Impure Reason. Foucault and Critical Theory

Zusammenfassung

This chapter explores the proximity and distance between Michel Foucault’s thought and the work of Frankfurt School critical theory in a particular historical moment, namely the 1960s and early 1970s. The proximity stems from the fact that Foucault and Habermas struggle with three shared problematics: the historicity of reason, the implausibility of a founding subjectivity, and the precarious future of philosophy. The differences in their responses can (partially) be traced back to their different understanding of Nietzsche’s significance for philosophy and are smaller than might be expected, at least when it comes to the intertwinement of reason and power. Future critical theories will have to take up these three problematics. While they cannot simply repeat Foucault’s and Habermas’s answers, the three problematics offer a philosophical starting point with a robust conceptualization of the connection between power and knowledge, an account of the relationship between subjectivity and truth, and conceptual tools to grasp the genuinely political character and context of epistemic practices.