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Notes
Examples of this interpretation include the influential text by Dreyfus and Rabinow (1983). More recent studies include Han (2002) and Paras (2002). Despite their manifest differences, each of these authors must posit a reason for these methodological shifts in Foucault’s thought. For Dreyfus, Rabinow, and Pile, the difference lies in the fact that Foucault gradually comes to realize the shortcomings of the archaeological method and turns to genealogy (put all too simply, the three authors see Foucault, like Kant before him, caught in the “empirico-transcendental doublet” that Foucault himself diagnoses in Kant’s work); however, this explanation discounts Foucault’s understanding of genealogy and archaeology as complementary methodologies. For Paras, Foucault’s renunciation is even more extreme: whereas Dreyfus, Rabinow, and Han understand Foucault’s apparent renunciation of archaeology in philosophical terms, Paras sees Foucault’s late writings as a renunciation of his anti-humanist texts of the 1960s and a return to the humanist subject displaced by these texts. Although there are certainly difficulties with the first approach, Paras’ book is deeply problematic in that it posits a psychological cause (Foucault’s disillusionment with French thought) rather than attending to the texts themselves.
Indeed, the most worthwhile “unitary” study of Foucault’s thought can be found in Thomas Flynn’s two-volume study of the relationship between Foucault and Sartre in Flynn (1997, 2005). Flynn proposes what he terms an ‘axial reading’ of Foucault. Although they differ on some particulars, both Flynn and McGushin largely agree that each of Foucault’s texts must be interpreted along the axes of power, knowledge, and subjectivation.
This interpretive strategy is similar to the one employed by Schürmann (1989). Schürmann explains that one of the things circumvented by reading Heidegger’s work backwards, from his later texts to his earlier ones, is the interminable debate about whether Heidegger’s later thought betrays the promise of his earlier thought—readers can no longer take sides between Heidegger I and Heidegger II. McGushin’s book provides the same service for Foucault scholars.
“It is possible to arrive at knowledge that is very useful in life and that in place of the speculative philosophy taught in the schools, one can find a practical one, by which…we could…make ourselves, as it were, masters and possessors of nature. This is desirable not only for the invention of an infinity of devices that would enable us to enjoy without pain the fruits of the earth and all the other goods in this life; for even the mind depends so greatly upon the body that, were it possible to find some means to make means generally more wise and competent than they have been up until now, I believe that one should look to medicine to find this means” (Cited by McGushin, p. 179).
An interesting feature of this approach is that Nietzsche recedes into the background. I address whether this is an oversight or a legitimate consequence of McGushin’s approach below.
Cited by McGushin, p. xvi.
See the opening lines of “Nietzsche, Genealogy, History”: “Genealogy is gray, meticulous, and patiently documentary. It operates on a field of entangled and confused parchments, on documents that have been scratched over and recopied many times,” Foucault (1998), p. 369.
Foucault identifies the ambivalence of religious discourse in his essay “What is Critique?”, anthologized in Schmidt (1996), pp. 382–398.
References
Dreyfus, Hubert L., and Paul Rabinow. 1983. Michel Foucault: Beyond structuralism and hermeneutics. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Flynn, Thomas R. 1997. Sartre, Foucault, and historical reason: Toward an existentialist theory of history, vol. 1. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Flynn, Thomas R. 2005. Sartre, Foucault, and historical reason: A poststructuralist mapping of history, vol. 2. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Foucault, Michel. 1972. Archaeology of knowledge and the discourse on language. NY: Pantheon Books.
Foucault, Michel. 1998. In Essential works of Foucault, 1954–1984: Aesthetics, method, and epistemology, ed. James D. Faubion, Vol. 2. NY: The New Press.
Han, Béatrice. 2002. Foucault’s critical project: Between the transcendental and the history (trans: Edward, Pile). Palo Alto: Stanford University Press.
Paras, Eric. 2002. Foucault 2.0: Beyond power and knowledge. New York: Other Press.
Schmidt, James (ed.). 1996. What is enlightenment? Eighteenth century answers and twentieth century questions. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Schürmann, Reiner. 1989. Heidegger on being and acting: From principles to anarchy. Indianapolis: Indiana University Press.
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McCall, C. Edward McGushin: Foucault’s Askesis: An Introduction to the Philosophical Life. Cont Philos Rev 42, 577–582 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11007-009-9126-9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11007-009-9126-9