- Episteme- A grouping of statements that suggests a consistent pattern in how they function as constituents of a system of knowledge. An episteme may be a cultural code, characteristic system, structure, network, or ground of thought that governs the language, perception, values, and practices of an age.
- Discursive formation- Foucault replaced the term "episteme" with this when he wrote The Archeology of Knowledge. Because he was not a structuralist, Foucault decided to abandon "episteme", and use a term that fit within his philosophy. This has the same meaning of "episteme".
- Statement- The basis unit of discursive formation, this is a set of signs or symbols to which a status of knowledge can be ascribed. Discourse is the plural of "statement". The statement is not a sentence due to the sentence being governed by grammatical rules and the statement is governed by logic rules.
- Resemblance (similitude)- Episteme of the sixteenth century was based on the thought that everything resembles something else and in that sense stood for it. Words and things were not thought of as being separate.
- Power- "A more-or-less organized, hierarchical, co-ordinated cluster of relations." Power is a characteristic of all relationships and, in fact, constitutes those relationships. All individuals exercise power, and are all subjected to it.
- Bio-power- Power over life. It "exerts a positive influence of life, that endeavors to administer, optimize, and multiply it, subjecting it to precise controls and comprehensive regulations."
- Resistance- In Foucault's system, this can be characterized by discourse that both creates and constrains.
- Specific intellectual- Ordinary people who have knowledge of their circumstances and are able to express themselves independently of the universal theorizing intellectual.
- Universal intellectual- A defender of natural rights and an advocate of humanity. A bearer of universal moral, theoretical and political values who is at the forefront of progress and revolution.
- Critique- A major tool of resistance that points out what kinds of assumptions, what kinds of familiar, unchallenged, unconsidered modes of thought are accepted as self-evident that will no longer be accepted as such. Attacking the existing order of things.
- Ethics- One part of the study of morals that illustrates how individuals constitute themselves as moral subjects.
- Moral Code- Rules that determine which acts are permitted or forbidden and the code which determines the positive or negative values of possible behaviors.
- Ethical substance- Aspect of the self that is seen as the appropriate domain for moral conduct.
- Mode of subjection- The authority or rationale for moral obligations, "the way in which people are invited or incited to recognize their moral obligations."
- Asceticism- The practical means by which individuals become ethical subjects.
- Telos- What is considered to be the state of perfection or completion according to the moral code. The discovery of "one's true self".
- Archeology- A means for analyzing the production of discourse in terms of the conditions of possibility that allow it to appear, and that govern the system of knowledge and order.
- Genealogy- A compliment to archeology designed to describe Foucault's method of investigation. Genealogy looks for the rules governing discursive practices.
- Methodology of inquiry- Characterized by the data Foucault chose to study, as he did not study renowned documents, but generally unknown ones.
- Interpretation (commentary)- A technique of power in that it selects what is to be suppressed and allows only specifically qualified individuals to do the interpreting.