Abstract
“The surplus of power” may be one of the most important problems in contemporary societies. In analyzing this “surpls”, it is not, however, sufficient to regard power only as the authorized and repressive force, but it is necessary to add the analysis of the production and the multiplication of power in force relations. To analyze this “surplus of power”, M. Foucault suggests the strategical model of power instead of the model based on law, but discusses the peripheral effects of the social order in which the multiplicity of force relations unfold ; such as “the device of imprisonment” and “that of sexuality”.
The foundation of “the subject” was sought in the phenomenological mode of thinking on the one hand, and the condition of possibility of significations was inquired in the structural mode of thinking on the other. But these modes of thinking were based on the neglect of the power relationships, and their grounds themselves were the historical products. In the series of M. Foucault's works, it is only after the publication of 'Discipline and Punishment : The Birth of the Prison' that “the problem of power” is mattered, but I think that his discursive and historical analysis, before the problem of power was really mattered in the publication as noted above, can be also interpreted in the context of the power-analysis. In this paper, I will limit the problem to the aspects of the power-analysis, which is closely related to the grasp of “the social”.
