"There is nothing outside discourse"

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Revision as of 16:24, 9 October 2011

Discourse is an important concept in the thinking of Michel Foucault. Foucault (in Hall, 1997) says that ""discourse produces the objects of knowledge" and that nothing which is meaningful exists outside discourse (p. 44). This doesn't mean that there is nothing outside discourse, but Foucault means that "nothing has any meaning outside of discourse" (Foucault, 1972 in Hall, 1997, p. 45). So, in Foucaults idea, "the concept of discourse is not about whether things exist but about where meaning comes from" (Hall, 1997, p. 45)

References Hall, S (e.d.) (1997). Discourse, power and the subject (pp.41-45). In: Representation: cultural representations and signifying practices. Open University, Milton Keynes.

Contributers Page created by--JikkeVanTHof 21:25, 10 September 2011 (UTC)