This short study shows how Foucault, upon parting with the traditional philosophies concerning the subject - Marxism, Existentialism, Positivism, -engaged in the reconstruction of socio-historical technologies of subjection, without ever printing out to possible paths for the liberation of the oppressed. Crime and insanity emerge as figures of evil and the absurd. Prisons and insane asylums circunscribe spaces of total exclusion, being strategic institutions for us to understand the foundations of social order. Refusing to give voice to the subjects’ silence, Foucault radically confronts us with the question of representation, inviting us to reflect once again upon the specific role of intellectuals and the politicians in general.
Foucault; subjection; representation; power