Vrais Amis

Reconsidering the Philosophical Relationship Between Foucault and Deleuze

Bibliographic Data

ID12947684
AuthorsChristian Gilliam (0000-0002-1847-2482, University of Surrey, corresponding author)
Year2018
Pages191-212
Publication date2018-10-22
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueFoucault Studies (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1832-5203 • E-ISSN: 1832-5203
PublisherProject MUSE (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.22439/fs.v0i25.5580
OpenAlexW2899058744
LanguageEN
Citations received2
References cited16

In the current literature addressing the Foucault/Deleuze relationship, there is a clear tendency to either replicate and expand Foucault’s over-simplified rejection of Deleuzian desire as already caught in a discursive trap or play of power; or to replicate Deleuze and Guattari’s over-simplified reading of Foucault’s dispositif, in which power and resistance are deemed opposed and thus understood via a structure of negativity. In either case, each thinker is accused of referring to an asocial or essentialist multiplicity, typically in the form of a real transcendence (positive Body), which is deemed ‘inconsistent’ with their post-structuralist yearnings. This article argues that there is in fact a real and enduring consistency between the two thinkers, which is to be found in the mutual use of an ontology of ‘pure’ or ‘disjunctive’ immanence – as derived from and developed through Nietzsche’s method of genealogy – as a way to construe power/subjectification, with pleasure/desire taken as the affective inside of this power. That said, the somewhat semantic difference between desire and pleasure being proposed does lead to a slight, though tangible, divergence in politico-ethical and practical possibilities. This article concludes that it is this divergence that should from the real basis of debate

Deleuze and Guattari · Dialectic · Divergence (linguistics · Epistemology · Immanence · Linguistics · Ontic · Pleasure · Power (physics · Psychoanalysis · Sociology · Subjectification · Transcendence (philosophy · Will to power · Contemporary Cultural and Social Studies · Foucault, Power, and Ethics · Philosophy · Psychoanalysis, Philosophy, and Politics · Psychology

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