Why Should You Care About Michel Foucault? | Fr. Gregory Pine & Fr. Bonaventure Chapman
November 27, 2025
The Ideas of Michel Foucault in the Modern Day
In this Godsplaining podcast episode — “Why Should You Care About Michel Foucault?” — Fr. Gregory and Fr. Bonaventure reflect on the enduring significance of Foucault’s thought for contemporary debates about power, knowledge, ethics, and society. They highlight how Foucault challenged conventional ideas about truth and social institutions by showing that what we accept as “knowledge” is often shaped by historical systems of power rather than objective universals. Emphasis is placed on key Foucault themes like “power-knowledge,” institutional structures (from clinics to prisons), societal norms, and how modern subjectivity and identity are molded by discourses rather than fixed essences. The friars argue that understanding Foucault helps us see how social order, moral norms, and “truths” are less natural or inevitable — and more historically contingent — than many assume.
More on Michel Foucault
Who is Michel Foucault?
Michel Foucault was a 20th-century French philosopher whose work spans history, sociology, psychology, and philosophy. He is important because he provided tools to analyze how truth, social norms, and institutions — like medicine, prisons, education — are constructed through power relations, rather than being natural or absolute.
Frequently Asked Questions
How are social institutions relevant in Foucault’s thinking?
Foucault argued that institutions (e.g. medical establishments, prisons, educational systems) don’t simply reflect society — they actively shape and regulate behavior, knowledge, and identity. Institutions embed power dynamics and influence how individuals see themselves and their place in society.
Does Foucault believe in universal “truths”?
No — Foucault was skeptical of universal, timeless truths. Instead, he held that truths are historically contingent: our contemporary notions of knowledge and what’s “true” arise from specific historical systems of discourse and power, not from objective or eternal foundations.
Why should we “care about” Foucault today?
Because many of the questions he raised — about who defines truth, how institutions shape us, how norms govern behavior, and how power operates in subtle ways — remain deeply relevant. His framework helps us critically examine modern structures: education, laws, medicine, social norms, identity, and how all of those influence what we accept as “normal,” “true,” or “good.”