- Title Pages
- Foreword
- Editor’s Introduction
-
Chapter 1 Political Theory as a Vocation -
Chapter 2 Political Theory -
Chapter 3 Transgression, Equality, and Voice -
Chapter 4 Norm and Form -
Chapter 5 Fugitive Democracy -
Chapter 6 Hobbes and the Epic Tradition of Political Theory -
Chapter 7 Hobbes and the Culture of Despotism -
Chapter 8 On Reading Marx Politically -
Chapter 9 Max Weber -
Chapter 10 Reason in Exile -
Chapter 11 Hannah Arendt -
Chapter 12 Hannah Arendt and the Ordinance of Time -
Chapter 13 The Liberal/Democratic Divide -
Chapter 14 On the Theory and Practice of Power -
Chapter 15 Democracy in the Discourse of Postmodernism -
Chapter 16 Postmodern Politics and the Absence of Myth -
Chapter 17 The Destructive Sixties and Postmodern Conservatism -
Chapter 18 From Progress to Modernization -
Chapter 19 Editorial -
Chapter 20 What Revolutionary Action Means Today -
Chapter 21 The People’s Two Bodies -
Chapter 22 The New Public Philosophy -
Chapter 23 Democracy, Difference, and Re-Cognition -
Chapter 24 Constitutional Order, Revolutionary Violence, and Modern Power -
Chapter 25 Agitated Times - Sources
- Index
On the Theory and Practice of Power
On the Theory and Practice of Power
- Chapter:
- (p.283) Chapter 14 On the Theory and Practice of Power
- Source:
- Fugitive Democracy
- Author(s):
Sheldon S. Wolin
, Nicholas Xenos- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
This chapter analyzes Michel Foucault's conception of power. It suggests that the Foucaldian conception remains incomplete, which provides the opportunity to criticize current postmodern conceptions before they settle in as reigning orthodoxies. Foucault approached the notion of power through a running criticism of some of the distinctive categories of modern political theory. The most important of these were theory, action, and the sovereign state. Theory and action is a formula as old as Western political theory, but it became the hallmark of modern political thinking, both in Hobbes's conjunction of theory and technology and in Marx's linking of theory to revolution. Foucault viewed theory as a totalizing system of thought, an all-inclusiveness that was at once authoritarian and ignorant.
Keywords: Michael Foucault, political theory, power, modernity, action, sovereign state
Princeton Scholarship Online requires a subscription or purchase to access the full text of books within the service. Public users can however freely search the site and view the abstracts and keywords for each book and chapter.
Please, subscribe or login to access full text content.
If you think you should have access to this title, please contact your librarian.
To troubleshoot, please check our FAQs , and if you can't find the answer there, please contact us.
- Title Pages
- Foreword
- Editor’s Introduction
-
Chapter 1 Political Theory as a Vocation -
Chapter 2 Political Theory -
Chapter 3 Transgression, Equality, and Voice -
Chapter 4 Norm and Form -
Chapter 5 Fugitive Democracy -
Chapter 6 Hobbes and the Epic Tradition of Political Theory -
Chapter 7 Hobbes and the Culture of Despotism -
Chapter 8 On Reading Marx Politically -
Chapter 9 Max Weber -
Chapter 10 Reason in Exile -
Chapter 11 Hannah Arendt -
Chapter 12 Hannah Arendt and the Ordinance of Time -
Chapter 13 The Liberal/Democratic Divide -
Chapter 14 On the Theory and Practice of Power -
Chapter 15 Democracy in the Discourse of Postmodernism -
Chapter 16 Postmodern Politics and the Absence of Myth -
Chapter 17 The Destructive Sixties and Postmodern Conservatism -
Chapter 18 From Progress to Modernization -
Chapter 19 Editorial -
Chapter 20 What Revolutionary Action Means Today -
Chapter 21 The People’s Two Bodies -
Chapter 22 The New Public Philosophy -
Chapter 23 Democracy, Difference, and Re-Cognition -
Chapter 24 Constitutional Order, Revolutionary Violence, and Modern Power -
Chapter 25 Agitated Times - Sources
- Index
