The Theory and History of the Subject and Domination of the Self and Others: From Althusser to Foucault

Abstract

In this paper, I attend to the problem of domination with the aim of re-examining the relationship between Althusser and Foucault. Consequently, I suggest that the research and writings of Michel Foucault in the 1970s were largely responses to Louis Althusser's "Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses" (1970). At the end of the 1970s, Foucault recognized two turns in the evolution of his own work over a decade. The first turn relates to Foucault's texts on the functions of the mental hospital, which, as this paper shows, focused on the dominating subject. The paper shows that the second turn, revealed in Foucault's discussion of the family, focused primarily on the subject pursuing the domination of others through self-domination. While a great number of issues remain to be resolved, this examination suggests that Foucault engaged in sustained reflections on the problems posed by Althusser. Based on the above discussion, the paper suggests that the relations between the writings of Foucault and Althusser or Marxism should be revisited and questioned anew.