MICHEL FOCAULT

Michel Focault (1926-1984), a French Philosopher- Historian, is often described as one of the most influential Thinkers of the Modern Age. His work profoundly influences the way we think about society, in particular how we understand "Social Power," "The Self," and "The Body."
The 3 major aspects of his philosophy distinguished Knowledge, Power, and Subjectivity as lines which run through the social apparatuses and come from multilinear ensembles with series of variables which supplant one another and only when they enter in a crisis is when they discover new dimensions, and new lines.
Focault talked about these lines as of sedimentation and at the same time as of lines of breakage and lines of fracture. He believed that in the process of untangling these lines within a social apparatus it was  like drawing up a map, or doing cartography, or surveying unknown landscapes and named it "Working on the ground."  He believed that the human being has to position oneself on these lines by themselves, these same lines did not define the social apparatus, they just run through it and pulled at it, from North to South, and East to West, or diagonally.
"A Critique," he said, "is not a matter of saying that things are not right as they are. Critique is a matter or Pointing Out on What Kinds of Assumptions, What Kinds of Familiar, Unchallenged, Unconsidered Modes of Thought, the Practices that we accept, rest." (Foucault).
"Bio-Power," in his understanding, referred to the "mechanisms" employed by the "Super-Powers" to manage the population and discipline of the individuals. "Biological Life" was mere political event : population reproduction  and disease control were central to economic processes and therefore subject to political control. He observed that since the 17th century, the way in which the population was managed shifted from a repressive to a constructive approach The Sovereign's power over Life were gradually replaced from killing or abstaining to kill to the power of promote Life using methods of control and coercion for the "productivity and health" of the human bodies and population, based on the view of them as "resources and manageable objects." It was the first time in history that the biological power concentrated on forming Life instead of just deciding about death; biological and political existence started to interface with each other. The body became focus of analysis as an individual entity and no longer was an indi-sociable and collective entity. Viewing this process from a social constructionist perspective, the individual body was "invented" at the beginning of the 18th century
Focault views about Religion states that it is not delusional by Nature, nor that the individual, beyond present-day Religion, rediscovers his most inner psychological origins. Under this concept then "Religious delusion"is the product of a dysfunctional secularization of our today society.
Insofar the concept of Religion could be defined as the object of delusional beliefs in the present context of experience, as much as group of individuals with the same level of reasoning no longer permit the assimilation of the mystical beliefs that defined the spiritual lives of the individuals in the ancient past that found themselves in the same spiritual religious context.
Therefore for Focault,  Enlightenment did not exist, because Reason is embedded in socio-historical conditions and there is no rational unfolding of History in any developmental or improving Religious common sense. Neither Reason then nor History offers really a religious liberation to the human kind. Persisting in that ideology just drives us to the Abyss.
What Focault advocated in his philosophy was that the most important aspect of Power is not the control exercised by certain strong individuals over certain weak individuals, but rather, the control that all individuals exercise over themselves and others through widely accepted forms of organized behaviour. He said:"We have yet to fully comprehend the Nature of Power and therefore we should investigate "the relays through which it operates and the extent of its influence on the often significant aspects of the hierarchy."