ABSTRACT
This chapter suggests that the question or problem of 'force' nevertheless haunts Michel Foucault's explorations of power, in ways that — once articulated — might shed new light on some well-known Foucaultian theses, and on larger questions of the relationship between force and history. It also suggests that Foucault's invocation of force at certain key moments smuggles into his historical and historicist readings a metaphysical contraband for which he cannot account in terms of his own theories of history, power, and discourse. Foucault's explicit theorizations of discourse in fact leave the language of force, power, and violence behind altogether, as they seek to elaborate a more coherent justification of the thinking which in Histoire de la folie was only implicit. The chapter discusses 'force' drop out of the theoretical picture, in ways which are troubling for Foucault's enterprise, and explores the nature, and the problem, of discursive force in Foucault. It then suggests how Foucaultian power relates to 'force'.
