Conclusions

Abstract

Our treatment of the work of Foucault has been in great measure expository. With few exceptions, we have not sought to provide our own assessment of his arguments, nor to deal with criticisms others have directed against his arguments. Nor have we tried to establish filiations between Foucault’s work and other works. This is largely because these raise issues which detract from exposition and go beyond the scope of this book. But perhaps in providing an exposition of Foucault’s work as if it is self-subsistent and self-contained, we have run the risk of appearing to treat Foucault’s work as a closed system, beyond reproach. Like any other book, this too has its limitations, it does not exhaust all that needs saying about Foucault’s work. The industry of commentaries on Foucault’s work is alive and thriving, some of the issues neglected here have been and will be taken up in books, articles and interviews with Foucault. Since, as we argued in the introduction and have tried to show in the subsequent chapters, the value of Foucault’s work lies in specific analyses, we believe that beyond a few general points a critique of Foucault’s work is best conducted by extending Foucault’s own analyses.