Abstract

Available from UMI in association with The British Library. Requires signed TDF. ;It is argued here that Nietzsche, Weber and Foucault represent a discrete tradition of theorising in the human sciences. More particularly, that they constitute a tradition of theorising about the fate of the modern subject. This argument is established by examining each theorist in relation to three areas. Firstly, the philosophical and methodological position occupied by each is analysed. Secondly, the diagnoses of modernity offered by these theorists are examined. Finally, the politics of the forms of theorising deployed by Nietzsche, Weber and Foucault are elaborated. ;It is shown on a philosophical level, that these theorists can be grouped about the notions of perspectivism, subjectivity and genealogy. With regard to modernity, it is pointed out that each theorist treats the modern as an ambiguous achievement. Their analyses being structured about an opposition between discipline and self-discipline in the constitution of the individual's subjectivity. In relation to the political dimension of their forms of theorising, it is illustrated that each displays a reflexive concern with the nature of the human sciences. For all three theorists, it is shown, the role of the human sciences manifests itself as a reflection on the possibility of meaningful action by the individual in the modern age. ;In the conclusion, it is argued that this tradition avoids the problem posed by the subject-object distinction for the human sciences. It is pointed out that this tradition represents mode of critique for articulating our 'common concerns'. It is also claimed that this form of theorising cannot be easily assimilated under either of the rubrics 'modernism' or 'postmodernism'