Agency and Institutional Rationality

Foucault’s Critique of Normativity

Bibliographic Data

ID11340342
AuthorsKory P Schaff (University of California San Diego, corresponding author)
Year2004
Volume30
Issue1
Pages51-71
Publication date2004-01-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenuePhilosophy & Social Criticism (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0191-4537 • E-ISSN: 1461-734X
PublisherSAGE Publications (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1177/0191453704039398
OpenAlexW2014107996
LanguageEN
Citations received5

In this paper, I examine Foucault’s conception of agency by reconstructing two complementary approaches he takes: the ‘analytics of power’, which examines the relation between norms and practice by charting the institutional development within which a set of norms emerge, and the concept of ‘problematization’, which examines reason-giving practices, or varieties of normative justification that legitimize rational institutions and agents’ participation in them. Contrary to the standard caricature, Foucault’s analysis of the relation between norms and institutions does not merely reduce the former to relations of ‘power’. In short, he also thinks standards of justification are just as revisable (necessarily so) as social practices themselves, and the focus here will be on the relation and importance of these two complementary approaches to his critique of normativity

Agency (philosophy · Economics · Epistemology · Homo economicus · Normative · Positive economics · Power (physics · Problematization · Rationality · Relation (database · Set (abstract data type · Sociology · Structure and agency · African Sexualities and LGBTQ+ Issues · Computer Science · Feminism, Gender, and Sexuality Studies · Foucault, Power, and Ethics · Philosophy

Tools

Open DOISci-Hub