Discipline And Punish: The Birth of the Prison

The carceral system is described at the end of Discipline and Punish. Foucault defines the carceral system by its system of imprisonment, which utilizes specific architecture and surveillance to maintain control of prisoners.

The term “discipline” is used in Foucault’s work to describe the actions taken against either the body or the soul in retaliation for a crime. Discipline is a strategy of power through which control can be exercised. Foucault examines how discipline changed as social sensibilities shifted and asserts how all forms of punishment and discipline are expressions of the same pervasive power.

Discontinuities represent a break or an anomaly in an accepted pattern. After reading Nietzsche’s work, Foucault became interested in discontinuities in history. He structured his work around the people and events that functioned outside of sweeping historical narratives.

In philosophy, the term “genealogy” refers to a way of studying and thinking about the past that emphasizes discontinuities. Genealogy challenges the accepted and traditional narratives of history. Foucault first encountered this philosophical approach when reading Nietzsche’s On the Genealogy of Morals. Foucault uses genealogy to look beyond history as a set of causal events and to inquire about the reason for various shifts in societal systems of power. 

Foucault refers to judicial torture as any infliction of pain upon the body. This form of punishment was used to extract confessions from the accused.

Foucault utilizes the term “proletariat” in the Marxist tradition. This term refers to the working class. Foucault reveals how both the proletariat and the bourgeoisie express power through illegalities.

This term refers to the murder of a member of royalty, usually a king. In Discipline and Punish, Foucault refers to Robert-François Damiens as “Damiens the regicide,” aligning his identity with his crime.

Relativism is the philosophical doctrine that ideas cannot be separated from their specific social concepts. For example, factual relativism suggests that there is no such thing as universal truth. Instead, truth changes depending on the perception of the individual. Moral relativism argues that there are no right or wrong morals; morality is based on the social norms of a specific culture. Discipline and Punish embraces relativism. Instead of establishing that one form of penal system (public torture) is worse than another (carceral system), Foucault examines how these two forms are representative of their cultures and social sensibilities in history.