Foucault's Journey Of Deconstruction Of Subject

This paper is a study of Foucault's philosophy of subject, whose task is to comprehensively explain Foucault's theory of subject and of philosophy of subject, and to evaluate Foucault's philosophy from the angle of subject. Starting from the subject issue, this paper surveys the most of the most important and basic problems of Foucault philosophy. In this sense, the paper can be considered as an integral interpretation on Foucault's philosophy from the perspective of subject. "From the archaeology of knowledge to 'the death of man'" is not the paper's basic logical clue but a transitional clue according to which Foucault changes his research domain about the subject issue. At this point, there are two domains embedded in "the death of man": one is "the death of subject" as generally referred to by the researchers of Foucault's thought, in other words a historical study of the history of modern philosophy and thought in specific relation to the birth and death of subject. The other is Foucault's deconstruction of moderns in real practice as the products of "turning man into subject", say, in which way does knowledge-power constrain moderns and how can such constraint be removed (How should we let go of the moderns confined by subject). To make it brief, "the death of man" in the subtitle explicitly contains the death of "man" in the sense of philosophy and the dissolution of live "moderns" in real practice as well. To sum up, Foucault's research on subject can be summarized as a deconstruction of subject and philosophy of subject. From this point of view, Foucault's theory of archaeology of knowledge can be regarded as an epistemological basis to deconstruct subject and philosophy of subject; Foucault's genealogy can be regarded as a methodological basis to deconstruct subject and philosophy of subject; Foucault's theory of history of thought which focuses on "the death of man" or "the death of subject" can be considered as a historical critique on subject; Foucault's series of researches on some experiential domains such as the madman, "the abnormal man", prison, sex, and so on, can be regarded as a reflection on the moderns' historic subsistence, whose purpose is to reveal the fact that modern social practice, especially individual's existent practice is in bondage to subject constructed by knowledge-power, therefore, this critical reflection can be regarded as a social critique on subject; finally, Foucault's theory of "local battle" and "aesthetics of existence" can be viewed as the liberation scheme to break the subject's enslavement to modern individual existence practice. The paper chiefly settles two questions: Why Foucault deconstructs subject and philosophy of subject? And how does Foucault deconstruct subject and philosophy of subject? In the end, the paper returns to a more basic question related to the above two: Do we really need to deny the subject entirely? The foreword mainly accounts for this study's significance and the paper's basic clew and framework. The first chapter gives a necessary generalization of Foucault's life and thought. As a post-modern philosopher, Foucault is fundamentally different from traditional philosophers in his philosophy and thinking mode, which owes a lot to his special life experience. Therefore, it is helpful and necessary to comprehend Foucault's theory of subject and philosophy of subject. Why does Foucault deconstruct subject and philosophy of subject? This is the question for the second chapter to answer. I consider that Foucault actually traces all puzzles in modern west society back to the fetish of subject. Such a fetish results in a theoretic puzzle (i.e. the chaos of modern philosophy or philosophy of subject) as well as a practical puzzle (namely, the confusion of modern view of practice and the individual existence plight in modern society). Thus, Foucault's deconstruction of subject and philosophy of subject aims to release modern philosophy, modern view of practice and modern individual existence p...