Leviathan, the mole and the serpent: the political bestiary of modernity according to Michel Foucault and Gilles Deleuze Leviathan, the mole and the serpent: the political bestiary of modernity according to Michel Foucault and Gilles Deleuze

Abstract

In recent decades, Michel Foucault’s work has decisively transformed the question of power in the general field of philosophy and the social sciences. Going back to the history of capitalist modernity, Foucault discovers that among the modalities of power that have constituted —since the 17th and 18th centuries and until our days— the general picture of modern societies, are the following: sovereign power, disciplinary power and biopower. This article presents a review of some of the central contributions of Foucault’s work around this triad of concepts and also presents a critique of the reception that Gilles Deleuze makes of Foucault’s theorization about the general forces of domination that characterize the societies of capitalist modernity.