Vrdoljak, T. Foucault’s Culturalist Axiomatic: A Nietzschean Naturalist Rejoinder
(2024) Nietzsche-Studien
DOI: 10.1515/nietzstu-2024-0013
Abstract
The Nietzsche-Foucault relationship has been the subject of extensive scholarship, highlighting their affinity. In contrast, this paper foregrounds what I take to be their most significant point of divergence: it compares Nietzsche’s naturalist to Foucault’s culturalist axiomatic of power. First, I introduce a minor, naturalist tradition in the philosophy of power that culminates with Nietzsche. Second, I show how Foucault revolutionized the field of political thought and analysis by drawing on Nietzsche’s critique of logocentrism, and in so doing introduced a different and significantly more expansive image of politics. Third, I survey Foucault’s key writings on power to support the claim that the contrast between Nietzsche and Foucault can be described in terms of a contrast between naturalism and culturalism. Finally, I follow this theme in the writings of “new materialist” thinkers and their ambiguous reception of Foucault. Although Foucault is often read as politicizing Nietzsche, his circumscribing of power-relations to intra-human relations alone, and thereby confining politics to human cultures, in effect led to him to depoliticizing Nietzsche. © 2024 the author(s), published by Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston.
Author Keywords
Culturalism; Foucault; Naturalism; Politics; Power
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