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Examination of Michel Foucault’s Project through the Intellectual Modeling Methodology “MANHAJ”: Center, Reference, and the Production of Meaning

If the explicit center disappears, where does the referential function move ?

INTELLECTUAL PROJECT EXAMINATION

From Center to Reference: Testing the Structure of the System

This examination begins with a specific question: what happens when a center that performed a foundational function in determining truth, knowledge, or meaning is deconstructed ?

MANHAJ does not assume that deconstructing the center automatically eliminates reference. The examination therefore focuses on the function performed by the center, then asks whether that function has persisted elsewhere and how coordinates can be determined after the structure has changed.

As for meaning, its stability cannot be assumed merely because the term remains the same; it must be examined according to the concept’s coordinate within the conceptual domain and the relations that organize it. A change of reference therefore raises a further question: can the system derive meaning again within the new coordinates ?

This page examines several elements in their relations: the point of origin, center and reference, the conceptual domain, the coordinate of meaning, the cognitive act, and then the continuation or cessation of derivation.

This is not a temporal sequence or a presupposed causal direction among these elements, but an examination structure used to determine their positions and relations within the project under study.

METHODOLOGICAL FRAMEWORK

Three Concepts for Situating Foucault in the Examination

01

Center and Reference: What Happens When the Center Is Deconstructed ?

In some models that Foucault subjects to criticism, power appears as a form of centralized sovereignty exercised by a higher authority, such as the king or the judiciary, with law providing the framework that determines what is lawful and what is forbidden. Foucault contrasts this with an analysis of modern forms of power that cannot be understood through a single center, but through multiple techniques, institutions, and relations.

In Discipline and Punish, this appears in the shift of analysis toward the school, prison, hospital, and workplaces, and toward techniques such as surveillance, examination, recording, and normalization. In The History of Sexuality, the analysis likewise turns to the multiplicity of sites and relations of power rather than the search for a single sovereign center.

Foucault does not necessarily use the notion of “coordinate reference” in the sense given to it by MANHAJ. Rather, MANHAJ remodulates this structure and asks: if the single sovereign center is no longer the point of explanation, what performs the determining function that it once performed ?

Methodological question: where does the referential function reside after the transformation of the center ?

02

Movement of Reference: Does Moving the Site of Determination Mean That Reference Has Disappeared ?

In Foucault’s analysis of disciplinary power, the function of determination does not disappear; it appears through the norm, examination, documentation, and normalization. Examination does not merely monitor the individual: it produces information about the individual and places them within a field of comparison and classification; records, grades, and files become instruments for determining the individual’s position in relation to a norm or to others.

For Foucault, modern power is not confined to a single institution either; he speaks of multiple sites and relations of power within the family, workplace, school, hospital, and elsewhere. MANHAJ can therefore ask, within this structure: if sites of power are distributed, what makes it possible to determine the individual’s position, behavior, or deviation from the norm ?

In this sense, movement of reference does not mean the absence of reference. MANHAJ does not, however, assume that Foucault posits a moving coordinate reference; it examines whether the functions of determination and comparison described by Foucault rest on a rule that can be brought to light, and whether the movement of the site of determination is governed by relations and rules that can be modeled.

Methodological question: what rule governs the movement of the referential function between law, norm, examination, documentation, and relations ?

03

Meaning and the Possibility of Its Derivation: What Happens to Meaning After the Change of Reference ?

MANHAJ does not treat concepts as absolute linguistic notions defined by searching for their essence and answering the question “what is it?” Instead, it proposes functional concepts defined by their coordinate within a specific conceptual domain, that is, by their position, relations, and function within a domain derived from a point of origin organized around a doctrinal centrality. The value and meaning of a concept therefore cannot be understood independently of the domain in which it operates or of the point of origin from which that domain derives.

The change of reference therefore goes beyond the mere determination of positions. If the point of origin changes, or if the rule organizing the relations changes, the question becomes: can the system derive meaning again within the new coordinates ?

This is where the notion of derivation of meaning enters. The presence of numerous concepts, the continuation of discourse, or the ability to deconstruct earlier propositions does not by itself establish a continuing capacity to produce meaning. The system must contain rules and relations that allow movement from one point to another and from one meaning to another according to a determinable path.

At this point, the Law of Derivation of the Constant comes into the examination: the “constant” does not designate an element imposed externally on the system; it means testing whether the operations of deriving meaning can continue and produce new meaning. If these operations stop and no longer produce new meaning, the result becomes a cognitive zero; this is what is meant by sterility.

Measurement principle: no coordinate measurement can be performed without a coordinate reference. If the reference changes, this does not mean that reference has disappeared; it means that the point of measurement has moved.
APPLICATION TO FOUCAULT

From the Sovereign Center to the Multiplicity of Sites of Power and Knowledge

In his analysis of modern power, Foucault describes a shift from a sovereign model in which power is concentrated in a higher authority to disciplinary and normalizing techniques operating through multiple institutions and relations. Examples include surveillance, examination, documentation, classification, and normalization in the school, prison, hospital, and elsewhere.

At the same time, Foucault’s archaeology studies the rules that make certain statements and concepts possible within historically specific discursive formations, while genealogy examines the historical conditions and relations through which knowledge and power are constituted. This distinction allows MANHAJ to separate what Foucault describes from the coordinate modeling that MANHAJ applies to what he describes.

From MANHAJ’s perspective, the question then becomes: if there is no longer a single center explaining the structure of power or the production of knowledge, where is the function of determination and reference performed? And what rule makes its movement open to examination ?

FOUR AXES

Center, Reference, and Cognitive Movement

These axes do not claim to reduce Foucault’s project; they specify the questions MANHAJ adds when examining the position and coordinates of the cognitive act.

1. Center and Reference: From Sovereignty to Distribution

In Foucault’s Analysis

Foucault analyzes the sovereign model in which power is embodied in the king, law, or the judicial apparatus, then turns to disciplinary power operating through the school, prison, hospital, and workplace, as well as to the multiplicity of power relations in society. He also connects examination, documentation, and normalization to the production of knowledge about individuals.

MANHAJ

MANHAJ reformulates the question in terms of coordinates: if the single sovereign center is no longer the point of determination, what reference enables norms, examinations, and records to determine positions and relations ? The notion of “coordinate reference” is not attributed to Foucault; it is used as an examination tool.

2. Movement of Reference: From Law to Norm and Examination

In Foucault’s Analysis

In his analysis of discipline, determination is not limited to legal judgment; examination, documentation, comparison, and normalization make the individual locatable within a field of norms and hierarchies. Records produced through examination thus become the basis for new classifications, averages, and norms.

MANHAJ

The movement of the determining function from sovereign law to norm, examination, and documentation does not mean that reference has disappeared. The question instead becomes: what rule of transition allowed norm, examination, and documentation to perform this function ? Can this rule be modeled and traced across different cases?

3. The Subject and Reference: Testing the Possibility of a Methodological Circle

In the Examination of Foucault’s Project

We do not assume that Foucault makes the subject a reference. This can only be tested if the analysis shows that, in a particular phase or application, the subject becomes both an object of determination and a reference for determining meaning or judgment. This question becomes particularly important in Foucault’s later study of the subject and its practices, without reducing his project as a whole to this point.

MANHAJ

If the two functions are shown to coincide, we are dealing with a methodological circle; here the circle means a begging of the question: the result that the cognitive act is supposed to produce enters into the very tool that is supposed to produce it. If this circle is structural to the point that it prevents the object from being separated from the instrument that determines it, it constitutes a methodological impasse that obstructs the cognitive act and leads to the cessation of meaning derivation, that is, to a cognitive zero and sterility.

This outcome is not assumed in advance; it must be established through examination: can the cognitive act move beyond the circle and continue derivation, or does the circle prevent it ?

4. From the Movement of Reference to the Derivation of Meaning: When Does the System Stop ?

In Foucault’s Analysis

Foucault continually moves the analysis among discursive formations, institutions, practices, and relations of power and knowledge rather than fixing the explanation on a single center. This movement is precisely what makes the question of whether derivation can continue important when the project is remodeled.

MANHAJ

The Law of Derivation of the Constant, which is the seventh law of MANHAJ, does not mean that an external constant is imposed on the system; it means testing whether the operations of deriving meaning can continue.

If the operations of derivation continue, the cognitive act remains capable of producing meaning. If they stop and no longer produce new meaning, the result becomes a cognitive zero; this is what is meant by sterility.

METHODOLOGICAL SYNTHESIS

From the Deconstruction of the Center to Testing the Continuation of Derivation

Deconstructing the center does not by itself settle the question of reference. In the Foucauldian case, analysis may move from sovereign power and law toward norm, examination, documentation, normalization, and the multiplicity of power relations. MANHAJ does not merely describe this movement; it asks about the referential function now performed by these elements and the rule governing its movement.

The examination then turns to meaning: does the new structure allow the operations of deriving meaning to continue, or does it reach a point where derivation stops ?

The examination questions are therefore:

  1. What center or point of origin organized the structure ?
  2. What referential function did it perform ?
  3. Where does this function reside after the transformation of the center ?
  4. What rule governs its movement ?
  5. How are the coordinates of meaning determined within the new configuration ?
  6. Do the operations of deriving meaning continue ?
  7. If they stop, does this produce a cognitive zero whose location can be determined structurally ?

This is where the meaning of the Law of Derivation of the Constant becomes clear: it is not a search for an external constant, but a test of whether the process of derivation itself can continue. If the operations of deriving meaning stop and the result becomes a cognitive zero, this is sterility as a structural outcome open to examination.

See also other methodological examinations

Mohammed Abed al-Jabri: formation of the Arab reason, a posteriori movement, and point of origin ← Malek Bennabi: conditions of renaissance and construction of the civilizational model ← Abdallah Laroui: historicity and point of origin ← Taha Abderrahmane: reference, meaning, and point of origin ←
Examination of Intellectual Projects Retour à l’examen des projets intellectuels par la Intellectual Modeling Methodology.

Cite this page

Examen du projet intellectuel : examen du projet de Michel Foucault par la Intellectual Modeling Methodology « MANHAJ » : Center, Reference, and the Production of Meaning. (2026). MyPortail.