[voidhorse]

Biopower is the most famous one, but I actually think his greatest contribution was to make philosophers pay more attention to the ways in which epistemic systems and ways of organizing knowledge are connected to political power.

I actually think his phd thesis "the history of madness" is his best work. It encapsulates much of the subject matter that would occupy him (knowledge and power) in a domain that's easier to understand than some of his later arguments, and it predates his adoption of a more contorted literary style (or maybe the translation is just better, idk).

Ian Hacking also has a great text that extends Foucault's work "Historical Ontology" that picks up many of the chief ideas in a far more lucid manner for those of us who aren't fans of the later continental style (which if I'm being honest, was always a little too concerned with being obtuse just to sound intelligent)

[Avicebron]

> the ways in which epistemic systems and ways of organizing knowledge are connected to political power

Right. Which was immediately weaponized but poorly and at the wrong target(s), which is why he is so reviled.

[voidhorse]

Yeah, believe me, I'm not a fan of the misapplication and misunderstanding of much of this work. It's a bitter lesson in why making one's ideas clear in straightforward prose is so essential. I think Foucault at least, could be absolved from the notion that he intended any kind of said misapplication. Some other philosophers however, I think we're just straight up hacks that exploited the vogue of confusing language and weak metalingual philosophizing (Derrida, cough cough). If only we got students to read Wittgenstein first and save them from all the sophist language games.

[jrowen]

I was wondering where Wittgenstein fits into this. He's the only one that truly makes me think "are we taking crazy pills or is it just me?"