Key Arguments

• Foucault states that ‘The examination also introduces individuality into the field of documentation. The examination leaves behind it a whole meticulous archive constituted in terms of bodies and days.’, linking examination directly to archival practices.
• He notes that examination ‘situates [individuals] in a network of writing; it engages them in a whole mass of documents that capture and fix them.’, framing documentation as a means of capture and fixation.
• He argues that ‘The procedures of examination were accompanied at the same time by a system of intense registration and of documentary accumulation. A “power of writing” was constituted as an essential part in the mechanisms of discipline.’, positing writing itself as a modality of power.
• This disciplinary writing borrows from administrative documentation but introduces ‘particular techniques and important innovations’, especially around ‘methods of identification, signalling or description’ in the army, hospitals, and teaching establishments.
• He lists practical problems that drive this documentation: tracking deserters and fictitious information in the army; recognizing patients, expelling shammers, following diseases, mapping epidemics in hospitals; and defining aptitudes, levels, and possible uses of individuals in schools.
• He cites a school regulation: ‘“The register enables one, by being available in time and place, to know the habits of the children, their progress in piety, in catechism, in the letters, during the time they have been at the School”’, illustrating how registers capture behaviour and progress.
• From this, he infers ‘the formation of a whole series of codes of disciplinary individuality that made it possible to transcribe, by means of homogenization the individual features established by the examination: the physical code of signalling, the medical code of symptoms, the educational or military code of conduct or performance.’
• He acknowledges that these codes ‘were still very crude, both in quality and quantity, but they marked a first stage in the “formalization” of the individual within power relations.’
• A second set of innovations concerns ‘the correlation of these elements, the accumulation of documents, their seriation, the organization of comparative fields making it possible to classify, to form categories, to determine averages, to fix norms.’, indicating that documentation enables statistical and normative comparisons.
• He notes that ‘The hospitals of the eighteenth century, in particular, were great laboratories for scriptuary and documentary methods.’, describing detailed procedures for registers, transcription, circulation, comparison, centralization, and ‘the accountancy of diseases, cures, deaths’.
• He concludes that ‘Among the fundamental conditions of a good medical “discipline”, in both senses of the word, one must include the procedures of writing that made it possible to integrate individual data into cumulative systems in such a way that they were not lost’, showing that writing is essential to disciplinary medicine.
• He specifies the bidirectional integration required: ‘so to arrange things that an individual could be located in the general register and that, conversely, each datum of the individual examination might affect overall calculations.’
• He argues that ‘Thanks to the whole apparatus of writing that accompanied it, the examination opened up two correlative possibilities’: first, ‘the constitution of the individual as a describable, analysable object ... in order to maintain him in his individual features ... under the gaze of a permanent corpus of knowledge’; and second, ‘the constitution of a comparative system that made possible the measurement of overall phenomena, the description of groups, the characterization of collective facts, the calculation of the gaps between individuals, their distribution in a given “population”.’
• He encapsulates the importance of these seemingly minor techniques by calling them ‘These small techniques of notation, of registration, of constituting files, of arranging facts in columns and tables that are so’—suggesting that such mundane practices underpin the broader disciplinary regime (the sentence trails off in the excerpt, but the evaluative framing is clear).

Source Quotes

We are entering the age of the infinite examination and of compulsory objectification. 2. The examination also introduces individuality into the field of documentation. The examination leaves behind it a whole meticulous archive constituted in terms of bodies and days.

The examination also introduces individuality into the field of documentation. The examination leaves behind it a whole meticulous archive constituted in terms of bodies and days. The examination that places individuals in a field of surveillance also situates them in a network of writing; it engages them in a whole mass of documents that capture and fix them.

The examination leaves behind it a whole meticulous archive constituted in terms of bodies and days. The examination that places individuals in a field of surveillance also situates them in a network of writing; it engages them in a whole mass of documents that capture and fix them. The procedures of examination were accompanied at the same time by a system of intense registration and of documentary accumulation.

The examination that places individuals in a field of surveillance also situates them in a network of writing; it engages them in a whole mass of documents that capture and fix them. The procedures of examination were accompanied at the same time by a system of intense registration and of documentary accumulation. A ‘power of writing’ was constituted as an essential part in the mechanisms of discipline. On many points, it was modelled on the traditional methods of administrative documentation, though with particular techniques and important innovations.

On many points, it was modelled on the traditional methods of administrative documentation, though with particular techniques and important innovations. Some concerned methods of identification, signalling or description. This was the problem in the army, where it was necessary to track down deserters, avoid repeating enrolments, correct fictitious ‘information’ presented by officers, know the services and value of each individual, establish with certainty the balance-sheet of those who had disappeared or died.

It was the problem of the hospitals, where it was necessary to recognize the patients, expel shammers, follow the evolution of diseases, study the effectiveness of treatments, map similar cases and the beginnings of epidemics. It was the problem of the teaching establishments, where one had to define the aptitude of each individual, situate his level and his abilities, indicate the possible use that might be made of them: ‘The register enables one, by being available in time and place, to know the habits of the children, their progress in piety, in catechism, in the letters, during the time they have been at the School’ (M.I.D.B., 64). Hence the formation of a whole series of codes of disciplinary individuality that made it possible to transcribe, by means of homogenization the individual features established by the examination: the physical code of signalling, the medical code of symptoms, the educational or military code of conduct or performance.

64). Hence the formation of a whole series of codes of disciplinary individuality that made it possible to transcribe, by means of homogenization the individual features established by the examination: the physical code of signalling, the medical code of symptoms, the educational or military code of conduct or performance. These codes were still very crude, both in quality and quantity, but they marked a first stage in the ‘formalization’ of the individual within power relations.

Hence the formation of a whole series of codes of disciplinary individuality that made it possible to transcribe, by means of homogenization the individual features established by the examination: the physical code of signalling, the medical code of symptoms, the educational or military code of conduct or performance. These codes were still very crude, both in quality and quantity, but they marked a first stage in the ‘formalization’ of the individual within power relations. The other innovations of disciplinary writing concerned the correlation of these elements, the accumulation of documents, their seriation, the organization of comparative fields making it possible to classify, to form categories, to determine averages, to fix norms.

These codes were still very crude, both in quality and quantity, but they marked a first stage in the ‘formalization’ of the individual within power relations. The other innovations of disciplinary writing concerned the correlation of these elements, the accumulation of documents, their seriation, the organization of comparative fields making it possible to classify, to form categories, to determine averages, to fix norms. The hospitals of the eighteenth century, in particular, were great laboratories for scriptuary and documentary methods.

The other innovations of disciplinary writing concerned the correlation of these elements, the accumulation of documents, their seriation, the organization of comparative fields making it possible to classify, to form categories, to determine averages, to fix norms. The hospitals of the eighteenth century, in particular, were great laboratories for scriptuary and documentary methods. The keeping of registers, their specification, the modes of transcription from one to the other, their circulation during visits, their comparison during regular meetings of doctors and administrators, the transmission of their data to centralizing bodies (either at the hospital or at the central office of the poorhouses), the accountancy of diseases, cures, deaths, at the level of a hospital, a town and even of the nation as a whole formed an integral part of the process by which hospitals were subjected to the disciplinary régime.

The keeping of registers, their specification, the modes of transcription from one to the other, their circulation during visits, their comparison during regular meetings of doctors and administrators, the transmission of their data to centralizing bodies (either at the hospital or at the central office of the poorhouses), the accountancy of diseases, cures, deaths, at the level of a hospital, a town and even of the nation as a whole formed an integral part of the process by which hospitals were subjected to the disciplinary régime. Among the fundamental conditions of a good medical ‘discipline’, in both senses of the word, one must include the procedures of writing that made it possible to integrate individual data into cumulative systems in such a way that they were not lost; so to arrange things that an individual could be located in the general register and that, conversely, each datum of the individual examination might affect overall calculations. Thanks to the whole apparatus of writing that accompanied it, the examination opened up two correlative possibilities: firstly, the constitution of the individual as a describable, analysable object, not in order to reduce him to ‘specific’ features, as did the naturalists in relation to living beings, but in order to maintain him in his individual features, in his particular evolution, in his own aptitudes or abilities, under the gaze of a permanent corpus of knowledge; and, secondly, the constitution of a comparative system that made possible the measurement of overall phenomena, the description of groups, the characterization of collective facts, the calculation of the gaps between individuals, their distribution in a given ‘population’.

Among the fundamental conditions of a good medical ‘discipline’, in both senses of the word, one must include the procedures of writing that made it possible to integrate individual data into cumulative systems in such a way that they were not lost; so to arrange things that an individual could be located in the general register and that, conversely, each datum of the individual examination might affect overall calculations. Thanks to the whole apparatus of writing that accompanied it, the examination opened up two correlative possibilities: firstly, the constitution of the individual as a describable, analysable object, not in order to reduce him to ‘specific’ features, as did the naturalists in relation to living beings, but in order to maintain him in his individual features, in his particular evolution, in his own aptitudes or abilities, under the gaze of a permanent corpus of knowledge; and, secondly, the constitution of a comparative system that made possible the measurement of overall phenomena, the description of groups, the characterization of collective facts, the calculation of the gaps between individuals, their distribution in a given ‘population’. These small techniques of notation, of registration, of constituting files, of arranging facts in columns and tables that are so

Thanks to the whole apparatus of writing that accompanied it, the examination opened up two correlative possibilities: firstly, the constitution of the individual as a describable, analysable object, not in order to reduce him to ‘specific’ features, as did the naturalists in relation to living beings, but in order to maintain him in his individual features, in his particular evolution, in his own aptitudes or abilities, under the gaze of a permanent corpus of knowledge; and, secondly, the constitution of a comparative system that made possible the measurement of overall phenomena, the description of groups, the characterization of collective facts, the calculation of the gaps between individuals, their distribution in a given ‘population’. These small techniques of notation, of registration, of constituting files, of arranging facts in columns and tables that are so

Key Concepts

• 2. The examination also introduces individuality into the field of documentation.
• The examination leaves behind it a whole meticulous archive constituted in terms of bodies and days.
• it engages them in a whole mass of documents that capture and fix them.
• The procedures of examination were accompanied at the same time by a system of intense registration and of documentary accumulation. A ‘power of writing’ was constituted as an essential part in the mechanisms of discipline.
• Some concerned methods of identification, signalling or description.
• ‘The register enables one, by being available in time and place, to know the habits of the children, their progress in piety, in catechism, in the letters, during the time they have been at the School’ (M.I.D.B., 64).
• Hence the formation of a whole series of codes of disciplinary individuality that made it possible to transcribe, by means of homogenization the individual features established by the examination: the physical code of signalling, the medical code of symptoms, the educational or military code of conduct or performance.
• they marked a first stage in the ‘formalization’ of the individual within power relations.
• the organization of comparative fields making it possible to classify, to form categories, to determine averages, to fix norms.
• The hospitals of the eighteenth century, in particular, were great laboratories for scriptuary and documentary methods.
• Among the fundamental conditions of a good medical ‘discipline’, in both senses of the word, one must include the procedures of writing that made it possible to integrate individual data into cumulative systems in such a way that they were not lost;
• so to arrange things that an individual could be located in the general register and that, conversely, each datum of the individual examination might affect overall calculations.
• the constitution of the individual as a describable, analysable object, not in order to reduce him to ‘specific’ features, as did the naturalists in relation to living beings, but in order to maintain him in his individual features, in his particular evolution, in his own aptitudes or abilities, under the gaze of a permanent corpus of knowledge;
• and, secondly, the constitution of a comparative system that made possible the measurement of overall phenomena, the description of groups, the characterization of collective facts, the calculation of the gaps between individuals, their distribution in a given ‘population’.
• These small techniques of notation, of registration, of constituting files, of arranging facts in columns and tables that are so

Context

Second numbered subsection under ‘The examination’, where Foucault explains how examinations generate archives, codes, and comparative documentation that formalize individuals and populations within disciplinary power–knowledge systems.