Michel Foucault’da Söylem ve İktidar

In this article, basic dynamics of discourse and power which are among the fundamental problems of Foucault and their interrelations have been discussed. What is principal for Foucault is to understand the discourse and the components of it; because the discourse should not be examined without its components. In this connection, rendering the discourse comprehensible will enable to analyze how the power mechanisms function. To Foucault, discourse should be examined with its produced and non-continuous dimensions, because it is related with the power, which self-produces, diversifies and gains continuity, and institutions. Discourse has a structure which is controlled, shared and multiplied by the power. What produces the discourse is the exclusion methods. These methods reveal themselves as prohibition, opposition to madness and rightness will, in other words, opposition to rightness-wrongness. These exclusion methods point out to the structures where the discourse is not eliminated; on the contrary, it is multiplied and take root. Prohibition means that the subject does not have its own rights and the encountered prohibitions reveal the relation of the discourse with desire and the power. According to Foucault, discourse as it is an object of desire, as well. Opposition to rightness-wrongness refers to an exclusion system which directs the will of knowing and which is institutionally oppressive. The knowing subject is forced to a specific situation or a function; and verifiability depends on the will of the technical basis on which it spreads for effectuality. To Foucault, the will of rightness has always exercised power upon other discourses via an institutional transporter. Foucault's discourse, the aim of which is to date the modalities transforming individuals to subjects, does not aim to self-reveal the subject which thinks, knows and speaks; because, according to him, subject is a unity which brings out the discontinuity of the discourse. The subject is determined by the network of discoursal relations. In the discourse which reveals itself as unity, such notions as unity and continuity should be abstained from. In order to do this, first of all, such notions as "tradition", "development", "evolution" and "mentality" which points out to the continuity theme should be left, second of all, the direct unity notion between "book-work" should be abandoned and lastly, the notion of searching a secret first source behind every incident should be avoided. Foucault argues that uncertainties in discourse will be eliminated with this method. To him, it is necessary to get to the bottom of the discourses; because it is only possible, via this method, to see the relations in the discourse and to analyze them. According to Foucault, there is non-continuity between the object and the statement once again when the method of knowing what is seen is headed; because there is no integrity between the object and the statement. A discourse object show out through a bunch of complicated relations. However, these relations are made up of institutions, economic and social processes, behavior patterns, principle systems, techniques and classification types which do not belong to the object and these relations come out only when the object is analyzed. When considering the socially practical dimension of the discourse, relations with the power should be taken into consideration. According to Foucault, the subject is seen as if it partially consists of the power relations which are forcibly applied on it and partially those we apply via others. The power is related to action and it is not related to compliance. To him, the essence of power is the insubordination of the will and obstinacy of freedom. For example, prisons point out to a way of power. Such notions as guilt, discipline and punishment are produced within prisons. Prisons produce and multiply the crime while they should be controlling it. Besides, clinics couldn't prevent the lunacy terror through control mechanism; on the contrary they have organized the crime. According to Foucault, knowledge also prevents liberation and it points out to a way of power which is based on monitoring, regulating and disciplining. As power style, it preserves the rationality. Thus, power cannot be thought without knowledge practice, production and accumulation. Foucault says that dominant discourses induce the emergence of new problems while they should define the social phenomenon and find solutions to them. Every new circumstance is controlled and enriched by the institutions of the power. Similarly, sexuality is among the areas where the influence of the power is clearly seen. Foucault states that the sexuality conception of 16th century is shaped according to the dissemination and installation of sexuality principle rather than a elimination principle of power methods. Motions of the discourse have determined the becoming a subject process of human. Power, on the other hand, consists of relation areas of human, which is the subject. According to Foucault, discourse has tried to prove its legitimacy and continuity by exerting secret pressure on people and institutions. Linguistic unity has set the rules of the discourse and these rules have created the heterogeneous nature of the discourse via institutions, architectural styles, regulations and philosophical and moral judgments. Discoursal relations point out to the relations which make them more visible rather than restricting it. In this process, power has become one of the compulsory stops of the becoming a subject process of the subject. According to Foucault, the role of an intellectual is not to present prescriptions related to discourse and its components; but it is to demolish the ways of thinking which have become a habit in people's mind, to make the general accepted things suspicious and to make them problematic and to incite thinking on them. The speech which Foucault delivered during the inauguration ceremony of Collège de France and his willingness to stay out of the discourse justify this intellectual effort. He aims to problematize without being a part of the discourse and without assimilating the power with discourse. However, no matter how much he wanted to stay out of every kind of generalization and imposition, he could not prevent a Foucauldian discourse from occurring in methodology. To sum up, Foucault doesn’t deal discourse and power separately but through the way they interact. Every kind of relation has influenced one another.