In Michael Foucault’s thinking and opinion, he refers subjectivity to an individual’s view of things in the world. He argues that level of subjectivity vary from one individual to another. This is however based on personal opinions that are predetermined by their experience and the setting they are brought up in. In his “Ethics, subjectivity and truth”, he draws a line showing how subjectivity relates to power and its impacts on the people. He brings out the argument that individuals ought to take care of themselves as a way of exercising their freedom and democracy. In his argument and criticism he pointed out that, subjectivity is never given to people rather it is an effect resulting from practice of power and authority in ones area of jurisdiction. He further bases subjectivity on individual’s upbringing, biasness, human interactions and their background.
He set out a clear distinction between knowledge and learning and differentiated between will of knowledge and truth as well as showing the relation between the two. I was challenged by his argument on the absolute contrast existing between truth and knowledge. I agreed on Foucault’s perception that all technologies of power and power relations of force were all aimed at submission. Subjectivity comes into perspective that he argued resulted at the forceful practice of power that stopped at nothing but victory. The idea of an individual holding power alone is an ideology I resent as Foucault did in his research. He clearly presented the journalism work procedures of carrying out their mandate. His argument that a person practicing journalism should be willing to subject themselves to truth and seeking knowledge is a key factor that fully defines well passage of knowledge. He despised and pointed the negativity of a good journalist associating with perceptions that do not uphold truth and knowledge. Subjectivity of people to powers regimes, truth and knowledge fully depended on their will to submit to truth and knowledge as well as factors revolving around their personality and their life.
The manner he approaches ethical issues in relation to power, truth and knowledge is another important thing I appreciated and acquired from Foucault’s research. He viewed ethics as a major concern in his research work and for self-practice to freedom, which was a major, contribution to acquiring and appreciation of willingness to truth and knowledge. He strongly dictated that observance of ethics by individuals was the prime way to getting to appreciate truth and attaining moral observance in dealing with matters of power and truth.
Design and design methodologies refers to how I would structure a research tool to attain the required information. I would critically weigh out all possibilities and uncertainties involved in my research. From Foucault’s discussion on subjectivity the design methodologies, I would embrace a modernism approach and use a significant method as my tool in the research. I observed from his research and argument he aimed at a subsequent and sustainable research with a high level of articulation concerning treatment of certain aspects of the research. He used satire and humour to communicate and present his ideologies to avoid unnecessary critics from the affected groups of people.
Analysis on the research done by Foucault, his work is a comprehensive approach to appreciating truth and knowledge. This process of learning and inquiry can be used to answer a research question since through analyzing the process, an analysis is indirectly carried on the research question revolving around the subject on learning and inquiry. The concerns I raised in analyzing the process of learning can be used to design and define an approach to answering a research question. Foucault’s perception on the “care of the self” where he says that by taking care of self is a way of equipping oneself to truth. This clearly portrays how I should treat issues regarding truth in an aim of understanding and designing good researches. He explains how one must ground them from a specified ground towards finding truth and knowledge in relation to the type of research involved.
Annotated Bibliography
Foucault, Michel (1998). History of systems of thought: Ethics: Subjectivity and Truth, New Press
In 1970, the author was elected to the College de France with a specially created chair in the ‘History of Systems of Thought’. The author laughs at an Argentine writer; Jorge Luis Borges when he describes animals while grouping them into divisions, which Foucault later indicates that people differ in intellectual perspective. Foucault seeks to produce an ‘archeology of knowledge through uncovering the systems of thought that remain unconscious to scholars, scientists, and other people as well as succeed in limiting and framing what they do. The author further argues that knowledge has become more organized and specialized in the modern era than it was in the past, and gives comparisons of the renaissance, the classic era, and the current era, which he recalls from the 1800s. In The Order of Things, he talks about human science that attempted to create a science of human behavior in the nineteenth century. In the end of his book, he suggests that the traditional activities of ‘history’ should be countered with a ‘genealogy’, which would focus on ‘the singularity of events outside any monotonous finality’, seeking them ‘in the most unpromising places, in what we tend to feel is without history’ (Foucault 1977: 139)
Lupton, E. (2004) ‘The designer as a Producer’ in https://www.typotheque.com/articles/the_designer_as_producer
In Lupton’s article, The Designer as producer, she explored Benjamin’s ideas in relation to the discussions around expanding the designer’s role from that of a problem solver to that of an author – and a producer (Lupton 2004: 56). Benjamin wrote The Author as a Produce to challenge the conventional view of authors as engaging in literary enterprise. Additionally, Benjamin concluded that the new forms of communication such as the radio, advertising, media, and newspaper have eliminated the traditional artistic as well as the borders between writing and reading, and authoring and editing (Lupton 2004: 56). Lupton suggests that Benjamin was a Marxist, according to the Marxist idea; workers who operate technologies should be the owners of the latter. According to Lupton, while authors and designers suggest the cerebral working of the mind, production values making over managing, things over ideas and practice over theory as well as privileging the activity of the body. Generally, Lupton suggests that, in the modern era, where the audiences have become an integral part of designing, educators should strive to ensure that the designers are equipped with knowledge to become masters, and not slaves of technology. Finally, she explains language as a raw material, theory as a practice, writing as a tool, and technology as physical.
Paul Rabinow’s Commentary on Michel Foucault
According to Rabinow, any selection of Foucault’s wide range of literature might seem random at best and pointless at worst. As Foucault traces the theory of representation all the way to Kant, Rabinow maintains that the classical age has not replaced God with man. Even though man has become a locus of ideas, he did not originate these ideas. Rabinow skips Foucault’s technologies & hermeneutics of the self in his commentary, but most of his ideas concur with Foucault’s ideas.
