Discourse Theory Of Foucault Exploration To

This dissertation is about Michel Foucault's discourse theory and is focus on two questions which are considered as very important ones but often neglected by the scholars studying Foucault's thought. One of them is that discourse is a question going through almost all of Foucaut's works after the history of madness and the other is that the basis of Foucault's discourse is the function of discourse.The first chapter of this dissertation will provide a context for our understanding Foucault's discourse theory which involve three aspects.The second chapter will answer the question "what's the meaning of the word discourse used by Foucault". The best way to grasp this conception is analyzing the ways Foucault used this word in The order of things because in this book discourse is used as not only countable noun but also as collective noun. From this book we can know that the word discourse appeared in foucault's works means the group of signs bringing forth some kind of function.A historical analysis of Foucault's discourse theory will be provided in the third chapter/Tie history of madness ,The birth of clinic and The order of things all talked about discourse on the level of discourse/world. In The archaeology of knowledge and The order of discourse , discourse functions in the discursive practice on the level of discourse/discourse. From Discipline and punish, discourse is analyzed on the level of dicourse/power. The sexual discourse in The history of sexuality (vol.1) shared this level .In Foucault's last days, he was concerned with the construction of self and discourse function on the level of discourse/self.In addition to the historical analysis, a transverse analysis of Foucault's discourse theory also be necessary and this kind of analysis is the content of chapter four where the conception discourse will be compared with other concepts including language, sign , knowledge and truth.Foucault's discourse theory provided a basis for his answering the question mentioned by Kant, "what is man?" When Foucault divided this question into twoparts, "how man becomes what he is?" and "can he be what he is not?" and analyzed them, we can see the important role played by the discourse theory. Even though Foucault's discourse theory is so meaningful for his whole thought, there is an important methodological limitation in it. These will be the content of chapter five.