Social thought and the arts of governmentIntroduction: What is social thought?

1. Society: Michel Foucault and “social thought” Epistemological space of social thought Concept of civil society

3. The socialFrench governmentality school and the history of the social and the social question

4. Conclusion: links to our present.

Introduction: What is social thought? Social and society

The social question

Civil society and political and economic thought

Position distinguished from: hyper-nominalist, techno-constructionist and over-politicized conceptions of social thought.

Three alternatives• Nominalism – views society as historically given

concept, but not ‘death of the social’ (governmentality)

• Techno-constructivism - reject the claim that ‘society has not no substantive character’ (actor network)

• Over-politicisation – Westphalian system as a condition of society but too close a link between state and society (world risk society thesis)

Part One: Society Human sciences

Sociological Region

Problem of social thought: economic and the political-juridical

Two impossible solutions

Civil society as solution

Adam Ferguson’s concept of civil society Historical-natural constant

Spontaneous synthesis not voluntary union

Permanent matrix of political power

Motor of history

Part Two: the social “Clearly it is not a question of the

adjective that qualifies the set of phenomena which sociology deals with: the social refers to a particular sector in which quite diverse problems and special cases can be grouped together, a sector comprising specific institutions and an entire body of qualified personnel (“social” assistants, “social” workers).” Deleuze.

Towards a history of the social Donzelot on the liberal interventions into the

family.

Procacci on ‘social economy’

Pauperism and the conditions of the labouring population

Castel and the Social Question

Solidarity/solidarisme/insurance

Conclusion Hybrid social thought from social economy to

the social market economy

The death of the social and Hayek

Social thought – autonomy and generality

Society as a unity

Dialogue of social thought with agency of nation-state