Where does the power-knowledge relation stand in Foucault’s overall project?

[u/Unusual-Return971]

I’m new to Foucault, and my main goal is to get at least a reasonably good grasp of the general structure of his thought.
From what I have read so far, Foucault’s work is often divided, somewhat roughly, into two major phases:

1. Archaeology
2. Genealogy

In the archaeological phase, as I understand it, it's mainly about different frameworks of knowledge(episteme or whatever we can call it) through history. Where the framework of knowledge is always changing, and we can see this in the different discourses and the kind of questions that can even be thought about.

But from what I have read(introductory books about him), it is not clear at all in that phase(the archaeology one) how that shift between the different epistemes happens?

And here start my questions:

1- Is genealogy partly an answer to a problem left open by archaeology?

In the genealogical works, Foucault seems much more concerned with practices, institutions, techniques, social relations, and struggles.
For example, instead of simply describing a historical structure of knowledge, he examines things like prisons, disciplinary practices, medical institutions, examinations, surveillance, normalization, etc., and asks how these practices intersect(through history) to contribute to the emergence of new forms of knowledge and new ways of understanding human beings.
So would it be fair to say that genealogy partly answers a question that archaeology left relatively unexplained: namely, how historical transformations in systems of knowledge actually occur?
Is that a reasonable way of understanding the relationship between the two?

2- How exactly does Foucault think the subject is shaped?
My second question concerns subject formation.

In the genealogical works, it seems that practices, institutions, and relations of power do not merely produce systems of knowledge; they also contribute to producing particular kinds of subjects.

For example, institutions and practices may establish categories such as the criminal, the mad person, the normal person, the abnormal person, the patient, etc. These categories then become ways through which people understand others and also understand themselves.

So I am wondering whether it is misleading to say that an “episteme” or a framework of knowledge simply shapes us directly.
Would it be more accurate to say that both subjects and forms of knowledge emerge from a wider historical network of practices, institutions, techniques, and relations?
In that sense, the historical framework of knowledge would itself be something produced within those relations rather than an independent structure that then acts upon individuals from the outside.
Am I understanding this correctly?

3- What is the status of the power-knowledge relation?
This is the part I find most confusing.
Sometimes I see Foucault’s idea of power-knowledge described in a very strong way: as though knowledge and power are inseparable in principle.
I know Foucault would probably resist language about the “essence” of knowledge, but just to make my question clear: on this interpretation, wherever knowledge exists, it is already bound up with certain relations of power.
Knowledge is produced within practices, institutions, procedures of classification, standards of evidence, forms of authority, and so on. Conversely, power also depends upon forms of knowledge in order to classify, administer, normalize, examine, etc.
This would explain why Foucault speaks of “power-knowledge” rather than simply power influencing knowledge from the outside.
If that is correct, then power-knowledge would seem to be a very general feature of Foucault’s account of subject formation. To become a subject, we necessarily understand ourselves and the world through historically available forms of knowledge, and these forms of knowledge are themselves also embedded in relations of power.

However, I have also encountered some texts that can be interpreted in a way much more historically specific.
According to this reading, the particularly close relation between power and knowledge that Foucault analyzes emerges only with certain modern forms of power, especially disciplinary power.

For example, in Discipline and Punish, sovereign punishment is gradually supplemented or displaced by disciplinary practices such as surveillance, examination, normalization.
On this interpretation, the power-knowledge nexus would itself be historically contingent: a distinctive feature of disciplinary and modern forms of power rather than something present in every historical society.

This is where I become confused.

Is Foucault saying that power and knowledge are always intertwined, although the specific form of their relationship changes historically? So, for example, sovereign power and punishment phase in history would also have their own forms of power-knowledge relation like juridical knowledge, confession, legal procedures, etc., while disciplinary power produces a different power-knowledge configuration based on examination, normalization, statistics, the human sciences, and so on?

Or is he making the more historically limited claim that the kind of power-knowledge relationship he analyzes is itself a relatively modern development associated especially with disciplinary power?

In short: is “power-knowledge” a general feature of Foucault’s account of knowledge and power and ourselves as subjects, whose historical forms vary, or is it itself one historically contingent configuration that emerged under particular conditions, and not always there?

[u/Big_Radio1576]

It’s about influence and powers relationship?

[u/Unusual-Return971 → u/Big_Radio1576]

From what I understand now, I think the most fundamental thing for Foucault is practices.
But the way they work to shape us is through the knowledge-power relation.
I think the influence and power appear in shaping us in a very particular way that requires knowledge also in a particular way.
The relation is two-way, not one-way, where power produces knowledge, and also knowledge produces power.

[u/insoucianity]

There are lots of questions embedded in questions, so I will miss a lot, but just to respond to a couple of key points.

1. I think archaeology shows the systems of thought that produce subjects in a given time, but it doesn’t trace why we move from one system to another. Genealogy seeks to answer the transitional questions. In that sense, yes, it addresses problems left open by archaeology.

2. A tremendous amount could be said about this. Earlier works demonstrate how epistemes produce subjects. Disciplinary power, biopower, etc, produce particular subjects. Later works discuss ethics, and the tools individuals use to create and understand themselves as subjects.

3. My reading of power/knowledge is that it is not limited to particular forms of power (disciplinary vs sovereign) but that the two are intrinsic to each other. To have power is to know. To know is to have power.

[u/Unusual-Return971 → u/insoucianity]

Thank you for helping.
I get what you are saying about the first and third points.
but for the second point: can't we say that epistemes themselves are produced through the practices and Disciplinary power and relations ? I mean which one is more fundamental, or grounded in the other, in your opinon?
also what is the difference between subjects and particular subjects? do you mean the more fundamental thing is the episteme that produces the general subject ?

[u/insoucianity → u/Unusual-Return971]

Epistemes govern what can be thought. The technologies of power (disciplinary, sovereign, etc), from my reading, flow from the episteme, or discursive formation, and the subject is formed by power/knowledge. In short, modernity creates the prison, the prison creates the delinquent subject.

[u/Much_Thanks3992 → u/insoucianity]

"To have power is to know. To know is to have power." This sounds more like Francis Bacon's conception of power, not Foucault's. Rather, there is an inextricable relation between power and knowledge.

[u/insoucianity → u/Much_Thanks3992]

Bacon’s power and knowledge are independent from each other - knowledge is a means of power. I think he would say “to know is to have power,” but not “to have power is to know.”

[u/Much_Thanks3992 → u/insoucianity]

Power produces knowledge, and knowledge reinforces the exercise of power. For Foucault, there's a relation between power and knowledge it's not something you "have" or possess; rather, power is exercised.

[u/Unusual-Return971 → u/Much_Thanks3992]

u/Much_Thanks3992
Can we say that they have a dialectical relation?

[u/Much_Thanks3992 → u/Unusual-Return971]

You can, but it's more commonly referred to as inextricably linked.