Research On Foucault’s Subject Theory And Feminist Application Of It

The philosophy of subject of the Enlightenment thought which bases the foundation of all the philosophical issues on human, regards human conscious as the source of meaning at the epistemological field and also as the reason of behavior at the practical field. To explicate the fundamental status of human, this philosophy of subject constructs the human nature. Accordingly, the human has been constructed as a subject which is endowed with the abstract, unified and substantial nature. Feminism that is born as a social movement fighting for the women’s right in the nineteenth century has been deeply influenced by the Enlightenment thought. This can be seen from that feminism also attempts to employ a unified woman subject identity as the foundation of the feminist theory development and feminist political practice. However, confronting post-modernism’s critique of the subject of the Enlightenment thought, feminism also starts to reflect the applicability of the unified subject. Foucault’ subject theory has come into the vision field of feminist theory in the 1980 s. As it were, feminism can be capable of rethinking the subject issues because of the significance of Foucault’s theory, especially his philosophical standpoint that counters the subject of the Enlightenment thought and his epistemological analysis of the subject and power analysis of the subject. Therefore, feminism starts to apply Foucault’s subject theory.Foucault’s subject philosophy is based on the critique of the philosophy of subject of the Enlightenment thought. Foucault supposes the philosophy of subject of the Enlightenment thought essentially fetter the human thoughts. This type of the philosophy of subject that objectified the human constructs human as a subject who is endowed with the universal nature at epistemology field, which makes human is fettered by this universal nature. And at the practical field, human becomes the target of management of authorities. Confronting this the philosophy of subject, Foucault advances his distinctive philosophy of history which historicize the philosophy of subject of the enlightenment thought to abolish the status of this type of the philosophy of subject as absolute truth, which deconstructs the universal nature endowed by this type of the philosophy of subject. At epistemological field, he employs the analysis of formation rules of knowledge as framework, and establishes the distinctive history analysis of the development of knowledge in which the history of knowledge is constituted contingently by the formation rules of knowledge. At the practical field, he propose that power is a kind of mechanism whose development of history contains concrete genealogy, and establishes the distinctive history analysis of the development of political practice in which the development of political practice is based on the transformation of reason of government. Based on these, Foucault places the philosophy of subject of the Enlightenment thought in the history of the episteme and the history of reason of government, and proposes that the emergence of this philosophy of subject is the joint effect of the modern episteme and the political practice based on the reason of the state in the eighteenth century. Accordingly, through the historical analysis of the epistemological constitution of subject and of the practical constitution of the subject, Foucault deconstructs the essential nature of subject that is endowed by the philosophy of subject of the Enlightenment thought.As it were, Foucault’s historical analysis of the constitution of subject can make contemporary feminism construct an appropriate method to handle the problem of the female subject. Contemporary feminism is not supposed to intimate the way of post modern thought that abandon the subject concept. Actually, contemporary feminism must face the historical constitution of the female subject, and deepen the analysis of the historical process in which patriarchy constitute the female subject, and construct a persistent critical position toward patriarchy system.This paper will illustrate the content and significance of Foucault’s subject theory by the literature-review method and the hermeneutics method in the first part. And present how feminism applies Foucault’s subject theory to resolve their problem of subject in the second part. In the last part, this paper will demonstrate the reconstitution of the contemporary female subject.