Bedingungen unserer Existenz. Zur Aktualität Michel Foucaults

How do we view Michel Foucault today? How might we assess the impact of his widely read and much-criticised work in our time? On the one hand, it ranks among the canonical sources of modern humanities, cultural studies and social sciences, which Foucault has shaped more profoundly than perhaps any other post-war author. On the other hand, in recurring debates he is held responsible for the irrational aberrations and relativist dead ends of contemporary thought.

In their astute philosophical exploration of Foucault’s legacy, Martin Saar and Frieder Vogelmann present neither an unassailable authority nor do they encounter a dissolution of truth, an absolutisation of identity or a fragmentation of politics. Rather, they discover a highly agile diagnostic mode of thought dedicated to the preconditions of what is deemed true, authentic or legitimate in each instance. Foucault’s famous distancing manoeuvres are primarily an expression of a style of thinking aimed at intervening in political and social reality. Foucault’s philosophical critique concerns nothing less than the conditions of our existence.