Foucault News

Foucault and Nietzsche: A Critical Encounter (Bloomsbury Studies in Continental Philosophy) Edited by Joseph Westfall and Alan Rosenberg, Bloomsbury Academic, 2018

Foucault’s intellectual indebtedness to Nietzsche is apparent in his writing, yet the precise nature, extent, and nuances of that debt are seldom explored. Foucault himself seems sometimes to claim that his approach is essentially Nietzschean, and sometimes to insist that he amounts to a radical break with Nietzsche. This volume is the first of its kind, presenting the relationship between these two thinkers on elements of contemporary culture that they shared interests in, including the nature of life in the modern world, philosophy as a way of life, and the ways in which we ought to read and write about other philosophers.

The contributing authors are leading figures in Foucault and Nietzsche studies, and their contributions reflect the diversity of approaches possible in coming to terms with the Foucault-Nietzsche relationship. Specific points of comparison include Foucault and Nietzsche’s differing understandings of the Death of God; art and aesthetics; power; writing and authorship; politics and society; the history of ideas; genealogy and archaeology; and the evolution of knowledge.

Table of contents
Acknowledgments

Introduction
Alan Rosenberg (Queens College) and Joseph Westfall (University of Houston-Downtown)

1 ‘Foucault, Nietzsche and the History of Truth’
Paul Patton (UNSW Australia)

2 ‘Nietzsche and Foucault’s “Will to Know”’
Alan D. Schrift (Grinnell College)

3 ‘“We are Experiments”: Nietzsche, Foucault’
Keith Ansell-Pearson (University of Warwick)

4 ‘Nietzsche and Foucault: Modalities of Appropriating the World for an Art of Living’
Alan Rosenberg and Alan Milchman (Queens College)

5 ‘Foucault and Nietzsche: Sisyphus and Dionysus’
Michael Ureand Federico Testa (Monash University)

6 ‘Truth and Becoming Beyond the Liberal Regime’
Jill E. Hargis (California State Polytechnic University, Pomona)

7 ‘Twice Removed: Foucault’s Critique of Nietzsche’s Genealogical Method’
Brian Lightbody (Brock University)

8 ‘The Religion of Power: Between Nietzsche and Foucault’
James Urpeth (University of Greenwich)

9 ‘Nietzsche and Foucault on Power: From Honneth’s Critique to a New Model of Recognition’
João Constâncio and Marta Faustino (Universidade NOVA de Lisboa)

Shelley L. Tremain, Foucault and Feminist Philosophy of Disability, University of Michigan Press, 2017

Addresses misrepresentations of Foucault’s work within feminist philosophy and disability studies, offering a new feminist philosophy of disability

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Foucault and Feminist Philosophy of Disability is a distinctive contribution to growing discussions about how power operates within the academic field of philosophy. By combining the work of Michel Foucault, the insights of philosophy of disability and feminist philosophy, and data derived from empirical research, Shelley L. Tremain compellingly argues that the conception of disability that currently predominates in the discipline of philosophy, according to which disability is a natural disadvantage or personal misfortune, is inextricably intertwined with the underrepresentation of disabled philosophers in the profession of philosophy. Against the understanding of disability that prevails in subfields of philosophy such as bioethics, cognitive science, ethics, and political philosophy, Tremain elaborates a new conception of disability as a historically specific and culturally relative apparatus of power. Although the book zeros in on the demographics of and biases embedded in academic philosophy, it will be invaluable to everyone who is concerned about the social, economic, institutional, and political subordination of disabled people.

“A much-needed contribution to the general intellectual discussion of disability, to Foucault studies, and to feminist theory. Tremain plows into some central tenets of disability theories and some of the most taken-for-granted feminist criticisms of Foucault. She also indicts professional philosophy in North America for its structural exclusion of disabled scholars. The evidence she presents and the arguments she makes are strong and sound.”
—Ladelle McWhorter, University of Richmond

“Foucault and Feminist Philosophy of Disability offers a master class on Foucault and feminist theory as it addresses the dangerous and biased exclusion of disability within academic philosophy. Its most powerful gifts are the tools it gives readers for recognizing the same exclusion and discrimination within their own fields—it is a book that has the potential to change academia.”
—Jay Dolmage, University of Waterloo

“An important work not just for those working on disability, but for anyone working on social justice, broadly understood. It is clearly argued, full of original ideas and insightful argument, and also a significant political intervention into debates over philosophical method. Tremain is unrelentingly materialist and structuralist in her analysis of ableist, sexist, and racist oppression. The book is an urgent call for all of us to do better.”
—Sally Haslanger, Ford Professor of Philosophy and Women’s and Gender Studies, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

“Sets the scene for philosophy of disability and opens new paths for critical disability studies . . . . Tremain carefully corrects misreadings and misappropriations of Foucault among disability theorists and feminists alike, and shows how these thinkers inadvertently reinscribe the status quo when it comes to theorizing disability. In working through the many ways disability is constructed, the book radicalizes philosophical consideration of topics ranging from epistemic injustice to stem cell research.”
—Melinda Hall, Stetson University

Shelley L. Tremain holds a Ph.D. in Philosophy and has taught in Canada, the U.S., and Australia. This book was awarded the 2016 Tobin Siebers Prize for Disability Studies in the Humanities. The author was also the 2016 recipient of the Tanis Doe Award for Disability Study and Culture in Canada.

Ugo Balzaretti, Leben und Macht Eine radikale Kritik am Naturalismus nach Michel Foucault und Georges Canguilhem, Klebebindung (2018)

BESCHREIBUNG
Das Biologische ist, Lévinas zufolge, zum »Herzen des geistigen Lebens« geworden. Davon zeugt sowohl die zunehmende Bedeutung der Biowissenschaften als auch die Verbreitung biologistischer Menschenbilder. Doch liegt der moderne Biologismus mehr noch in einem subtilen Naturalismus, der nicht einfach Geist auf Natur reduziert, sondern in einem naturalistischen Verständnis des Geistes selbst besteht.

Einen theoretischen Anschluss für eine Genealogie der heutigen Herrschaft des bloßen Lebens sucht das vorliegende Buch in den Werken von Michel Foucault und Georges Canguilhem. Dabei wird eine doppelte Strategie verfolgt: Der Begriff des Wahnsinns wird zum einen ins Zentrum von Foucaults Werk gerückt und zum anderen in den Begriff eines unendlichen Lebens überführt. Foucaults Philosophie wird so nicht länger einem Theoriestrang zugeordnet, der von Spinoza bis zu Nietzsche reicht, sondern gehört nunmehr einer von letzterem und Hegel gebildeten Konstellation an. Dadurch eröffnet sich eine kritische Perspektive auf das, was Jean Hyppolite als den die bürgerliche Welt kennzeichnenden Zusammenhang von anthropologischem Reduktionismus, modernem Instrumentalismus und dem Vergessen des spekulativen Charakters der Erfahrung erkannt hat.

Die Verteidigung eines spekulativen Lebensbegriffs im Anschluss an Georges Canguilhem und die gleichzeitige Wiederaufnahme von Auguste Comtes Gedanken einer Bio- und Soziokratie ermöglichen es darüber hinaus, die von Foucault denunzierte technokratische Verflechtung von Biologie und Politik nicht nur den modernen Wissenschaften, die meinen, den Menschen restlos verobjektivieren zu können, sondern auch dem dominierenden nachmetaphysischen Strang der modernen Philosophie entgegenzuhalten. Denn weder eine Philosophie der Praxis noch eine Philosophie der Gesellschaft vermag es, die den Menschen kennzeichnende Spannung zwischen Natur und Freiheit aufzulösen.

UGO BALZARETTI
Ugo Balzaretti hat in Freiburg (Schweiz) Italienische Literatur, Französische Literatur und Romanische Philologie studiert. Nach anschließendem Studium der Philosophie in Berlin und Potsdam und zeitweiliger Tätigkeit als Hauptschul- und Gymnasiallehrer promovierte er 2016 im Fach Philosophie an der Universität Basel.

With thanks to Elisabetta Basso for this news