Page 9 - 《社会》2023年第3期

社会·2023·3

laws or regulations are the legitimate source not only of power practice but also of
its goal and boundary. However, in a series of lectures in the College de France，
Michel Foucault took governmentality as his main theme and made an in鄄depth
analysis of the relationship between knowledge and power from different
perspectives. He showed the intricate historical relationship between rights and
power， governance and law， and subverted this“orthodox consensus.” By combing
through the history of European social governance since the Middle Ages， he
demonstrated on the one hand that state sovereignty and individual sovereign rights
were formed in specific power mechanisms， and， on the other hand， he
emphasized that the formation and change of governance techniques—from police to
disciplinary power and then to bio鄄power—was a process of colonizing rights and
laws in different ways. And， because of the collusion of knowledge and power，
these colonial mechanisms were all the more concealed by the mask of knowledge.
In the face of such an awkward situation， Foucault neither opposed governance，
rather opposed excessive governance， nor advocated the return of orthodox
individual rights and state sovereignty， but emphasized the construction of“new
rights”. These “new rights” are “critiques”， that is， to reveal how power and
knowledge conspire and how reason has become the governing mechanism of man in
a specific historical context. In the depth of Foucault’s soul flickers the light of
positive“nostalgia，” and at its source are the Stoic“self鄄governance” before and
after the AD and the German neo鄄liberalism governance after the World War II.
Keywords： Michel Foucault， governmentality， rights， law， power， subjectivity

西方政治思想的核心议题是为权力寻找终极基石， 它既是权力合
法性的根源，又是权力实践的边界。 苏格拉底在《理想国》中对何为“正
义”（ justice）的不断反诘（柏拉图，2012），可以理解为这一议题的开端。
霍布斯（Hobbes，1991）虽然颠覆了柏拉图对“正义”的理解，但上述追求
并无动摇，他一定要为掌握绝对主权的主权者提供自然法的约束。 洛克
修改了霍布斯的契约论，也将霍布斯的“自然法”这样的良知之法替换
为更具直接约束力的“人民的权力”。洛克强调，立法权即使是国家的最
高权力，也只是一种有限的委托权力，当立法者有违人民的信任时，后
者可以动用开除或更换立法者这一从未出让的根本权力，“共同体永久

· 2 ·