The “Planet Foucault”

The chapter discusses “Planet Foucault” (Paul Veyne) as a major reference for SKAD. Michel Foucault introduced several theoretical and methodological concepts regarding the analytics of discourse, which he illustrated through strikingly vivid material analyses of the interconnectedness of practices and discourses. He viewed social knowledge orders as emergent phenomena with their own rules. Foucault’s reflections on the (discourse-related) archaeology of knowledge formations, on the genealogy of power/knowledge regimes, and on the relationship between discourses, dispositives, and practices can be used to elaborate the various starting points that a sociological analysis of discourse must take into account. In the discussion of Foucault’s work, it nevertheless becomes clear that its discourse concepts remain unsatisfactory for social sciences research interests in some respects. Shortcomings relate, firstly, to the theoretical formulation of the link between discourse (as an overall structure) and individual discursive events. Second, they concern the theoretical conception of the relationship between social actors and discourses. And thirdly, Foucault’s reflections upon his methodology do not account for the concrete work of data analysis. The chapter concludes with a related résumé of the starting points for a sociology of knowledge based analysis of discourses.