"If identity becomes the problem of sexual existence, and if people think they have to 'uncover' their 'own identity' and that their own identity has to become the law, the principle, the code of their existence; if the perennial question they ask is 'Does this thing conform to my identity?' then, I think, they will turn back to a kind of ethics very close to the old heterosexual virility. If we are asked to relate to the question of identity, it has to be an identity to our unique selves. But the relationships we have to have with ourselves are not ones of identity, rather they must be relationships of differentiation, of creation, of innovation. To be the same is really boring" (Foucault, 1984).
Foucault's contributions to philosophy began with his first book, The History of Madness in the Classical Age (1961), which he started while he was in graduate school and continued when he was employed at a Parisian mental hospital. Focault believed there was a moral hypocrisy of modern psychiatry where the mentally ill were merely in need of medical treatment, and ignorance and brutality stemmed from historical models of care. Instead, Foucault argued that the results of scientific discovery in the treatment of mental illness were an incongruence of questionable social and ethical motivations.
Foucault's second book, The Birth of the Clinic (1963) covered the topic of modern clinical medicine. This work was not as critical as the previous one because objective truth is found in medicine, where it is much harder to prove in psychiatry. This book is viewed as a standard history of medical science. The Order of Things was controversial for its philosophical attacks on Marxism and phenomenology rather than for the critique of the human sciences.
These books were written during Foucault's “archaeological” period, which was based on the premise that systems of thought and knowledge are governed by rules, rather than grammar and logic, and operate without conscious thought. given time and place. Archaeology was important to Foucault because it was not based on ideation of people but in phenomenon and history- comparing given ways of thinking from one period to the next. The weakness with this was the inability to explain the transformative effects that led to accepted ways of thinking.
In the book Discipline and Punish, Foucault's explains his “disciplinary” society based on three primary techniques of control: hierarchical observation, normalizing judgment, and examination. Control over people can be gained by observation, with information about them being passed from lower to higher levels. This was written during the “genealogy” period, which was created to remedy the problems found in "archaeology" by demonstrating that a given system of thought was the result of historical events, not the outcome of rationally inevitable trends. Foucault contends that the modern system of disciplinary power evolved through techniques and diverse institutions, such as hospitals and prisons.
Foucault wrote about the history of sexuality, contending that modern knowledge regarding sexuality are associated with the power structures of modern society. This was intended as a series of studies on particular aspects of modern sexuality (including children, women, deviants, etc.) Foucault's compared modern control of sexuality to criminality because sex (like crime) is treated as science, which offers knowledge. Additionally, control is seen in other's knowledge of individuals and in individuals' knowledge of themselves. Individuals accept the results of scientific discovery and attempt to conform to these norms.
Foucault's critiques are seen as a means of achieving a traditional philosophical goal through new methodology. There are aspects of his work on standard philosophical topics, particular those tied to the central epistemological issue of representation. In The Order of Things, Foucault details an analysis of representation from Descartes through Kant. This is, considered to be his most traditionally philosophical analysis.
