is not difficult to understand Foucault as the historian (although his critics have much to say about the details of his historical account). It is much more difficult to understand the genealogical method he has undertaken in expounding the concept of power-knowledge through a historical analysis of changes in the penal system.
Although Discipline and Punish may be read from a sociological or philosophical perspective, it is only through an appreciation of his concern for a social ontology — one that begins at the present — that his historical analysis may be better understood.
This seems to be what Foucault’s critics, who approach his work purely from the sociological or historical perspectives, have tended to dismiss. Some of their misreadings will be highlighted and addressed as we take into account Foucault’s…
