Nietzsche, Ontology, and Foucault's Critical Project

To Perish from Absolute Knowledge

Bibliographic Data

ID2353233
AuthorsAner Barzilay (0000-0001-6789-6284, New York University Shanghai, corresponding author)
Year2023
Volume40
Issue1-2
Pages201-218
Publication date2023-01-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueTheory Culture & Society (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0263-2764 • E-ISSN: 1460-3616
PublisherSAGE Publishing (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1177/02632764221151128
OpenAlexW4361013620
LanguageEN
Citations received3
References cited10

The phrase 'To perish from absolute knowledge' from Nietzsche's Beyond Good and Evil runs like a red thread throughout Foucault's reading of Nietzsche, spanning a period of 20 years in which Foucault continuously turned to Nietzsche as his main philosophical and methodological role model. Beginning with his first lectures on Nietzsche in the early 1950s, Foucault repeatedly alluded to this phrase as the key to Nietzsche's philosophical critique which anticipated the philosophical shift to ontology in the 20th century. Drawing on a host of unpublished essays from Foucault's archive, it will be shown that this phrase holds the key to Foucault's Nietzsche interpretation and explains his reliance on historicity as the transcendental basis for his critical project. The article will rely on Foucault's dynamic analysis of this phrase to narrate the development of his historical methodology between the 1950s and the mid-1970s, and will argue for the continuity and coherence of Foucault's critical project

Absolute (philosophy · Epistemology · Historicity (philosophy · Interpretation (philosophy · Key (lock · Linguistics · Literature · Michel foucault · Ontology · Phrase · Politics · Relativism · Transcendental number · Computer Science · Feminism, Gender, and Sexuality Studies · Foucault, Power, and Ethics · Philosophy · Political Theology and Sovereignty

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