A Critic on the Other Side of the Rhine? On the Appropriations of Foucault's Political Thought by the Heirs of the Frankfurt School
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.22439/fs.i36.7224Keywords:
Michel Foucault, Frankfurt School, rationalization, subjectivation, powerAbstract
In this article, I make the case that the reception of Foucault's political thought by different authors linked to the Frankfurt School tradition (J. Habermas, N. Fraser, A. Honneth, A. Allen and M. Saar) allows us to discern a series of transformations within the tradition itself. In general terms, it is argued that the fundamental change concerns the gradual abandonment of the problem of social rationalization in favor of a perspective focused on the question of processes of subjectivation, a change that calls into question the very meaning of the tradition.
References
Adorno, Theodor, and Max Horkheimer, Dialetic of Enlightenment [1944]. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2002.
Allen, Amy, The Politics of Our Selves: Power, Autonomy, and Gender in Contemporary Critical Theory. New York: Columbia University Press, 2008. https://doi.org/10.7312/alle13622
Allen, Amy, "Power, Subjectivity, and Agency: Between Arendt and Foucault," International Journal of Philosophical Studies 10:2 (2002), 131-149. https://doi.org/10.1080/09672550210121432
Allen, Amy, "Discourse, Power, Subjectivation: the Foucault-Habermas debate reconsidered," The Philosophical Forum 40:1 (2009), 1-28. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9191.2008.00314.x
Allen, Amy, The End of Progress: Decolonizing the Normative Foundations of Critical Theory. New York: Columbia University Press, 2016. https://doi.org/10.7312/alle17324
Celikates, Robin, Critique as Social Practice: Critical Theory and Social Self-Understanding. London: Rowman & Littlefield International, 2018. https://doi.org/10.5771/9781786604644
Cook, Deborah, Adorno, Habermas and the Search for a Rational Society. New York: Routledge, 2004. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203417454
Cook, Deborah, "Adorno, Foucault and critique," Philosophy and Social Criticism 39:10 (2013), 965-981. https://doi.org/10.1177/0191453713507016
Caux, L. P. de. A Imanência da Crítica. Os Sentidos da Crítica na Tradição Frankfurtiana e Pós-frankfurtiana. São Paulo: Edições Loyola, 2021.
Ashenden, Samantha, and David Owan, ed., Foucault Contra Habermas: Recasting the Dialogue between Genealogy and Critical Theory. London: Sage Publications, 1999. https://doi.org/10.4135/9781446221822
Flyberg, Bent, "Ideal Theory, Real Rationality: Habermas versus Foucault and Nietzsche," Paper for the Political Studies Association's 50th Annual Conference, The Challenge of Democracy in 21th Century, London School of Economics and Political Science, 10-13 April (2000), 1-20. http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2278421
Fraser, Nancy, Unruly Practices: Power, Discourse, and Gender in Contemporary Social Theory. Minneapolis: University of Minneapolis Press, 1989.
Foucault, Michel, Surveiller et Punir. Paris: Gallimard, 1975.
Foucault, Michel, The History of Sexuality: 1: The Will to Knowledge. Penguin Classics, [1976] 2020.
Foucault, Michel, "Entretien avec Michel Foucault" [1980], in Dits et Écrits IV, ed. Daniel Defert, François Ewald and Jacques Lagrange, 41-95. Paris: Gallimard, 1994.
Foucault, Michel, "Omnes et singulatim: vers une critique de la raison politique" [1981] in Dits et Écrits IV, ed. Daniel Defert, François Ewald and Jacques Lagrange, 134-161. Pa-ris: Gallimard, 1994.
Foucault, Michel, "Le sujet et le pouvoir" [1982], in Dits et Écrits IV, ed. Daniel Defert, François Ewald and Jacques Lagrange, 222-242. Paris: Gallimard, 1994.
Foucault, Michel, "Structuralisme et post-structuralisme" [1983], in Dits et Écrits IV, ed. Daniel Defert, François Ewald and Jacques Lagrange, 431-457. Paris: Gallimard, 1994.
Foucault, Michel, "Qu'est-ce que les Lumières ?" [1984], in Dits et Écrits IV, ed. Daniel Defert, François Ewald et Jacques Lagrange, 562-577. Paris: Gallimard, 1994.
Foucault, Michel, "Foucault" [1984], in Dits et Écrits IV, ed. Daniel Defert, François Ewald and Jacques Lagrange (631-635). Paris: Gallimard, 1994.
Foucault, Michel. 'Qu'est-ce que la Critique ?' Suivi de La culture de Soi. Paris: Vrin, 2015.
Gordon, Colin, "The soul of the citizen: Max Weber and Michel Foucault on rationality and government," in Max Weber, Rationality and Modernity, ed. Scott Lasch and Sam Whimster, 293-316. London: Allen and Unwin, 1987.
Gutting, Gary, Michel Foucault's Archaeology of Scientific Reason. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1989. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781139172141
Habermas, Jürgen, O Discurso Filosófico da Modernidade. São Paulo: Martins Fontes, 2000.
Habermas, Jürgen, "Technology and Science as 'Ideology" [1968], in Toward a Rational Society: Student Protest, Science, and Politics, 81-122. Boston: Beacon Press, 1971.
Habermas, Jürgen, Teoría de la acción comunicativa I: racionalidad de la acción y racionalización social [1981]. Madrid: Taurus, 2003.
Habermas, Jürgen, "Modernity versus Postmodernity," New German Critique 22 (1981), 3-14. https://doi.org/10.2307/487859
Habermas, Jürgen, "A nova intransparência: a crise do estado de bem-estar social e esgo-tamento das energias utópicas" [1985], Novos Estudos CEBRAP 18 (1987), 103-114.
Honneth, Axel, The Critique of Power: Reflective Stages in a Critical Social Theory. Cambridge and London: The MIT Press, 1991.
Honneth, Axel, Pathologies of Reason: On the Legacy of Critical Theory. New York: Columbia University Press, 2009. https://doi.org/10.7312/honn14624
Honneth, Axel, The Fragmented World of the Social: Essays in Social and Political Philosophy. New York: State University of New York Press, 1995.
Jaeggi, Rahel, Critique of Forms of Life. Harvard: Harvard University Press, 2018. https://doi.org/10.4159/9780674988712
Kelly, Michal, ed., Critique and Power: Recasting the Foucault/Habermas Debate. Cambridge: The MIT Press, 1994.
King, Mathew, "Clarifying the Foucault-Habermas debate: Morality, ethics and 'normative foundations'," Philosophy & Social Criticism 35:3 (2009), 287-314. https://doi.org/10.1177/0191453708100232
Koopman, Colin, Genealogy as Critique. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2013.
Koopman, Colin, "Revising Foucault: the history and critique of modernity," Philosophy and Social Criticism 36 (2010), 545-565. https://doi.org/10.1177/0191453710363576
Saar, Martin, "Power and critique," Journal of Power 3:1 (2010), 7-20. https://doi.org/10.1080/17540291003630320
Saar, Martin, "Genealogy and the Subjectivity," European Journal of Philosophy 10:2 (2002), 231-245. https://doi.org/10.1111/1468-0378.00159
Saar, Martin, Genealogie als Kritik: Geschichte und Theorie des Subjekts nach Nietzsche und Foucault, Frankfurt and New York: Campus Verlag, 2007.
Sawicki, Jana, "Freedom," in The Cambridge Foucault Lexicon, ed. Leonard Lawlor and John Nale, 156-161. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2014. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781139022309.031
Schluchter Wolfgang, The Rise of Western Rationalism: Max Weber's Developmental History, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1985.
Stahl, Titus, Immanent Critique. London: Rowman & Littlefield, 2022.
Waldenfels, Benhard, "Divison ou dispersion de la raison : un débat entre Habermas et Foucault," Les études philosophique 4 (1986), 473-484.
Weber, Max, Economy and Society I: An Outline of Interpretive Sociology. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1978.
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
Authors retain copyright to their work, but assign the right of the first publication to Foucault Studies. The work is subject to a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 license, but despite these restrictions, authors can take for granted that Foucault Studies will permit articles published in Foucault Studies to be translated or reprinted in another format such as a book providing a full reference is made to Foucault Studies as the original place of publication.