Michel Foucault's Objectification Of Subject

HSS ASSIGNMENT-2

PRATEEK BANSAL,IMT2012032

TOPIC

Analyse how Michel Foucault’s ideas on “objectification of subject” can be used to critically understand foundations of Freudian Psychoanalysis.

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INTRODUCTION

Sigismund Schlomo Freud popularly known as Sigmund Freud, born on May 6th 1856 was a prominent neurologist and psychiatist of Jewish origin. Freud is regarded as the father of psychoanalysis and a pioneer for bringing the importance of unconscious mental activty into recognition. It was he who first coined the term 'psychoanalysis' at around 1896 and devoted his later part of life on developing

Foucault also challenges by questioning the political and scientific theories which act to turn individuals(subjects) into object.(what is objectification of the subject) According to Foucoult there are three modes of objectification of subject.

The first mode of objectification of subject is 'dividing principle' where a certain group of people exhibiting differences from majority are given a label and are objectified by that label.It can be both social and spatial. In this mode of objectification the subject is given both social and personal identity. For example - a criminal or mad person who are now indentified as the label given to them by society and are seperated from the normal due to it.

The second mode of ojectification of subject refers to 'scientific classification' where we objectify certain group on the basis of what is scientifically proven or we have a scientific reason to differentiate certain group from others. In different times, in different civilisations, many social practices and beliefs were universally accepted and considered natural depending upon the validating science present at that time. Consider for example, defining what behaviour entitles the tag of a 'normal employee' would be a socially produced specification for a

By ninetheenth century this thought has descended and according to repressive hypothesis the practise of homsexuality and its discourse had been silenced and repressed. If we see from Freudean's point of view any action can be categorised as either as normal and pathological. This is a sort of rational thinking which led to modernity where every action is seen in a view if it's either scientifially accepted or not. So in modern prospective there is always a binary function to categorize any action. Hence homosexuality in nineteenth century was seen as something which was not scientifically accepted or being termed as pathological so anyone being homosexual was seen in Freudean point's of view as pathological. Foucault pointed this out and said freudian point of view would lead to preoccupation with one form of sexuality which was accepeted by the society based on the biological and medical disciplines.So according to him any individual who is homosexual would then be objectified by attaching a label of homosexual to them and giving them a social identity also. Even a person who is homosexual by his will would be forced to objectify himself as pathological because he would made to realize that in the society in which he is living