dispositif, n.Definitions

A Dispositif is a deployment of power.

A Dispositif is a grid of intelligibility.

A Dispositif is what one has when one has succeeded in isolating 'strategies of relations of forces supporting types of knowledge and inversely.

A Dispositif is practices (institutions, architectural arrangements, regulations, laws, administrative measures, scientific statements, philosophic propositions, morality, philanthropy) in addition to discourse which we may use to do a genealogical analysis of some particular situation.

A Dispositif is distinguished from episteme primarily because it encompasses the nondiscursive practices as well as the discursive. It is resolutely heterogeneous, including 'discourses, institutions, architectural arrangements.

A Dispositif is a deployment of power from above that structures a social order. To be contrasted with assemblages, which constitutes the mechanisms of social organization from below.

A Dispositif is discussed in contrast with episteme, where the former signifies the rules of scientific knowledge during a particular time and is researched through the analysis of discourse (text). The dispotif is, by contrast, the practices (institutions, architectural arrangements, regulations, laws, administrative measures, scientific statements, philosophic propositions, morality, philanthropy) in addition to discourse which we may use to do a genealogical analysis of some particular situation.