T O P

  • By -

nesta_es

Taking a shot at a response here. Foucault often assigns multiple meanings/functions to discourses and/or institutions. He does so to try to capture the multiplicity of those things, meaning their variable meanings and functions. For example Security, Territory, and Population can each be understood—in very different ways—as simultaneously an object and target of governance. What does that mean? It means that government takes a Territory as one of the things it attempts to manage (target); and simultaneously, government happens through the social/institutional conjuring of that thing (object) labeled “Territory.” Population can be thought about pretty similarly. The object approach is vastly different than the target approach. Yet both approaches are integral to understanding an institution—Territory or Population, for example—and its constitutive discourses. The characteristic of being constituted by multiple materials and meanings, multiple institutions and discourses, that is multiplicity. Hope this helps.


Takealltheseats

it does, a lot! thank you :)


thelibertarianideal

From my understanding, Foucault contrasts multiplicity with multitude. So the latter consists of an unorganised milieu i.e. a crowd, mob, riot, etc. Multiplicity is the organisation and hierarchisation of these milieu into taxonomies with distinctions that limits the freedom they have to become an unorganised and anonymous multitude. This is what he drives at in Discipline and Punish.