Outline and assess Foucault's critique of modernity Essay

Outline and assess Foucault's critique of modernity - Essay Example It shall present Foucault’s ideas according to post-modernism and how it conflicts with the ideas of modernity. Then it shall seek to provide an answer to the questions raised in this introduction. A conclusion to this paper shall provide a summary and a clear answer to the issues raised. Foucault critiques of modernity are based on the anti-Enlightenment principles which do not agree with the act of matching reason with emancipation and progress. Instead, Foucault argues that the links between modern realms of information has led to different types of domination (Kellner, 1991: 65). His reports have added details to this domination through psychiatry, medicine, and criminology. His aim was to critique the trends in the current world order which makes issues from the more contemporary forms of prudence which appear to be natural, but are actually oppressive forms of domination. From his goals, it can be deduced that Foucault is a â€Å"complex and eclectic thinker who draws f rom multiple sources and problematic while aligning himself with no single one† (Kellner, 1991: 41). Foucault’s literature and philosophy is a critique of modernity and he differentiates between the classical and the modern eras of the post-Renaissance period (Kellner, 1991: 39). â€Å"He sees the classical era as inaugurating a powerful mode of domination over human beings that culminates in the modern era† (Kellner, 1991: 41). He also supports Nietzsche when the latter does not give much credit to the Enlightenment ideals in historical progress. In effect, Foucault believes that humans do not go through a series of conflicts to eventually arrive at an implied agreement of the rule of law; instead, he believes that humans use the series of violent acts under certain rules and then they progress from one act of domination to another (Foucault, 1979: 25). Enlightenment was deemed by Foucault as a means of increasing political power and of distributing it in the so cial field – eventually covering different aspects of daily life. Foucault, in effect, supports a position against modernity and this is a major characterization of his work (Grumley, Hegel, and Foucault, 1989: 11). The postmodern ideal does not support the idea of equating reason and freedom with each other; and it also does not support the attempts at making issues out of the different modern and oppressive elements of rationality. Foucault sees modern rationality and subjectivity therefore as a source of domination (Grumley, Hegel, and Foucault, 1989: p. 171). He also points out that knowledge and truth are tools for power and domination. Critique of Foucault’s perspectives One of the critiques of Foucault’s perspective of modernity is the fact that he rejected the advantages which were gained through modernity, including that of medicine (Kellner, 1991: 65). Other philosophers like Habermas believed that science and the technologies arising from it would not create any issues for as long as these technologies are managed according to proper rules (Powell and Moody, 2003). In contrast, Foucault completely discounted the benefits and progressive gains from modernity and science. Foucault believed that modernity is entirely disciplinary, and this generalization is a difficult one to support (Koopman, 2010: 3). His analysis has not exactly focused on what would end up being right in the end;