He describes discourse as a cyclical phenomenon. For example, the discourse on punishment has cycled through 3 sets of questions. The first asks, "On what ground does the sovereign have the right to punish? Nietzsche most forcefully, but others as well, argued that the question itself begged its own answer. The right to punish, they suggested, is what defines sovereignty, and as such, can never serve to limit sovereign power." The first phase of the discourse centers on basic questions about our framework for understanding the issue at hand. Moreover, the information sought in this phase of the discourse serves mostly to reaffirm the fundamental assumptions upon which the question is based.
"With the birth of the social sciences, this skepticism gave rise to a second set of questions: What then is the true function of punishment? What is it that we do when we punish?" These are questions of the second set. The second phase of the discourse on punishment mirrors much broader changes in research and analysis that occurred with modernism. Modernism seeks to understand and analyze things by breaking down them down into a series of distinct yet interrelated parts. The second set of questions pertain to "social organization, economic production, political legitimacy, and the construction of the self." To answer these questions, researchers and analysts "turned punishment practices upside down, dissecting not only their repressive functions but more importantly their role in constructing society and the contemporary subject."
The final set of questions through which the discourse on punishment cycled are postmodernistic challenges. "A series of further critiques - of meta-narratives, of functionalism, of scientific objectivity - softened this second line of inquiry and helped shape a third set of questions: What does punishment tell us about ourselves and our culture? What is the cultural meaning of our punishment practices?" These ideas definitely fall under the rubric of postmodernism, which is concerned with discerning the true meaning of things by cutting away the socially, psychologically, or culturally contrived ideas that are attached to them.
I find the third set of questions and their underlying logic the most interesting of the three. The territory for analysis pertaining to the first set of questions, and consequently the information gained from asking them, is just too limited. These limitations arise for several reasons. First, the topic, punishment itself, is the context for analysis. The methodology employed to answer these questions involves examining many things in the context of punishment. While this is an adequate approach, regardless of how many aspects of punishment are examined, analysis is still conducted in a one dimensional way that will only produce one type of information. The second set is better in this regard since punishment is instead examined in the context of many different things. The methodology still seeks to explain how these different things affect punishments by identifying cause-effect relationships. This consists of using analytical tools to gain various types of insights and information stretching across different subject areas, disciplines, etc.
Exploring the third set assumes the same fundamental approach as the second, albeit accommodating a slight analytical change. The major difference is that the the third incorporates the tenets of postmodernism, such as the realization that discourse contains socially, psychologically, and culturally constructed information. While contrived, the presence of this additional information has a very real affect on the objects of analysis that it surrounds. For example, punishment cannot be understood in purely material or objective terms; it subject to various interpretations of people. A person's interpretation of a given thing will affect their attitude towards it, and thus their way of practically dealing with it. The third set of postmodernistic questions seeks to identify how our perceptions of punishment, be they cultural or psychological, affect the way we actually punish people.
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