Skip to content
1981
  1. Home
  2. A-Z Publications
  3. Explorations in Media Ecology
  4. Volume 18, Issue 3
  5. Article
Volume 18, Issue 3
  • ISSN: 1539-7785
  • E-ISSN: 2048-0717

Abstract

It is possible to derive a cybernetic approach to what the concept of ‘power’ might mean, an approach which illuminates and critiques both that concept and the relations it is used to describe. Selected quotes from a short article Michel Foucault wrote late in his life, entitled ‘The subject and power’, are juxtaposed with a demonstration that aspects of his view, particularly as he was formulating it in this article, prefigure some elements of what might be developed into a cybernetic approach to what might be meant by ‘power’. I propose that such an approach can be developed from basic cybernetic and systems principles including system capacity, (structural) coupling, the relationship of an organism to a niche or environment, and the hierarchical organization of adaptive systems. A resulting concept of power, or rather, of the domain in which we talk about power, can help reanimate our theoretical discussion of what we mean by such a concept and what such a concept inevitably obscures.

© 2019 Intellect Ltd
Loading

Article metrics loading...

/content/journals/10.1386/eme.18.3.297_1
2019-09-01
2025-03-18
Loading full text...

Full text loading...

References

  1. Ashby, W. R.. ( [1956] 1964), An Introduction to Cybernetics, London:: Chapman and Hall; (and University Paperbacks, version of 1964) .
     [Google Scholar]
  2. Bateson, G.. ( 1972), Steps to an Ecology of Mind, New York:: Ballantine Books;.
     [Google Scholar]
  3. Bateson, G.. ( 1979), Mind and Nature, New York:: Bantam Books;.
     [Google Scholar]
  4. Foucault, M.. ( 1983;), ‘ The subject and power. ’ [Afterword], in H. L. Dreyfus, and P. Rabinow. (eds), Michel Foucault: Beyond Structuralism and Hermeneutics, , 2nd ed.., Chicago, IL:: University of Chicago Press;, pp. 208–26.
     [Google Scholar]
  5. Foucault, M.. ( 1986), The Care of the Self: The History of Sexuality, vol. 3 (trans. R. Hurley), New York:: Vintage Books;.
     [Google Scholar]
  6. Guddemi, P.. ( 2006;), ‘ Breaking the concept of power (and redescribing its domain): Batesonian and autopoietic perspectives. ’, Cybernetics and Human Knowing, 13:3&4, pp. 58–73.
     [Google Scholar]
  7. Hobbes, T.. ( [1651] 1964), Leviathan (ed. Francis P. Randall.), New York:: Washington Square Press;.
     [Google Scholar]
  8. Lafontaine, C.. ( 2007;), ‘ The cybernetic matrix of “French Theory”. ’, Theory, Culture, and Society, 24:5, pp. 24–46.
     [Google Scholar]
  9. Maturana, H., and Verden-Zoller, G.. ( 2008), The Origin of Humanness in the Biology of Love (ed. Pille Bunnell.), Exeter:: Imprint Academic Press;.
     [Google Scholar]
  10. Midgley, M.. ( 1978), Beast and Man, Ithaca, NY:: Cornell University Press;.
     [Google Scholar]
  11. Guddemi, P.. ( 2019;), ‘ “You are adapting more to me than I am adapting to you” (but what does more mean?): Cybernetic and Foucaultian explorations of the domain of power. ’, Explorations in Media Ecology, 18:3, pp. 297–306, doi: 10.1386/eme.18.3.297_1
     [Google Scholar]
/content/journals/10.1386/eme.18.3.297_1
Loading
  • Article Type: Article
Keyword(s): adaptive systems; cybernetics; hierarchy theory; Michel Foucault; power; structural coupling

Most Cited Most Cited RSS feed

This is a required field
Please enter a valid email address
Approval was a success
Invalid data
An error occurred
Approval was partially successful, following selected items could not be processed due to error
Please enter a valid_number test