T
he diversity and internal tensions that mark
Michel FoucaultÕs essays, books, and inter-
views (not to mention his personal life and polit-
ical activism) would seem to raise the need for
some sort of general interpretation of his work.
1
Indeed, the publication of more and more of
FoucaultÕs writings since his death, the numerous
collected essay projects, and the burgeoning busi-
ness of ÒFoucault biographyÓ attest to a tendency
to fill this need. The compulsion to play the intel-
lectual historian in reading Foucault Ð to locate
and outline influences, to find the pattern into
which an authorÕs works fit Ð proves particularly
strong among those who have treated the relation
of Foucault to Nietzsche. In particular, attempts
to place Foucault within the history of thought
often end up tracing FoucaultÕs position back to
Nietzsche. By resting the interpretation of
Foucault upon his ÒNietzscheanism,Ó this kind of
intellectual historiography functions as an
enabling device for the strongest and most
compelling criticisms of Foucault; after all, most
of these accounts take NietzscheÕs supposed skep-
tical relativism as a given, so if Foucault turns
out to be a Nietzschean he also turns out to be a
cryptonormativist at best, a nihilist at worst. No
sensitive reader of Foucault attempts to reject all
of his insights, but many, especially political
theorists, tend to turn sharply away from
Foucault precisely as Foucault himself turns
toward Nietzsche. As JŸrgen Habermas, possibly
FoucaultÕs best critic, puts it: Òonly in the
context of his interpretation of Nietzsche does
Foucault yield to the familiar melody of profess-
ing irrationalism.Ó
2
I will not produce yet another defense of
Foucault against the common conclusion that his
work lacks normative foundations Ð a project
carried out by numerous authors in various
fields, and one which is likely to have run its
course by now. If it has not been Òresolved,Ó the
normative foundations debate has at least
reached a certain stalemate, with the two sides at
an impasse over the required epistemological
foundations for critique. Instead, this essay
provides a closer reading of Foucault that calls
into question both the reduction of his thought
to Nietzscheanism and the very practice of inter-
pretation by which his thought is so reduced. The
stakes for such a challenge to interpretation
prove much higher than they might at first
appear. Through their overt challenges to cate-
gories such as Òwork,Ó Òcommentary,Ó Òauthor-
function,Ó and ÒoeuvreÓ FoucaultÕs writings urge
their readers to resist the tendency to take up the
very practice of general interpretation that has
been used so frequently against Foucault.
Foucault engages in a set of maneuvers that
evade the attempt to pin him down in this way;
he thus challenges precisely the rules of the game
of the intellectual historian to which his critics
commonly subject him. This challenge to inter-
1 0 1
samuel a. chambers
FOUCAULT’S EVASIVE
MANEUVERS
nietzsche, interpretation,
critique
A N G E L A K I
journal of the theoretical hum an ities
volume 6 num ber 3 december 2001
ISSN 0969-725X print/ISSN 1469-2899 online/01/030101-23 © 2001 Taylor & Francis Ltd and the Editors of Angelaki
DOI: 10.1080/09697250120087978
foucault’s maneuvers
pretation proves crucial to FoucaultÕs project
and, I will maintain, it should prove just as
central to our effort to come to terms with that
project. It is only through practicing the very
form of interpretation that Foucault rejects that
one can reach the conclusion that FoucaultÕs
work is relativististic, trapped in performative
contradictions, and unable to offer a productive
vision of critique. This essay will chart the course
of some of FoucaultÕs evasive maneuvers, allow-
ing us to grasp the nature of FoucaultÕs challenge
to interpretation and simultaneously to distin-
guish within FoucaultÕs work a viable vision of
critique.
I reading foucault, rejecting nietzsche
There is nothing necessarily new about resisting
the tendency to call Foucault a ÒNietzschean,Ó
since no one was more averse to such a strategy
of labeling than Foucault himself: Òthe only valid
tribute to thought such as NietzscheÕs is precisely
to use it, to deform it, to make it groan and
protest. And if commentators then say that I am
being faithful or unfaithful to Nietzsche, that is
of absolutely no interest.Ó
3
Yet this remark by
Foucault has not deterred his ÒcommentatorsÓ in
the least. Many of them have been concerned not
merely to test the authenticity of his appropria-
tion of Nietzsche, but, more significantly, to use
this ostensible appropriation as a tool for dismiss-
ing FoucaultÕs work Ð and specifically for malign-
ing its political significance. The practice of such
commentary leads to a rejection of Foucault and
a denunciation of his political relevance via a
presupposed critique of Nietzsche.
4
This tendency to read Foucault and reject
Nietzsche is shared both by some of FoucaultÕs
most important critics (including Rorty,
McCarthy, Habermas, and Taylor), and even by
his apparent defenders (including Norris, Visker,
and Simons).
5
Critics use the rejection of
Nietzsche as a critique of Foucault, while defend-
ers use Nietzschean epistemological problems as
the limit of FoucaultÕs thought Ð the place where
they part company with Foucault. In briefly
documenting this pattern of reducing Foucault to
his Nietzscheanism, I will focus only on the
former group, since the latter tacitly assume the
validity of the formerÕs critique. Taylor probably
amasses more references to FoucaultÕs
Nietzscheanism than any other commentator
(with at least fifteen in his brief article), but
Richard RortyÕs commentary offers perhaps the
most straightforward case of reading Foucault
and rejecting Nietzsche. RortyÕs ÒFoucault and
EpistemologyÓ provides a critical response to Ian
HackingÕs argument that FoucaultÕs engagement
with Kant in The Order of Things offers a new
and important epistemology.
6
RortyÕs Òhunch,Ó
however, is that no matter how badly Foucault
(or Hacking) might want a new epistemology, Òhe
has set things up so that he cannot have such a
theory.Ó
7
Close readers of Foucault might wish to ques-
tion RortyÕs very point of departure, since
Foucault consistently insisted that he sought not
a ÒtheoryÓ of knowledge or of power but an
understanding of their historical and dynamic
interdependence; FoucaultÕs writings offer
cautionary methodological prescriptions and
historical analyses, but never theories. But
RortyÕs argument may prove illuminating
nonetheless, particularly in what it reveals about
the tendency to reduce FoucaultÕs thought to the
supposed relativism of Nietzsche. To test his
hunch Rorty divides epistemology into three
possible branches: Cartesian, Hegelian, and
Nietzschean. He then suggests that we might
think of Foucault as a Hegelian epistemologist,
one who rejects the fixed and objective reality of
Cartesianism and argues instead that rationality
always remains historically and sociologically
constructed. Up to this point in his argument
Rorty appears to take a fairly even-handed
approach to Foucault, and his appraisal seems, if
not positive, at least neutral Ð with optimistic
undertones.
Then, quite suddenly, Rorty turns harshly
critical at exactly the moment in which he
suggests that FoucaultÕs epistemology is, in fact,
Nietzschean. One might justifiably ask how Rorty
makes the transition from the possibility that
Foucault is a Hegelian, to the conclusive claim
that he is a Nietzschean. The answer appears to
be that Rorty stacked the deck against Foucault,
since Rorty only toys with the idea that
FoucaultÕs epistemology would prove Hegelian Ð
1 0 2
chambers
the Nietzschean conclusion seems inevitable in
RortyÕs interpretation. RortyÕs own emphasis
here is clear: ÒFoucaultÕs Nietzschean attitude
towards the idea of epistemology is that there is
nothing optimistic to say É The Nietzschean
wants to abandon the striving for objectivity and
the intuition that Truth is One, not to redescribe
or to ground it.Ó
8
In short, as a Nietzschean
Foucault has abandoned objectivity, truth, and
rationality. He therefore leaves us with no opti-
mism and no political direction. If we follow
Rorty, then we will have no reason to follow
Foucault in his Nietzschean nihilism.
Given what Rorty sees as FoucaultÕs tainted,
ÒNietzscheanÓ claims, Rorty has very few posi-
tive comments on FoucaultÕs thought. Rorty
sweepingly dismisses FoucaultÕs ÒNietzschean
bravuraÓ as Òso-called Ôanarchism,ÕÓ Òself-indul-
gent radical chic,Ó and Òanarchist claptrap.Ó
9
I
am not the first to question RortyÕs excessive
reading or his excessive rhetoric; even FoucaultÕs
most careful and cautious biographer, David
Macey, submits that RortyÕs judgement Òsuggests
little concrete knowledge and a lot of credit in
hearsay.Ó
10
My main point of emphasis here lies
in showing that only where Rorty turns Foucault
into a Nietzschean does he both reject Foucault
philosophically and slander him rhetorically.
Within RortyÕs argument, FoucaultÕs lack of a
coherent epistemology, his absence of a positive
political theory, and his nihilistic political
tendencies all hinge on his Nietzscheanism.
HabermasÕs reading of Foucault may well be
the starkest example of this same phenomenon of
repudiating Foucault for his Nietzscheanism, but
it also proves the most complicated. In Lectures
IX and X of The Philosophical Discourse of
Modernity Habermas produces a dense, some-
times incisive, but often confusing critique of
Foucault. Any attempt to follow the trails that
Habermas blazes in those lectures would consti-
tute a detour here. Yet I would take the time to
note that the powerful critique contained in
HabermasÕs later Lectures hinges upon his earlier
reading of Hegel as that thinker who first identi-
fied modernity as a problem. Hegel thereby left
to us Òlate modernsÓ a choice of paths to follow.
The first trail attempts to resurrect reason in Òa
more modest fashionÓ and it has been followed
closely by the thinkers of the Frankfurt school.
11
All other paths derive from two Nietzschean
strategies Ð skeptical genealogy and deconstruc-
tion Ð both designed to Òreduce everything that
is and should be to the aesthetic dimensionÓ and
thereby to do away with reason in its entirety.
12
Habermas thus erects a complex and sophisti-
cated framework that makes Foucault an heir to
one of the failed trajectories (via Bataille) that
develop out of Nietzsche. As such, Foucault is
predestined to the Òrelativism, presentism, and
cryptonormativismÓ of which Habermas accuses
him.
13
HabermasÕs placement of Nietzsche within
Òthe philosophical discourse of modernityÓ as the
denier of reason, and therefore modernity itself,
constitutes the very bedrock of his critique of
Foucault Ð not to mention his dismissal of
Heidegger, Derrida, and Bataille. As heir to the
legacy of Nietzschean irrationalism, it only makes
sense that Foucault himself would prove to be
Òincoherent.Ó
14
Unlike Rorty, HabermasÕs read-
ing of Foucault and rejection of Nietzsche proves
quite nuanced and complex. Nonetheless, his
critique of Foucault only holds if Foucault is in
fact the Nietzschean that Habermas makes him
out to be.
I am not making a general or empirical claim
that all political theorists who criticize Foucault
do so by asserting his Nietzscheanism Ð no doubt
that would prove to be a fruitless and futile exer-
cise. Instead, I merely want to establish the
primary significance of FoucaultÕs so-called
Nietzscheanism to some of the most important
critiques of Foucault within political theory. But
in ÒdocumentingÓ this trend to read Foucault
and reject Nietzsche it is important to resist the
tendency to approach FoucaultÕs writings in a
manner similar to that of his critics. In other
words, one must resist taking up the very role of
commentator that Foucault calls into question. In
ÒLÕordre du discoursÓ [The Order of Discourse]
(awkwardly translated as ÒThe Discourse on
LanguageÓ) Foucault delineates the three internal
mechanisms of discourse that police and order its
structure. The first of those is commentary, an
internal rule of discourse that upholds the hier-
archy of primary and secondary text even as it
pretends not to: commentary Ògives us the oppor-
tunity to say something other than the text itself,
1 0 3
foucault’s maneuvers
but on condition that it is the text itself which is
uttered, and in some ways, finalized.Ó
15
I have
characterized Rorty and Habermas as Òcommen-
tatorsÓ in order to suggest that their interpreta-
tions of Foucault follow these very rules of
commentary, by describing FoucaultÕs texts as
secondary in relation to NietzscheÕs. The rule of
commentary therefore dictates that while
Foucault may appear to say something unique or
new, he really only, in the end, winds up repeat-
ing the skeptical relativism of Nietzsche. It does
not appear overly reductive to say that
Habermas, Rorty, and Taylor all follow this
pattern in their work on Foucault. But in trying
to document the trend to reduce Foucault to
Nietzsche I am seduced into the very same inter-
pretive tactic that I want to argue Foucault
attempts to evade: the practice of tracing intel-
lectual influences and authorial relations, and
then positioning Foucault within this network. In
other words, a critique of ÒFoucault commen-
taryÓ must make sure to avoid merely producing
more commentary. This risk raises the stakes for
assessing the practice of interpretation (a practice
I will describe in more detail below) that goes
largely unquestioned in efforts to situate
Foucault within the history of political thought.
Thus, it becomes indispensable to turn to
FoucaultÕs writings on that practice and to recon-
sider his own challenges to its ground rules.
II who is foucault? “what is an
author?” – challenges to
interpretation
If critics of Foucault tend to read Foucault and
reject Nietzsche then the most obvious way to
refute their pervasive critiques would be likely
to consist in disentangling Foucault from
Nietzsche Ð thus asking the question: are
Nietzsche and Foucault really equivalent? The
best site for this type of hermeneutical work is
undoubtedly FoucaultÕs brief Ð and some might
say brilliant Ð essay ÒNietzsche, Genealogy,
History.Ó Yet when theorists do turn to this essay
they tend to interpret it as a clear methodological
guidebook for understanding FoucaultÕs practice
of genealogy Ð once again taking Foucault as a
mere advocate of a thoroughly Nietzschean exer-
cise.
16
These commentators often assume that the
ÒgenealogyÓ in the title of the piece refers directly
to FoucaultÕs genealogies, and this allows them to
take passages from the article as evidence of
FoucaultÕs self-description of his own project.
Rudi Visker, for example, refers to the essay as
ÒFoucaultÕs explicit methodological thoughts on
the status of genealogy.Ó
17
Taking ÒNietzsche,
Genealogy, HistoryÓ as a statement by Foucault
concerning his own method only provides a
ground of support for the reduction of FoucaultÕs
writings to Nietzscheanism that I recounted
above. Thus the intellectual historian, the
commentator as Foucault might call him or her,
takes this essay as paradigmatic for his or her
practice of interpretation; ÒNietzsche, Genealogy,
HistoryÓ gives a window onto the very locus of
the Nietzschean ÒinfluenceÓ on Foucault.
Such an interpretive tendency may well have
been encouraged by the original presentation of
ÒNietzsche, Genealogy, HistoryÓ to an English-
speaking audience. Donald Bouchard, the editor
of the widely read anthology Language, Counter-
Memory, Practice, introduces the piece by saying
in a footnote that together with the introductory
chapter to the Archaeology of Knowledge, Òthis
essay represents FoucaultÕs attempt to explain his
relationship to those sources which are funda-
mental to his development. Its importance, in
terms of understanding his objectives, cannot be
exaggerated.Ó
18
My emphases on BouchardÕs
words serve here to highlight the inclination
toward an intellectual historiography that traces a
linear path, from FoucaultÕs early influences and
toward his end goal. No doubt, this is merely an
editorÕs note (one which reappeared, unchanged,
in the republication of the essay in The Foucault
Reader), but it does seem to suggest to a reader
who is looking for Foucault finally to provide
some clear insights into his methodology that he
or she has found the right place.
19
But tracking the causes of this tendency really
only begs the question: does ÒNietzsche,
Genealogy, HistoryÓ constitute a clear method-
ological statement on FoucaultÕs behalf, thereby
justifying the critiques of his Nietzscheanism?
ÒNietzsche, Genealogy, HistoryÓ presents those
readers seeking methodological reassurance with
a significant problem, for FoucaultÕs direct and
1 0 4
chambers
in-depth engagement with Nietzsche makes it
difficult to tell when Foucault is speaking and
when Foucault is allowing Nietzsche to speak. As
I hinted at above, it is for just this reason that
one might wish to challenge the dominant
approach to the essay with an exegetical effort to
extricate Foucault from Nietzsche (or vice versa).
This interpretive work would require that one
locate within FoucaultÕs essay on Nietzsche two
separate and distinct voices, one Nietzschean and
one Foucauldian. Therefore, taking up disentan-
gling as an interpretive strategy would allow one
to counter the distorting reading of ÒNietzsche,
Genealogy, HistoryÓ as a methodological state-
ment. Holding up a distinction between Foucault
and Nietzsche might thereby clarify the issues at
stake.
However, FoucaultÕs persistent elusiveness,
especially on questions of method, calls into
question not only the interpretation of
ÒNietzsche, Genealogy, HistoryÓ as a set of
methodological principles, but also the very
attempt to disentangle Foucault from Nietzsche,
to separate the two voices and coherently distin-
guish between them. Rather than countering one
error in reading (methodological statement) with
another one (disentangling), I want to read
FoucaultÕs own effort to delegitimize any effort at
pinning down the author (either by equating
Foucault with Nietzsche or by drawing a clear
line between them). Foucault renders problem-
atic the very ground of interpretation that his
commentators must, however silently, invoke
when they try to situate him Ð either in relation
to other ÒauthorsÓ or in the history of political
thought in general.
No doubt, ÒNietzsche, Genealogy, HistoryÓ
contains FoucaultÕs reading of Nietzsche. Does it,
however, provide a methodological statement by
Foucault regarding his own genealogical practice?
Just two years before the publication of
ÒNietzsche, Genealogy, HistoryÓ Ð and at almost
the same time as he was delineating Òcommen-
taryÓ as an internal rule of discourse Ð Foucault
directly called into question the very idea of
interpreting a text as if it were a self-revelation of
the author.
20
In so doing, he issues a challenge to
both of the interpretive strategies that I summa-
rized above. He predicts a day when the Òauthor-
functionÓ will disappear, a time when Òwe would
no longer hear the questions that have been
rehashed for so long: Who really spoke? Is it
really he and not someone else?Ó
21
Thus, accord-
ing to FoucaultÕs understanding, contemporary
writing Ð of which his own writing is no doubt a
part Ð renders invalid the search for either the
truth of the author, or the attempt to distinguish
between the voice of that author and the voice of
his or her object of study.
What is the condition of ÒtodayÕs writingÓ
22
such that it might undermine the possibility of
general interpretation? Foucault emphasizes not
the death of the author but the ÒdisappearanceÓ
of the author into the web of discourse that he or
she creates, modifies, transforms, criticizes, and
often rejects. As a practice, rather than as an orig-
inary expression of a subject, writing has some
central characteristics, according to Foucault.
First, writing plays out like a game
23
that unfail-
ingly breaks and transforms its own rules.
Writing thus has less to do with signified content
than with the always changing relations among
signifiers. The disappearance of the author
unmoors the text, prompting a shift in analysis
from the signifierÐsignified relation to the rela-
tion among signifiers themselves. Jacques
Derrida emphasizes the ÒiterabilityÓ of writing,
the capacity for all writing to be cited and
thereby removed from one context and placed
into another.
24
For Foucault, this citationality of
writing Ð writing as an Òinterplay of signsÓ Ð
tends to remove writing from the confines of Òthe
dimension of expressionÓ by a specific subject,
i.e., an author.
25
A space thereby opens up
between the subject of a series of statements and
the ÒauthorÓ who first wrote those statements.
Thus, no matter how rigorous the method of
interpretation, the ÒauthorÓ may always slip away
in this space: ÒIn writing, the point is not to
manifest or exalt the act of writing, nor is it to
pin a subject within language; it is, rather, a ques-
tion of creating a space into which the writing
subject constantly disappears.Ó
26
FoucaultÕs writ-
ings, I will argue below, continually struggle to
open and maintain this space.
Foucault sees this conception of writing as a
common one Ð Òphilosophy took note of the
disappearance É of the author some time
1 0 5
foucault’s maneuvers
agoÓ
27
Ð with contemporary interpretive emphasis
placed less and less on the privileged place of the
author. Yet he suggests that certain notions have
arisen that serve to maintain that very privilege.
Thus, for example, critical attention has shifted
away from the expressive function of the author,
but in its place one finds a new focus on the
Òwork.Ó
28
Therefore one analyzes not the relation
of the work to the author, but the internal struc-
ture and form of the work itself. But what,
Foucault asks almost immediately, is the Òwork
itselfÓ?
29
From what does the workÕs supposed
unity derive if not from the authority of the
author, the very subject whose legitimacy and
unity modern writing supposedly questions, and
rejects. Or, it might derive from the retroactive
unity of both author and work, established by the
production of commentary. In either case, if iter-
ability and citationality remain fundamentally
intrinsic to all writing then they must undermine
not only the priority of the author but also the
very possibility of a unity to any work of writing
(a source of some distress to the commentator).
The possibility of citing renders any closed or
fixed horizon for the work untenable, because to
cite is to remove from one context and place in
another Ð Òthere is nothing outside of context.Ó
30
The concept of the work only smuggles back into
an interpretive approach precisely what the disap-
pearance of the author should have already
rejected.
31
Foucault concludes his analysis of this notion
of the work with an example that appears innocu-
ous (or even random) but proves significant for
my purposes here. He writes:
The problem [with the work] is both theoreti-
cal and technical. When undertaking the publi-
cation of NietzscheÕs works, for example,
where should one stop? Surely everything must
be published, but what is ÒeverythingÓ?
Everything that Nietzsche himself published,
certainly. And what about the rough drafts of
his works? Obviously. The plans for his apho-
risms? Yes. The deleted passages and the notes
at the bottom of the page? Yes. What if, within
a workbook filled with aphorisms, one finds a
reference, the notation of a meeting or of an
address, or a laundry list: Is it a work, or not?
Why not?
32
Certainly this passage works to play out
FoucaultÕs point; the unity of the work proves
undeniably problematic. It serves another
purpose for my reading, because in referring to
NietzscheÕs laundry list this text, of ÒFoucaultÕs,Ó
again crosses a text of ÒDerridaÕs.Ó I will first cite
this intersection and then try to unpack its
importance. Recalling a previous encounter
between himself, Roger Laporte, and an undis-
closed third party, Derrida writes: Òwe found
ourselves É in disagreement with a certain
hermeneut who in passing had presumed to
ridicule the publication of NietzscheÕs unpub-
lished manuscripts. ÔThey will end up,Õ he said,
Ôpublishing his laundry notes and scraps like ÒI
have forgotten my umbrella.Ó ÕÓ
33
This junction containing NietzscheÕs publica-
tions and his laundry lists is situated precisely at
the point where Foucault and Derrida make their
most rigorous arguments against general inter-
pretation.
34
We simply cannot know Òfor sureÓ
35
what Nietzsche might have meant to say with ÒI
have forgotten my umbrella.Ó It might be possi-
ble, one day in the future, to reconstruct the vari-
ous contexts of this short note, to situate
NietzscheÕs writing of it in a certain horizon of
intention and meaning.
36
But this potentiality
goes hand in hand with another one: Òit is always
possible that the ÔI have forgotten my umbrellaÕ
detached as it is, not only from the milieu that
produced it, but also from any intention or mean-
ing on NietzscheÕs part, should remain so, whole
and intact, once and for all, without any other
context.Ó
37
The hermeneutic horizons both of
historical context (NietzscheÕs ÒmilieuÓ) and of
originary intentional meaning (what Nietzsche
Òmeant to sayÓ) may never be reproducible.
Nietzsche might well have had a secret code in
which ÒI have forgotten my umbrellaÓ conveyed
a special meaning, but Òwe will never know.Ó
38
Most importantly, even if we could know, even if
the first possibility could become a reality and we
could reconstruct such a horizon, our very read-
ing of the note would rip it from that context and
pull it into another. ÒReading, which is to relate
to writing, is to perforate such an horizon or the
hermeneutic sail.Ó
39
Reading always calls into
question the assured ground of any hermeneutic
interpretation.
1 0 6
chambers
The citational capacity of any piece of
writing Ð including the note from Nietzsche now
under scrutiny Ð undermines the hermeneutic
project by shaking the foundations of any inter-
pretive strategy that relies on the ground of
reconstructible meaning. The point here is
neither simply that interpretation and under-
standing take place outside of the original
context of the author, nor that one horizon of
meaning must unite with another horizon Ð the
Gadamerian fusion Ð for understanding to occur.
Instead, we must insist that writing can never be
confined to any particular horizon of meaning;
we can never eliminate the possibility of perfo-
rating that very horizon through reading.
ÒBecause [writing] is structurally liberated from
any living meaning [precisely because writing is
not speech] it is always possible that it means
nothing at all.Ó
40
The secret of writing is there-
fore not some hidden truth that the hermeneut
can eventually uncover; the secret Òis rather the
possibility that indeed it might have no secret.Ó
41
The possibility exists that the very iterable struc-
ture of writing might prevent it from having any
truly secret meaning, and this conclusion might
prove quite distressing to the hermeneut. Such a
conclusion challenges the notion, foundational
for certain hermeneutics, that there is always a
deeper meaning to be found. Derrida takes the
principle of interpretive charity Ð the idea that
misunderstanding can only take place against a
background of massive understanding Ð and
turns it on its head.
42
Davidson claims that
extensive background agreement is a transcen-
dental requirement of all interpretation, but
DerridaÕs arguments suggest just the opposite.
Perhaps understanding only takes places at the
unlikely intersection of a series of conflicting and
disparate discursive contexts Ð that is, against a
background of massive misunderstanding. The
background of understanding, the hermeneutic
horizon, presupposes some sort of closed
context,
43
but perhaps we can never secure such
a context. This is what Derrida means by the
possibility of puncturing the hermeneutic hori-
zon.
Nevertheless, the response to such a conclu-
sion is not to give up, but to read. Derrida
argues: Òif the structural limit and the remainder
of the simulacrum which has been left in writing
are going to be taken into account, the process of
decoding É must be carried to the furthest
lengths possible.Ó
44
The very structure of writing
that makes any assured meaning, any final inter-
pretation, impossible also calls for a vigilant and
rigorous reading of the text in question. The fact
that the hermeneutic horizon will always be
punctured by the practice of reading does not
entail that one stop reading. On the contrary, this
fact calls for more reading, for persistent reading
and continual rereading. Since the meaning can
never be fixed once and for all, the practice of
reading (and therefore writing) can never be
brought to a halt.
During the critical self-dialogue that forms the
conclusion to Archaeology of Knowledge,
Foucault remarks (to himself): ÒAs you know, I
have no great liking for interpretation.Ó
45
What
might Foucault mean to suggest in saying he does
not like interpretation? After all, is he not an
interpreter himself through and through Ð of
texts, of history, of, above all, discursive prac-
tices? And is the reading, the decoding, that
Derrida urges not also another form of interpre-
tation? FoucaultÕs dislike of interpretation and
his critical interrogation of the ÒworkÓ and the
Òauthor-function,Ó along with DerridaÕs explicit
critique of hermeneutics, offer a resistance to the
practices of interpretation to which the author is
subjected. This sort of interpretation therefore
pins the author down within language: tracing
influences upon the author, establishing the
unity of that authorÕs work, establishing the
tradition of commentary to which the author and
the work are subjected. General interpretation
thereby blinds us to the historical meanings
and transformations of the very discursive prac-
tices that the ÒauthorÓ may be contributing to,
or even perhaps helping to establish. In
sharp contrast, FoucaultÕs critical practice of
genealogy Ð certainly a species of interpretation,
but one quite distinct from the general interpre-
tation/hermeneutics challenged above Ð traces
that space or thicket Òinto which the writing
subject constantly disappearsÓ; it does so not in
order to unmask the author within the thicket
but rather in order to follow the traces that he or
she has left behind, to track the trail that still
1 0 7
foucault’s maneuvers
remains even after his or her disappearance.
Rather than pinning the author down, it asks
instead: ÒWhat are the modes of existence of this
discourse? Where has it been used, how can it
circulate, and who can appropriate it for
himself?Ó
46
This sort of practice of reading
simultaneously punctures the hermeneutic hori-
zon Ð that ground that would make a general
interpretation possible. By following the traces
created by writing, the reader opens up new
imaginative possibilities, while the hermeneut,
much like the commentator, is reduced to the
status of sententious critic.
These arguments hold important implications
for the way one approaches FoucaultÕs works.
They set the stage for my effort at tracking
FoucaultÕs strategies of evasion in the following
sections, and they provide us with a window into
FoucaultÕs writings that will allow his vision of
critique to emerge. The point is neither to cease
to read ÒFoucaultÓ nor to conclude that all read-
ings are equally plausible. Indeed, FoucaultÕs
own work on Nietzsche will offer numerous
examples of poor readings, even misreadings, and
Foucault states bluntly that his genealogies do
not Òvindicate a lyrical right to ignorance or non-
knowledge.Ó
47
Hence, one must continue to read
his writings but without attempting to fix their
meaning by tracing them to Foucault, their
author, or by reducing them to the influences
upon that author. By criticizing the idea of read-
ing a text as a self-exposing expressive act of the
author Foucault wishes to open up that space into
which the writing subject can disappear. And
Foucault goes on to hold that the anonymity
thereby achieved makes the reading of texts both
possible and necessary. He writes that such
anonymity is
a way of addressing more directly the possible
reader, the only character here who interests
me: ÒSince you donÕt know who I am, you will
not be tempted to look for the reasons for
which I state what you are reading: let yourself
go to the point of simply saying to yourself:
this is true, this false. That I like, that I donÕt.
One point, thatÕs all.Ó
48
In this spirit, I want now to turn to a reading of
ÒNietzsche, Genealogy, History.Ó Along the way
I will show how FoucaultÕs evasive maneuvers
allow him to disappear into his text and thereby
problematize any general strategy of interpreta-
tion; his text will therefore prove disconcerting to
both hermeneuts and commentators, those who
wish to fix Foucault in a certain position within
the history of thought as leverage for their
critique. By taking a different approach to this
text, we may also discover a concept of critique,
precisely what FoucaultÕs commentators insist is
lacking in his work.
III evasive maneuvers 1: reading
foucault reading nietzsche
ÒGenealogy is gray, meticulous, and patiently
documentary. It operates on a field of entangled
and confused parchments, on documents that
have been scratched over and recopied many
times.Ó
49
On this basis, it seems clear that critics
of Foucault are wrong to depict the history of
political and philosophical thought in terms of a
linear development.
50
Moreover, this short and
dense essay of FoucaultÕs struggles to make such
an attempt ever more vain. In this essay one will
not find a clear and succinct statement by
Foucault that will fit into a certain grid of think-
ing. On the contrary, to read ÒNietzsche,
Genealogy, HistoryÓ is to encounter a maze, a
web of disparate texts, phrases, statements, and
claims. As a first clue to the spinning of this web,
the reader may note the density of footnotes in
the first few pages of the essay.
51
At least from the perspective of the
Foucauldian Òhappy positivistÓ
52
the sheer
number of references that Foucault makes to
Nietzsche in this text proves quite striking.
Foucault has become famous for writing grand
historical/theoretical narratives that fail to cite
enough archival sources.
53
This style increased
the number of both his followers and his detrac-
tors in France, while it led to somewhat
outlandish caricatures of Foucault in the United
States. Thus, for example, a Time magazine
reporter claimed that Òhe doesnÕt do any
research, he just goes on instinct.Ó
54
Such a claim
seems dubious at best, but the fact remains that
Foucault was never a fan of copious endnotes.
However, ÒNietzsche, Genealogy, HistoryÓ
1 0 8
chambers
surprises its reader with note after note, citing
NietzscheÕs On the Genealogy of Morals, The
Gay Science, Human, All Too Human, Twilight
of the Idols, Daybreak, The Wanderer and His
Shadow, Nietzsche Contra Wagner, Beyond
Good and Evil, and Untimely Meditations. All
in all, Foucault cites Nietzsche fifty-three times
in the span of a twenty-page essay.
55
One can
compare this number to the total of only twelve
notes in the remaining eight essays in Language,
Counter-Memory, Practice. Even more signifi-
cantly, ten of those twelve notes appear in
ÒTheatrum PhilosophicumÓ Ð FoucaultÕs review
essay of two of DeleuzeÕs books. The meaning of
these numbers no doubt proves to be a matter of
interpretation/contestation, and I will not
attempt to demonstrate their statistical signifi-
cance. Nevertheless, the differential does suggest
that something unusual is going on in
ÒNietzsche, Genealogy, History.Ó With Foucault
incessantly slipping away into Nietzsche it proves
less than straightforward to take this essay as a
statement by Foucault concerning his own
genealogical method.
We can enter this spinning web by noting that
Foucault picks a key text of NietzscheÕs, On the
Genealogy of Morals, upon which to focus his
reading. Foucault engages in his own philological
effort by laying out a very subtle argument about
NietzscheÕs use of language in this work and else-
where. At specific points in his texts, according
to Foucault, Nietzsche attempts to make a crucial
analytical/linguistic distinction that is not present
at all in other places. When referring to ÒoriginÓ
Nietzsche often freely exchanges the words
Enstehung, Herkunft, Abkunft, and Geburt, but
in certain arguments Nietzsche stresses the word
Ursprung.
56
Foucault goes on to show that
Nietzsche uses Ursprung to characterize Òthe
miraculous origin sought by metaphysics,Ó
whereas Herkunft is Òmore exactÓ in Òrecording
the true objective of genealogy.Ó
57
Thus, through
an analysis of Herkunft, Nietzsche can advocate a
historical sense that remains attentive to origins.
But, at the same time, Nietzsche rejects both the
history of the philosopher who, like Hegel, would
seek the truth in the world-historical march of
Geist, and the history of the historian Ð Òby
searching out origins, one becomes a crab. The
historian looks backward; eventually he also
believes backward.Ó
58
Therefore, Òthe genealo-
gist refuses to extend his faith in metaphysics.Ó
59
But who is the genealogist? Does Foucault or
Nietzsche (or both) refuse to extend faith in
metaphysics? Although once again Foucault
writes so as to evade just this sort of question,
one must remember here that it is Nietzsche who
constantly remains vigilant against the Òcomfort
of metaphysicsÓ and the Òmetaphysical needÓ of
human beings.
60
Foucault rarely, if ever, evinces
a concern with metaphysics in his discursive
analyses, and so Foucault himself seems to be
reading Nietzsche here Ð not simply making his
own declarations.
To complicate matters further, Foucault
concludes this section on origins with a remark-
able statement: Òtruth is undoubtedly the sort of
error that cannot be refuted because it was hard-
ened into an unalterable form in the long baking
process of history.Ó
61
The claim proves extraor-
dinary because of the presence of the word
Òundoubtedly,Ó a term which allows Foucault to
embrace precisely the sort of Òperformative
contradictionÓ that Habermas fundamentally
rejects in his ÒDiscourse Ethics.Ó
62
The locution
of the sentence categorizes truth as a type of
error, but a type that simply remains closed off
from the possibility of refutation. Yet in its illo-
cutionary force the statement presents itself as
irrefutable and therefore as the same sort of
error. Foucault thus invokes truth as an error at
the same time as he tries to make a supposedly
true claim about truth as an error. Such a speech
act is simply precluded from pragmatic redemp-
tion within the world of Habermasian discourse
ethics.
But one point here must be clearly empha-
sized: Foucault does not naively or innocently fall
into the trap of a performative contradiction (as
the bumbling ÒskepticÓ almost always does
within HabermasÕs descriptions). Foucault is
precisely embracing what would appear to be a
performative contradiction from the perspective
of Habermas and others. This is why Òundoubt-
edlyÓ proves so central to FoucaultÕs formulation
of NietzscheÕs argument about truth. By simply
stating that truth is an error which cannot be
refuted Foucault would, of course, meet the mini-
1 0 9
foucault’s maneuvers
mal conditions for a performative contradiction.
But FoucaultÕs essay exceeds the bounds of a
merely formal piece of logical reasoning. Thus,
when Foucault suggests that truth is undoubtedly
this sort of error he simultaneously highlights the
performative contradiction and rejects it as a
charge.
In the ÒworldÓ of writing that Foucault and
Nietzsche inhabit, performative contradictions
cannot be prohibited by mere decree. Yet uncov-
ering this status of FoucaultÕs statement should
give the reader reason to pause before assuming
that Foucault means his statement as a method-
ological claim of the sort: Òin Foucauldian geneal-
ogy, truth always equals error.Ó What, one must
again ask, does this characterization have to do
with Nietzsche? It seems clear that Foucault sees
truth, as does Nietzsche, as a product of histori-
cal forces, but it is Nietzsche, not Foucault, who
refers to truth as an error. This theme runs
throughout NietzscheÕs writings and proves espe-
cially prevalent in Beyond Good and Evil and
Twilight of the Idols. For example, Nietzsche
asks, more than rhetorically: ÒSuppose we want
truth: why not rather untruth? É how could
anything originate out of its opposite? for exam-
ple, truth out of error?Ó Moreover, exactly
because Òtruth is an error that cannot be refutedÓ
Nietzsche goes on to describe Òuntruth as a
condition of life.Ó
63
In subtle but significant
contrast, Foucault prefers to talk about the
production of truth within a certain Òregime of
truthÓ made up by discursive practices. As Barry
Allen puts it, Òthis does not entail a cheerless
condemnation of truth as a lie or a ruse,Ó and he
goes on to cite Foucault: Òneither is it a skeptical
or relativistic refusal of all verified truth.Ó
64
Foucault refuses to flatly reject truth in the way
that Nietzsche sometimes appears to Ð and for
which Nietzsche is charged (fairly or unfairly)
with skeptical relativism Ð and Foucault makes
sure to distance himself from such conclusions.
It thus begins to become clear Ð or maybe just
opaque Ð that FoucaultÕs reading of Nietzsche
serves to undermine any attempt to pin Foucault
down, especially on (what his interpreters take to
be) crucial methodological issues. To read
ÒNietzsche, Genealogy, HistoryÓ as Nietzsche
himself would recommend Ð that is, Òslowly,
deeply, with consideration and cautionÓ
65
Ð
requires that one enter into the maze of connec-
tions between FoucaultÕs text and the multiple
texts of Nietzsche. The type of reading that
enters into this maze works to illuminate the writ-
ings of Nietzsche and Foucault, but only as it
simultaneously destabilizes those writings and
renders any fixing of their position untenable.
66
A more extended example can both develop
these claims and lend further credence to them.
In this case I want to look closely and carefully
at a passage from ÒNietzsche, Genealogy,
HistoryÓ that has struck some commentators as
at best odd, and at worst highly obscure and
problematic. Foucault writes: Òtruth or being do
not lie at the root of what we know and what we
are, but the exteriority of accidents. This is
undoubtedly why every origin of morality from
the moment it stops being pious Ð and Herkunft
can never be Ð has value as a critique.Ó
67
On first
reading, the passage from Foucault seems a bit
peculiar because of the emphasis placed on the
word Òpious.Ó However, rather than focus on
such peculiarity one might first ask if Foucault is
alluding to the conception of piety that plays a
pivotal role in so many of NietzscheÕs writings.
Nietzsche titles a crucially important aphorism
in The Gay Science: ÒHow we, too, are still
pious.Ó
68
He argues there that science in general
seems to reject convictions and blind faith Ð to
do away with piety. Yet in order for science to
begin as science it had to maintain one ultimate
conviction that never went questioned. Nietzsche
suggests that Òthere simply is no science Ôwithout
presuppositionsÕÓ since science must hold on to
an unconditional will to truth as its very condi-
tion of emergence as a science.
69
Nietzsche
suspects that a similar piety lies at the core of the
existence of even the free spirits that he seeks to
cultivate, and he suggests that their future lies in
recognizing (and thereby overcoming?) this last
vestige of piety:
you will have gathered what I am driving at,
namely, that it is still a metaphysical faith
upon which our faith in science rests Ð that
even we seekers after knowledge today, we
godless anti-metaphysicians still take our fire,
too, from the flame lit by a faith that is thou-
sands of years old, that Christian faith which
1 1 0
chambers
was also the faith of Plato, that God is the
truth, that truth is divine. Ð But what if this
should become more and more incredible, if
nothing should prove to be divine any more
unless it were error, blindness, the lie Ð if God
himself should prove to be our most enduring
lie? Ð
70
Ceasing to be pious thus entails the final resis-
tance of the Òmetaphysical needÓ found in all
human beings Ð even Nietzschean free spirits.
When Foucault claims that ÒHerkunft can never
be [pious]Ó he turns back to the distinction he
wants to draw in NietzscheÕs writings between
Herkunft and Ursprung. Herkunft can never be
pious because Ursprung is the glorious origin
sought after by metaphysics, the origin that
would always be pious because its very existence
rests upon a metaphysical faith in divine origina-
tion. Herkunft can never be pious because it
entails the non-metaphysical analysis of descent;
it Òdoes not pretend to go back in time to restore
an unbroken continuity.Ó
71
Foucault makes the
connections here himself: ÒThe genealogist needs
history to dispel the chimeras of the origin, some-
what in the manner of the pious philosopher who
needs a doctor to exorcise the shadow of his
soul.Ó
72
Genealogical history provides an anti-
dote to a pious, metaphysical philosophy of
history.
NietzscheÕs writings on piety shed light not
only on a genealogical understanding of history
but also on a conception of critical thinking; in
section 24 of the Genealogy of Morals Nietzsche
cites the section of The Gay Science that I have
just unpacked. Further, he goes on to argue that
if his new philosophers or free spirits (or, who
knows, Foucauldian genealogists) can relinquish
their final vestiges of piety then they will finally
be able to turn to the more profound problem of
value.
73
Here, Nietzsche points to the critical
implications of genealogy: Òfrom the moment
faith in the God of the ascetic ideal is denied, a
new problem arises: that of the value of truth.
The will to truth requires a critique Ð let us thus
define our task Ð the value of truth must for
once be experimentally called into question.Ó
74
Once Òwe, tooÓ are no longer pious, once we no
longer rest upon a pious metaphysical faith in
truth, then truth can itself be questioned Ð the
very task of critique, according to Nietzsche. We
thus discover, after a long and complex detour,
that the issue of piety links back up with the
question of critique. But this conclusion simply
cannot be reached without the aid of Nietzsche,
without realizing, that is, that FoucaultÕs text
weaves its way into and out of the labyrinth of
NietzscheÕs texts Ð to the extent that at some
points FoucaultÕs own voice is made to disap-
pear.
Moreover, the problem of piety proves to be
only the first step in elaborating upon the seem-
ingly strange passage from Foucault. Foucault
cites Nietzsche at the end of that passage, but
rather than referring to the works on piety and
the critique of values that I have been discussing
above, Foucault points to the section of Twilight
of the Idols titled ÒÔReasonÕ in Philosophy.Ó This
section of Twilight provides an even more direct
development of critical genealogy. Michael
Mahon describes these passages from Nietzsche
as central to NietzscheÕs own critical project: Òin
these five short sections, five long aphorisms, we
encounter genealogy as critique; indeed, we
encounter genealogy promising the realization of
the critique of reason.Ó
75
Within this section of Twilight, Nietzsche
accuses philosophers of lacking in historical sense
precisely to the degree that they have faith in
reason. Nietzsche refers to this philosophical trait
as Egypticism: Òall that philosophers have
handled for thousands of years have been
concept-mummies; nothing real escaped their
grasp alive.Ó
76
Because of the metaphysical faith
in eternal being, philosophers turn against all
things in a state of becoming; they turn against
history and the senses Ð against, in fact, all things
entirely (since for Nietzsche the world is made up
by the continually flowing flux of appearances).
Yet for Nietzsche all things have a history and
the senses do not lie. It is the lack of historical
sense and the faith in the unity of reason that
produce the very lie that philosophers blame on
the senses: Òthey [the senses] do not lie at all.
What we make of their testimony, that alone
introduces lies: for example, the lie of unity, the
lie of thinghood, of substance, of permanence.
ÔReasonÕ is the cause of our falsification of the
testimony of the senses.Ó
77
1 1 1
foucault’s maneuvers
Nietzsche goes further to show the link
between reason and the metaphysics of language.
The everyday use of language promotes the false
belief in reason, a belief that the ÒEgyptianÓ
philosophers raise to the level of an eternal
faith Ð ÒIÕm afraid we are not rid of God because
we still have faith in grammar.Ó
78
ÒWe, tooÓ are
still pious because of our unconscious faith in the
grammar of our language. Only historical sense Ð
genealogical analysis Ð can resist this temptation
of faith and reveal the falsification and distortion
carried out by reason and the metaphysics of
language. As Mahon puts it: Òa genealogy of
morals, thus, reveals the will at the heart of our
preference for reason, at the heart of our falsifi-
cation of sensual evidence, or our preference for
being over becoming. A genealogy of morals,
thus, promises the realization of the critique of
reason.Ó
79
A critique such as this does not begin
with an Ursprung-like pursuit of epistemological
foundations. Instead, through Herkunft Ð a
genealogicalÐhistorical analysis of descent Ð it
seeks the history of regimes of truth and the
moral will that undergirds them. FoucaultÕs
philological discussion of Herkunft serves to
highlight just these aspects of NietzscheÕs writ-
ings on genealogy and history: Òthe search for
descent [Herkunft] is not the erecting of founda-
tions: on the contrary, it disturbs what was previ-
ously considered immobile; it fragments what
was thought unified; it shows the heterogeneity
of what was imagined consistent with itself.Ó
80
Thus, as Foucault reads Nietzsche, Herkunft,
which can never be pious, is such a historical
investigation that unravels the philosopherÕs
concept-mummies; Herkunft is a critique of
reason.
In the final section of this essay I will suggest
some significant connections between this vision
of critique, which emerges through FoucaultÕs
evasive maneuvers in and around Nietzsche, and
the practice of critique that Foucault champions
in his so-called Òlater writingsÓ Ð a category, one
should note, only made possible by Òcommen-
tary.Ó For now, it suffices to emphasize the
complexity and difficulty of the textual work
required in order to explicate the intersection of
Nietzsche with FoucaultÕs reading of Nietzsche.
On one level, the implications of such work seem
rather simple. The point is that in ÒNietzsche,
Genealogy, HistoryÓ FoucaultÕs evasive maneu-
vers prohibit one from either reducing his
thought to Nietzscheanism or easily separating
the formerÕs texts from the latterÕs. Reading
FoucaultÕs essay requires one to understand not
only that their voices are not merely the same,
but also that one must understand NietzscheÕs
arguments, in all their complexity, before it will
be possible to get a clear conception of FoucaultÕs
position; but, in the end, the crossing of
NietzscheÕs texts with FoucaultÕs serves to
demonstrate that Foucault will never take a posi-
tion that is clear Ð he remains evasive. In this
example, then, it seems obvious that Foucault is
not merely saying that his method of genealogy
is a form of critique because it is not pious. What
he argues there proves unintelligible unless we
see the context from which it emerges, to which
it refers, and with which it constantly engages.
Upon viewing (and reading) this context
FoucaultÕs claims become not merely intelligible,
they become capable of responding to exactly the
questions that many of his interpreters have
raised, in highly critical voices.
IV evasive maneuvers 2: reading
foucault reading deleuze reading
nietzsche
The above examples help to explicate FoucaultÕs
and NietzscheÕs thoughts on genealogy, history,
and critique. In this way they lead to interpre-
tive understanding of Foucault and Nietzsche,
but they also undermine those interpretive
strategies that would seek to know Òfor sureÓ
what either Nietzsche or Foucault meant to
say Ð or to pinpoint who is who within the essay.
The latticework of crisscrosses, intersections,
and entanglements between texts by Foucault
and texts by Nietzsche exemplifies ÒtodayÕs writ-
ingÓ as that which creates Òa space into which
the writing subject constantly disappears.Ó This
formulation in ÒWhat is an Author?Ó turns out
to be the conclusion of ÒNietzsche, Genealogy,
HistoryÓ as well: ÒIt is no longer a question of
judging the past in the name of a truth that only
we can possess in the present, but of risking the
destruction of the subject who seeks knowledge
1 1 2
chambers
in the endless deployment of the will to
knowledge.Ó
81
This alone would seem to be enough to trou-
ble the hermeneut, the commentator, or the intel-
lectual historian who wishes to pin Foucault
down as the subject of writing and place him in
his proper position in the history of thought. And
yet FoucaultÕs evasive maneuvers go significantly
beyond the scope of the examples from the previ-
ous section; it turns out that FoucaultÕs text
ostensibly on Nietzsche pushes the envelope of
interpretation and explodes the practice of
commentary. Foucault approaches NietzscheÕs
writings with an ever-complex reading, spinning
out multiple levels of textuality which produce a
discourse without a clear author-function (it
cannot simply be ÒFoucaultÓ) and belonging to
no particular oeuvre (would it be FoucaultÕs,
NietzscheÕs by way of commentary, or perhaps
someone elseÕs?). ÒNietzsche, Genealogy,
HistoryÓ proves even more complicated because
of the trace of another set of discourses Ð that of
Gilles Deleuze. In short, and as I will try to
demonstrate below, Foucault hides himself as
author behind Deleuze while he concomitantly
hides Deleuze. In the process, the space between
the author and the subject only grows larger, and
the practice of commentary or general interpre-
tation only grows more futile.
Claiming Deleuze as a key figure in this text
may strike the reader as somewhat bizarre, since
in ÒNietzsche, Genealogy, HistoryÓ Foucault
never once mentions or cites Deleuze in any
capacity. This in spite of the fact that DeleuzeÕs
reading of Nietzsche in Nietzsche and
Philosophy quite simply changed the way that
French intellectuals approached the thought of
Nietzsche.
82
Thus, it is not an overstatement to
say that in France in the late 1960s and early
1970s it would have been almost impossible to
approach the writings of Nietzsche without going
through DeleuzeÕs book. And yet Foucault makes
absolutely no mention of that book. He does so
also in spite of the fact that Foucault had
certainly read DeleuzeÕs book and it Òhad greatly
impressed [him]Ó Ð to say the least.
83
Moreover,
Foucault and Deleuze were already well
acquainted and had connected intellectually
precisely on the writings of Nietzsche. They had
met at a conference in which Foucault presented
a paper on Freud, Marx, and Nietzsche that
continually praised Deleuze. And Deleuze went
somewhat out of his way to return the favor by
complimenting Foucault in his closing
remarks.
84
Perhaps most importantly, at the time
of the publication of ÒNietzsche, Genealogy,
HistoryÓ Foucault and Deleuze had been working
for some years together on a collaborative effort
to produce Òa French version of the Colli-
Montinari edition of Nietzsche.Ó
85
Such a collab-
oration might well have provided the motivation
for Foucault to publish a review article of two of
DeleuzeÕs books in which Foucault goes so far in
his praise of Deleuze as to suggest that Òperhaps
one day, this century will be known as
Deleuzian.Ó
86
These grand remarks concerning
DeleuzeÕs profound contribution to twentieth-
century thought appeared just one year prior to
ÒNietzsche, Genealogy, History.Ó
This mounting evidence from biographical
and publishing history could serve to establish
beyond any reasonable doubt that DeleuzeÕs life
and work had an impact on Foucault and his
writing, particularly his writing on Nietzsche.
That is, a standard approach to intellectual
history could locate a significant ÒinfluenceÓ
here. It could do so if it were not for the fact that
Òintellectual influenceÓ is precisely what
FoucaultÕs texts radically problematize. In other
words, if Foucault had sought to acknowledge the
typical intellectual influence he would have
certainly cited Deleuze in the notes; he would
have been likely to discuss DeleuzeÕs writings in
the text; and he might have even said his thanks
to Deleuze in a line of acknowledgment. Foucault
does none of these things; he is evasive. Rather
than take up an approach that my reading of
Foucault has already called into question, I will
read this ÒinfluenceÓ as, in fact, another strata-
gem of escape for Foucault. Such an approach
proves much more consistent with the essay itself
and with the fact that Deleuze is never
mentioned, though he has left his traces all over
FoucaultÕs text. His presence is ghostly.
The textual clues to such traces sometimes
seem simple enough, but finding evidence for the
appearance of these Deleuzian ghosts proves at
other times to be quite difficult and complex. I
1 1 3
will track these connections to Deleuze through
three (increasingly intricate) examples. One can
begin by noting the heavy significance that
Deleuze places on terminology in all of
NietzscheÕs works. He argues that we must be
precise with terminology in reading Nietzsche,
since Òall the rigor of his philosophy É depends
on it.Ó
87
Since Nietzsche creates new terms for
new concepts, Deleuze insists that one can only
understand the latter by paying close attention to
the former. As I outlined above, Foucault frames
his entire reading of Nietzsche through an analy-
sis of NietzscheÕs terminological distinctions
among words that all translate as Òorigin.Ó Thus,
Foucault has certainly taken this Deleuzian
emphasis to heart, and Foucault writes more like
a philologist when engaging with Nietzsche than
with any other author he encounters Ð this helps
to account for the numerous notes.
Terminology might seem a minor issue
(though Deleuze, of course, would reject that
characterization), but it sets the stage for more
significant connections. Foucault follows Deleuze
much more subtly in the opening of ÒNietzsche,
Genealogy, History.Ó Foucault begins the essay
by conjuring up the imagery of Zarathustra
plagued by a monkey who follows him along.
Deleuze makes precisely the same reference to
Zarathustra on just the third page of his book;
thus, each author places the image of Zarathustra
and the monkey at the outset of their engage-
ments with Nietzsche.
88
Moreover, like Deleuze,
Foucault draws on the Zarathustran symbol of
the divine spider that spins the web of the
world.
89
It would hardly be noteworthy in and of
itself that both Foucault and Deleuze refer to
Thus Spoke Zarathustra or that they both discuss
the divine spider, but, curiously enough,
Foucault invokes such Zarathustran imagery
without ever citing Zarathustra. In fact, Foucault
never cites Zarathustra in the entire essay,
though he persistently draws on such tropes.
Once again, there is not necessarily anything new
to be found in FoucaultÕs failure to cite a source
but, as I mentioned above, in ÒNietzsche,
Genealogy, HistoryÓ Foucault cites almost every
single major work of Nietzsche except
Zarathustra. This discrepancy deserves some
degree of explanation.
The mystery starts to unravel when one brings
in the absent, but seemingly ever-present, figure
of Deleuze. It turns out that Deleuze not only
cites Zarathustra but, in fact, cites the passage
from Nietzsche that mentions the spider. The
textual links that FoucaultÕs essay draws to
Zarathustra can only be completed by weaving
their way through the heart of DeleuzeÕs text.
Furthermore, DeleuzeÕs very citation of the
passage on the spider comes during his discus-
sion of the Òdicethrow,Ó a Nietzschean metaphor
made famous by Deleuze and strongly empha-
sized by Foucault.
90
In short, it seems that
ÒDeleuzeÓ continually ÒappearsÓ as the third key
figure in ÒNietzsche, Genealogy, History.Ó
This unmarked, ghost-like presence of Deleuze
often proves much more complicated and signif-
icant, and thus even more conspicuous by its
formal absence. In fact, reading this essay not
merely as Foucault, and not only as Foucault
reading Nietzsche, but as Foucault reading
Deleuze reading Nietzsche can help to clarify a
number of the passages about which Foucault has
been taken to task. For example, as many of
FoucaultÕs critics have emphasized, his reading of
Nietzsche focuses markedly on the role of the
body and its impression by the process of history.
Deleuze also places great importance on under-
standing the role of the body within NietzscheÕs
work. Moreover, as an intriguing example of
these connections, one can look at the text of
ÒNietzsche, Genealogy, HistoryÓ at the point
where Foucault suggests that Òdescent attaches
itself to the bodyÓ
91
and then goes on to cite
NietzscheÕs The Gay Science for support of this
claim. Some interpreters extrapolate a line of
logic here which reaches the conclusion that
Foucauldian genealogy presupposes the body as a
prior ontological ground, one that only later
becomes exposed to historical processes.
92
But it
cannot be that simple, since, strangely enough,
the passage that Foucault cites never mentions
the body at all. Indeed, on first and even second
readings the passage Foucault cites appears to
have nothing to do with the body. However, in
that section of The Gay Science Nietzsche does
cite Spinoza. If one then consults the section in
DeleuzeÕs reading of Nietzsche devoted specifi-
cally to the body, one finds that Deleuze uses
foucault’s maneuvers
1 1 4
chambers
Spinoza as his point of departure for an exegesis
of NietzscheÕs understanding of the body.
93
According to Deleuze, Nietzsche thinks of the
body in a way that challenges Spinoza.
To summarize, FoucaultÕs essay makes a claim
about NietzscheÕs understanding of the body and,
as evidence, cites a passage where Nietzsche criti-
cizes Spinoza. The reference appears utterly
obtuse, since it says nothing about the body, until
we bring in the uncited work of Deleuze in which
the Nietzschean critique of Spinoza helps to
explain NietzscheÕs understanding of the body.
And this understanding, as it turns out, can by no
means be reduced to the notion of the body as a
tabula rasa. The Deleuzian reading of NietzscheÕs
critique of Spinoza, to which Foucault tacitly
refers, insists that: Òwe do not define [the body]
by saying it is a field of forces, a nutrient medium
fought over by a plurality of forces. For in fact
there is no Ômedium.ÕÓ
94
It would thereby be a
misreading to take FoucaultÕs claim that Herkunft
ÒattachesÓ to the body to imply a definition of the
body as a neutral medium.
Thus, Foucault not only reads Nietzsche in
ÒNietzsche, Genealogy, History,Ó but reads him
through DeleuzeÕs reading. Interpretive strategies
of both ÒinfluenceÓ and ÒdisentanglingÓ thereby
become ever more futile. DeleuzeÕs ÒNietzscheÓ
(and, one might say, FoucaultÕs ÒDeleuzeÓ)
therefore provides Foucault with yet another
strategy Ð this time a dense, complex, and subtle
one Ð for avoiding any interpretive effort to pin
him down. In a sense, Foucault hides his reading
of Nietzsche behind DeleuzeÕs reading of
Nietzsche. Yet even this formulation proves too
simple since Foucault hides DeleuzeÕs reading of
Nietzsche as well. FoucaultÕs efforts at evasion
are complex; this may account for the fact that
they are successful and the fact that they are
misrecognized. However, I would like to end by
suggesting, first, that such misrecognition should
not masquerade as successful criticism and,
second, that such criticism should not blind us to
FoucaultÕs own vision of critique.
V method, evasion, critique
In
emerging
from
the
thicket
of
FoucaultÐNietzscheÐDeleuze it might seem
prudent and pragmatic to regain oneÕs bearings
and ask certain basic questions about ÒNietzsche,
Genealogy, History.Ó Can the essay at least guide
us in understanding FoucaultÕs methodology?
Does it contain a description of his own critical
project? It should be clear by now that the former
question proves misplaced. When read carefully
this essay not only fails to provide the blueprint
for FoucaultÕs method but also challenges the
very idea of a single method. Foucault consis-
tently and continually undermines the effort at
applying a method to his work, and in
ÒNietzsche, Genealogy, HistoryÓ his evasive
maneuvers thwart our efforts to find a set of
methodological guidelines. None of this is to say
that Foucault would have us study history
randomly or haphazardly. Depending on the
historical problematic he wishes to address,
Foucault both takes up and discards a number of
different methodological tools, and many of his
works focus on the question of how to study vari-
ous moments in, and subjects of, history. But
when it comes to the notion of a general method,
the significance of FoucaultÕs work lies in his
ability to stifle our efforts at finding a secret
methodological key to unlocking his works Ð or,
for that matter, anyone elseÕs. Those commenta-
tors who would play the game of the intellectual
historian in their interpretive approach to
FoucaultÕs texts often miss his critical project
entirely and instead come to rather damning
conclusions about his Òwork.Ó FoucaultÕs chal-
lenges to both interpretation and authorship lead
to a change in the very ground rules presupposed
by his critical commentators. This is why so
many of those commentators misrecognize his
evasive maneuvers, taking them for methodolog-
ical or epistemological mistakes.
While we may not draw the sorts of definitive
conclusions about FoucaultÕs methodology that
we are so often seduced into seeking, we should
certainly take something important from
ÒNietzsche, Genealogy, History.Ó With respect to
the second question asked above, I have tried to
show in my own reading that FoucaultÕs evasive
maneuvers help to illuminate the edges of a
certain critical project. That project emerges
more clearly when, in a somewhat triangular fash-
ion, we link up FoucaultÕs evasive maneuvers
1 1 5
with his work on the question of the
AufklŠrung Ð particularly his arguments in the
lecture titled ÒWhat is Critique?Ó Ð and with the
distinction between power and domination that
he draws in his final interview.
A little more than nine years after giving the
lecture ÒWhat is an Author?Ó Foucault returned
to the French Society of Philosophy to offer an
untitled talk that we now refer to as ÒWhat is
Critique?Ó
95
Throughout this presentation
Foucault resists the title of philosopher, and he
begins quite characteristically by bringing a
certain historical sense to the philosophical
concept of critique. According to Foucault, we
can date a certain Òcritical attitudeÓ
96
from at
least the fifteenth century; this attitude describes
a particular way of thinking, speaking, and
acting, and it fills in a broad critical spectrum
that runs from the transcendental project of Kant
all the way to the petty professional activities of
contemporary academia. One searches in vain,
Foucault argues, to find a unity for critique,
Òsince critique only exists in relation to some-
thing other than itself,Ó but he notes that all such
critique is Òa means for a future.Ó
97
From this small opening, Foucault seeks to
describe critique as a response to certain specific
historical forces that develop in fifteenth- and
sixteenth-century Western Europe; these are the
forces of governmentalization, the historical rise
in the art of governing human beings. For
Foucault, the question of how to govern Ð
whether it be children, soldiers, the poor, or the
newly emerging citizenÐsubject Ð proves central
to this period of Western history. Along with the
rise of populations and the crystallization of
nation-states, we witness the emergence of
governmentalization as a diverse set of practices
that rule human beings. But just as the process
of governmentalization develops, so too develops
a critical reaction to governmentalization. Thus,
at the same point in history we also witness a
certain counter-movement that Foucault identi-
fies as the very emergence of the critical attitude.
Critique, Foucault consistently maintains, must
always be a response to something else, and can
only be understood in relation to that something
else. The origin of the critical attitude, for
Foucault, lies in the response to governmental-
ization. In the very midst of the preoccupation
with how to govern, Òwe identify a perpetual
question which would be: Ôhow not to be
governed like that.ÕÓ
98
Critique can therefore be
defined as Òthe art of not being governed quite
so much.Ó
99
This definition of critique can be deepened
and further elaborated by showing how it links
up with the crucial distinction that Foucault
draws in one of his final interviews. In an effort
to clarify his position on the so-called ubiquity of
power relations, Foucault makes an important
move to separate power relations from relations
of domination. He argues that institutionalized
and therefore fixed relations of power should be
conceived as Òdomination,Ó but these relations of
domination persist only through the intervention
of governmental technologies that rigidify those
relations. ÒPowerÓ as a term ought to be reserved
for the relations themselves, relations that always
prove inescapable, but not therefore evil. With
respect to FoucaultÕs definition of critique, this
distinction shows us that governmentalization
and critique both center on power relations, but
the latter seeks to loosen the grip of the former.
ÒThe art of not being governed quite so muchÓ
hinges on prohibiting power relations from
becoming relations of domination. Political and
philosophical analysis of power relations can
therefore offer leverage for the critique of those
relations that have become crystallized, precisely
by showing how power relations are institutional-
ized and made static through the governmental-
ization process.
100
Critique must be a challenge
to governmentalization, a challenge to static and
institutionally secured domination.
Foucault himself concretizes the definition of
critique through historical example: (1) within
the church, critique meant challenging or resist-
ing ecclesiastical rule by returning to the
Scriptures to find something other than the
dogma of the church; (2) as a citizen, not want-
ing to be governed so much meant challenging
the authority or legitimacy of the rule of law,
often by seeking the limits of political rule in
the higher power of natural law; (3) in
philosophyÐscience more broadly, critique could
mean any challenge to given truths, any effort at
undermining or independently validating what
foucault’s maneuvers
1 1 6
chambers
science would dictate truth to be. In all of these
cases, Foucault suggests, critique amounts to a
resistance to being governed by rendering prob-
lematic the triangular relationship between truth,
power, and the subject:
Critique is the movement by which the subject
gives himself the right to question the truth on
its effects of power and question power on its
discourses of truth É Critique [is] the art of
voluntary insubordination, that of reflected
intractability. [It would] insure the desubjuga-
tion of the subject in the context of what we
would call, in a word, the politics of truth.
101
The desubjugation of the subject, it should be
clear, has little to do with eliminating human
agency, and everything to do with what Foucault
defines as critique, the art of not being governed
Òquite so much,Ó of not being governed Òlike
that.Ó By desubjugating subjectivity critique
seeks to enable the very political agency with
which FoucaultÕs critics seem so concerned.
It should also be clear that the number of
domains in which critique proves both possible
and necessary has only grown since the fifteenth
and sixteenth centuries. Among other categories,
Foucault lists writing, thereby drawing connec-
tions back to his earlier work on interpretation
and authorship. FoucaultÕs evasive maneuvers
must be seen as part and parcel of his conception
of critique, since those maneuvers resist the
governmentalization produced by both commen-
tary and general interpretation. His writing
strategies seek to effect the very Òdesubjugation
of the subjectÓ that he locates at the heart of
critique. FoucaultÕs evasiveness constitutes that
Òvoluntary insubordinationÓ that his commenta-
tors find precisely intractable. Thus, the putative
gap between ÒNietzsche, Genealogy, HistoryÓ or
ÒWhat is an Author?Ó and FoucaultÕs writings on
the AufklŠrung (and his later engagement with
the Frankfurt school) turns out to be dramati-
cally smaller than many once thought. FoucaultÕs
writing seeks to change the nature of criticism
itself, and in so doing it evades and undermines
the position of his strongest critics:
I canÕt help thinking of the critic who would
not try to judge, but bring into existence a
work, a book, a phrase, an idea. He would light
the fires, watch the grass grow, listen to the
wind, snatch the passing dregs in order to scat-
ter them. He would multiply, not the number
of judgements, but the signs of existence; he
would call out to them, he would draw them
from their sleep. Would he sometimes invent
them? So much the better. The sententious
critic puts me to sleep. I would prefer a critic
of imaginative scintillations.
102
FoucaultÕs critic of Òimaginative scintillationsÓ
eschews the Òauthor-functionÓ and rejects the
practice of commentary, working instead to
develop a different vision of critique, one
Foucault associates with the task of philosophy:
Òto know how and to what extent it might be
possible to think differently, instead of legitimat-
ing what is already known.Ó
103
ÒNietzsche,
Genealogy, HistoryÓ asks us to look elsewhere for
methodological guidebooks. More significantly,
along with demanding that we read critically it
also asks us to think differently, to consider the
possibility of not being Ògoverned like that.Ó
Readers who look to ÒNietzsche, Genealogy,
HistoryÓ to find the methodological secret that
Foucault has been withholding from them will
be troubled Ð disconcerted even Ð by the essay.
But perhaps by working through those discon-
certing aspects of FoucaultÕs
work we can locate his critical
project. Perhaps this is what
makes Foucault himself a
critic of imaginative scintilla-
tions.
notes
For the title of this essay, I owe yet another debt
to Lisa Disch, and I thank Rebecca Brown and
John Zumbrunnen for their meticulous readings
of earlier versions of the essay. I am also very
grateful to David Halperin for his assistance
in coordinating some unplanned, but quite
helpful, long-distance research. Finally, I would
like to thank the two anonymous Angelaki
readers for their probing criticisms and helpful
suggestions.
1 See, for example, Gary Gutting, “Introduction,
Michel Foucault: A User’s Manual” in The
Cambridge Companion to Foucault, ed. Gary Gutting
(Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1994) 1.
1 1 7
2 Jürgen Habermas, The Philosophical Discourse of
Modernity, trans. Frederick G. Lawrence
(Cambridge, MA: MIT P, 1987) 277, emphasis in
original. As I will suggest in the text below, I refer
to Habermas as Foucault’s best critic precisely
because Habermas plays the role of the intellec-
tual historian exceedingly well.
3 Michel Foucault, “Prison Talk,” trans. Colin
Gordon in Power/Knowledge: Selected Interviews
1972–1977, ed. Colin Gordon (New York:
Pantheon, 1980) 53–54.
4 For an earlier but very brief look at this issue,
see Gutting’s Michel Foucault’s Archaeology of
Scientific Reason (Cambridge: Cambridge UP,
1989) 277. For a direct rejection of Foucault’s
Nietzscheanism on the subject of power, see
Barry Allen, “Government in Foucault,” Canadian
Journal of Philosophy 21.4 (1991): 421–40.
5 Richard Rorty, “Foucault and Epistemology” in
Foucault: A Critical Reader, ed. David Couzens Hoy
(Oxford and Cambridge, MA: Blackwell, 1986)
41–49. Charles Taylor, “Foucault on Freedom and
Truth” in Foucault: A Critical Reader 69–99. For one
important response to Taylor, and the exchange
that developed from it, see the following: William
Connolly, “Taylor, Foucault, and Otherness,”
Political Theory 13.3 (1985): 365–76; Charles
Taylor, “Connolly, Foucault, and Truth,” Political
Theory 13.3 (1985): 377–85; finally, Connolly’s
rejoinder “Taylor and Foucault on Power and
Freedom: A Reply,” Political Studies 37 (1989):
277–81. Thomas McCarthy, “The Critique of
Impure Reason: Foucault and the Frankfurt
School” in Critique and Power: Recasting the
Foucault/Habermas Debate, ed. Michael Kelly
(Cambridge, MA: MIT P, 1994) 243–82. Rudi
Visker, Michel Foucault: Genealogy as Critique, trans.
Chris Turner (London and New York: Verso,
1995) 58–63. Christopher Norris, “‘What is
Enlightenment?’: Kant and Foucault” in Cambridge
Companion to Foucault 159–96. John Simons,
Foucault and the Political (London and New York:
Routledge, 1995).
6 Ian Hacking, “Michel Foucault: Immature
Science,” Nous 13 (1979): 39–51.
7 Rorty, “Foucault and Epistemology” 41, empha-
sis in original.
8 Rorty, “Foucault and Epistemology” 46, empha-
sis in original.
9 Rorty, “Foucault and Epistemology” 47.
10 Macey, The Lives of Michel Foucault (New York:
Pantheon, 1993) 431. David Halperin not only
quotes Macey here but goes on to question the
position from which Rorty would launch such a
sweeping condemnation: “as if keeping one’s
distance from violent street demonstrations did
not in fact represent to intellectuals the path of
least resistance to their own innate tendencies but
required of them instead a rare and laudable forti-
tude.” See Halperin, “The Queer Politics of Michel
Foucault” in Saint Foucault: Towards a Gay
Hagiography (Oxford: Oxford UP, 1995) 24.
11 Habermas, Philosophical Discourse 43.
12 Habermas, Philosophical Discourse 95.
13 Habermas, Philosophical Discourse 276.
14 See, for example, Nancy Fraser’s, “Foucault on
Modern Power: Empirical Insights and Normative
Confusions,” Praxis International 1.3 (1981):
272–87.
15 Foucault, “The Discourse on Language,”
printed as an appendix to The Archaeology of
Knowledge, trans. Rupert Swyer (New York:
Pantheon, 1972) 221.
16 Gutting’s work produces one of the very few
readings of Foucault that question this move, argu-
ing that it proves invalid because “Nietzsche,
Genealogy, History” is “entirely devoted to the
exposition and interpretation of Nietzsche’s
views” (Foucault’s Archaeology 277–78). I applaud
Gutting’s effort to resist and reject this tendency
in Foucault interpretation, but I will also try to
show that “Nietzsche, Genealogy, History” turns
out to be far more complicated than Gutting
suggests in his brief reference to the essay.
17 Visker 60, emphasis added.
18 Donald Bouchard, ed., Language, Counter-
Memory, Practice, trans. Donald F. Bouchard and
Sherry Simon (Ithaca and New York: Cornell UP,
1977) 239, emphasis added.
19 Even greater encouragement for approaching
Foucault’s texts for methodological guidance likely
stems from the dominant reading of Foucault
provided by Hubert L. Dreyfus and Paul Rabinow.
Dreyfus and Rabinow state on the very first page
of their book that Foucault’s is an effort “to
develop a method for the study of human beings and
to diagnose the current situation of our society”
(Michel Foucault: Beyond Structuralism and
Hermeneutics (Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1982) xvii,
foucault’s maneuvers
1 1 8
chambers
emphasis added). They consider Foucault to
espouse a unique procedure for the study of
human beings which exceeds the limitations of
structuralism, phenomenology, and hermeneutics,
and the key to Foucault’s new method lies in his
turn to Nietzsche and the concomitant subordina-
tion of archeology to genealogy. Genealogy is the
method according to this view, so it seems only
intuitive to approach “Nietzsche, Genealogy,
History” as a guide to that method. Interestingly,
Habermas relies precisely on this subordinating
move as part of the justification for his critique
of Foucault in The Philosophical Discourse of
Modernity – hence the Nietzschean critique of
Foucault comes full circle here by connecting at
both ends (with Foucault as both the heir to
Nietzsche and as an explicit adopter of
Nietzschean genealogy). Indeed, despite the
paucity of citations that their work receives,
Habermas’s entire approach to Foucault – from
the untenable nature of archeology, to the early
adoption of Heideggerian epochs of Being – rests
heavily and decidedly on the framework for inter-
preting Foucault that Dreyfus and Rabinow set up.
20 Foucault, “What is an Author?,” trans. Josué V.
Harari, in The Foucault Reader, ed. Paul Rabinow
(New York: Pantheon, 1984) 101–20. Also
published in Language, Counter-Memory, Practice
113–38.
21 Foucault, “What is an Author?” 119.
22 Foucault, “What is an Author?” 102. With the
notion of “today’s writing” I take Foucault to
refer, almost all at once, to contemporary theo-
ries about writing and language, the work of
contemporary writers, and to the very notion of
writing (écriture) which was so important in France
at the time of Foucault’s initial presentation of
“What is an Author?” to the French Society of
Philosophy in 1969.
23 Both Bouchard and Simon (in Language,
Counter-Memory, Practice) and Josué Harari (in The
Foucault Reader) translate jeu in Foucault’s text as
“game.” The more common translation of the
word is “play”; hence the formulation of my para-
phrase in the text. Jacques Derrida’s remarks on
the dangers of taking jeu in the sense of non-seri-
ous, radical “freeplay” likely apply in the context of
Foucault’s use of the word as well. See Derrida’s
Afterword, trans. Samuel Weber, in Limited Inc.
(Evanston: Northwestern UP, 1988) 111–54,
especially 115–18.
24 While I am certainly suggesting that Foucault’s
conception of writing here traverses the same
ground as the work of Derrida, it hardly bears
repeating to note that on a great many issues
Foucault and Derrida thoroughly disagree. Their
now (in)famous public dispute on the topics of
Freud, reason, and history – documented in
Derrida’s “Cogito and the History of Madness”
and Foucault’s belated but passionate response
“My Body, This Paper, This Fire” – has highlighted,
if not overblown, their differences, particularly for
their French audience and readership. More obvi-
ously, Derrida’s main concerns have always been
philosophical, focusing on the structural level of
language, while Foucault constantly looks to the
particulars of history to drive his investigations.
Their renowned intellectual quarrel is but one
particularly stark example of these more general
differences. I therefore have no desire to link their
projects together or to try to draw influences –
clearly a counterproductive move for my
purposes. But despite these disagreements –
indeed, despite whatever their “authorial inten-
tions” might be (since these are just what are
called into question here) – the texts of Foucault
and Derrida take much the same course on the
question of writing, and therefore some of
Derrida’s texts can function as helpful heuristic
devices to sharpen the conception of writing and
the challenge to interpretation that we see
emerge in Foucault’s works. For Derrida’s original
critique of Madness and Civilization, see “Cogito
and the History of Madness” in Writing and
Difference, trans. Alan Bass (Chicago: U of Chicago
P, 1978) 31–63. Foucault’s response finally
appeared as “My Body, This Paper, This Fire,”
trans. Geoffrey Bennington, Oxford Literary Review
4.1 (1979): 5–28; for the tense relationship
between Derrida and Foucault see Macey 142–43,
237–38, 422–23.
25 Foucault, “What is an Author?” 102.
26 Foucault, “What is an Author?” 102.
27 Foucault, “What is an Author?” 103.
28 This claim could be taken as an allusion to new
criticism, an Anglo-American development of the
1960s of which Foucault was well aware. See
Macey’s discussion of Foucault’s time in Hungary
(179–81).
29 Foucault, “What is an Author?” 103.
30 This line constitutes Derrida’s own clarification
of his earlier claim that “there is nothing outside
1 1 9
the text” – a sentence that might be better trans-
lated as “there is no ‘extra-text.’” For the earlier
statement see Derrida’s Of Grammatology, trans.
Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak (Baltimore and
London: Johns Hopkins UP, 1974) 158; for the
clarification see Limited Inc. 136.
31 Foucault, “What is an Author?” 104.
32 Foucault, “What is an Author?” 103.
33 Derrida, Spurs: Nietzsche’s Styles, trans. Barbara
Harlow (Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1979) 139.
Some would suggest that the “undisclosed
hermeneut” to which Derrida’s text refers so
dismissively might, in fact, be Foucault – thereby
taking Spurs as an attack on Foucault. That inter-
pretation holds some degree of plausibility given
that the lecture from which Spurs developed was
given by Derrida in 1972, just two years after
Foucault had finally responded – with what Macey
calls a “harsh critique” (237) – to Derrida’s criti-
cisms of Foucault’s first book. There can be little
doubt that Derrida’s arguments appeared many
years before he and Foucault would finally recon-
cile, but as I show in the text below, Derrida’s and
Foucault’s texts make much the same points
whether or not their personal dispute had been
resolved. Finally, Derrida himself has said that the
“undisclosed hermeneut” was Jean Beaufret, not
Foucault. On this last point I am very grateful to
personal communications with David Halperin,
and to Didier Eribon and Jacques Derrida.
34 Foucault also discusses Nietzsche’s laundry bills
in the Archaeology 22–30, especially 24.
35 Derrida, Spurs 123.
36 According to Derrida, this process of recon-
struction is not possible now given our lack of
knowledge of those contexts. Derrida also cites
here the editors of the French translation of
Nietzsche’s The Gay Science in their inability to say
more about notes such as this one. For one recent
work that does try to reconstruct a historical
context for Nietzsche’s intentions and meaning
concerning this very umbrella, see Tracy Strong’s
“Aesthetic Authority and Tradition: Nietzsche and
the Greeks,” History of European Ideas 11 (1989):
989–1007. However, even Strong admits that his
historical evidence does little to change or chal-
lenge Derrida’s point.
37 Derrida, Spurs 126. Without any other context,
that is, aside from those in which Derrida, I, or
anyone else cite it.
38 Derrida, Spurs 127.
39 Derrida, Spurs 127.
40 Derrida, Spurs 131.
41 Derrida, Spurs 133.
42 For a defense of the principle of interpretive
charity, see Donald Davidson, Inquiries into Truth
and Interpretation (Oxford: Clarendon, 1984). For
an application of this principle to Gadamer’s philo-
sophical hermeneutics see Joel Weinsheimer,
Gadamer’s Hermeneutics: A Reading of Truth and
Method (New Haven and London: Yale UP, 1985).
43 Gadamerians might wish to emphasize that the
fusion of horizons never closes down entirely, but
always remains open to further transformations.
Nonetheless, to the extent that the hermeneutic
horizon – the very possibility of interpretation –
rests upon a background of shared belief, then the
horizon has definite, fixed limits. To that extent,
the context is closed.
44 Derrida, Spurs 133, emphasis added.
45 Foucault, Archaeology of Knowledge 202.
46 Foucault, “What is an Author?” 120.
47 Foucault, “Two Lectures,” trans. Kate Soper,
Power/Knowledge: Selected Interviews 1972–1977 84.
48 “The Masked Philosopher,” an interview with
Michel Foucault. Conducted by Christian
Delacampagne, and originally published in Le
Monde with Foucault’s identity remaining anony-
mous. Trans. John Johnston, Foucault Live: Collected
Interviews, 1961–1984, ed. Sylvère Lotringer (New
York: Semiotext(e), 1989) 303.
49 Foucault, “Nietzsche, Genealogy, History,”
Language, Counter-Memory, Practice 139.
50 Here I paraphrase Foucault’s next line: “on this
basis, it is obvious that Paul Ree was wrong to
follow the English tendency in describing the
history of morality in terms of a linear develop-
ment” (“Nietzsche, Genealogy, History” 139), and
I refer most directly to Habermas’s depiction of
the history of modern thought in his The
Philosophical Discourse of Modernity.
51 An even earlier clue might lie in Foucault’s
reference to Paul Ree in the third sentence of the
essay. Of course, Paul Ree is the author of The
Origin of the Moral Sensations, a book that
Nietzsche takes, in the preface to On the Genealogy
of Morals, as a paradigmatic example of the wrong
foucault’s maneuvers
1 2 0
chambers
approach to the study of the history of human
morality. Already Foucault displaces the reader
from his text and into Nietzsche’s, yet he does so
indirectly and obliquely – without (at least at this
point) citing Nietzsche or Ree. See Nietzsche, On
the Genealogy of Morals, trans. Walter Kaufmann
(New York: Vintage, 1967) 18.
52 Foucault’s so-called happy positivism should
not be mistaken for a quantitative or empiricist
approach to the humanities. This (in)famous label
derives from a quotation appearing in the midst of
Foucault’s critique of the transcendental subject of
phenomenology within The Archaeology of
Knowledge. Foucault argues there that we must
study discursive practices not in terms of the
subject who speaks, but in terms of the very
discursive formation that makes subject positions
possible in the first place. This methodological
shift means analyzing a discourse not as the
creation of the speaking subject, but in its positiv-
ity. Foucault goes on to say that if in rejecting the
transcendental subject “one is a positivist, then I
am quite happy to be one” (Archaeology 125).
53 Even Macey notes this tendency: “characteris-
tically, Foucault gives no reference for his quota-
tion” (xviii).
54 Otto Friedrich, “France’s Philosopher of
Power,” Time 118.20 (1981): 147–48; also cited in
Macey 431.
55 The essay has a total of fifty-four notes by
Foucault with the extra one citing the text of Paul
Ree’s to which Nietzsche also refers in the
Genealogy. Bouchard adds ten editorial notes to his
version, while Rabinow cuts this number down to
three. The essay covers twenty pages of text in
The Foucault Reader.
56 Foucault, “Nietzsche, Genealogy, History” 140.
57 Foucault, “Nietzsche, Genealogy, History” 140,
141.
58 Nietzsche, Twilight of the Idols, in The Portable
Nietzsche, trans. Walter Kaufmann (New York:
Viking, 1954) 470.
59 Foucault, “Nietzsche, Genealogy, History” 142.
60 Nietzsche, Human, All Too Human, trans. R.J.
Hollingdale (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1986) 33.
61 Foucault, “Nietzsche, Genealogy, History” 144.
62 Habermas, “Discourse Ethics” in Moral
Consciousness and Communicative Action, trans.
Christian Lenhardt and Shierry Weber Nicholsen
(Cambridge, MA and London: MIT P, 1990)
42–115.
63 See Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil, trans.
Walter Kaufmann (New York: Vintage, 1966) 9,
11. See also Alexander Nehamas’s Nietzsche: Life
as Literature (London and Cambridge, MA:
Harvard UP, 1985). In “How the ‘True World’
Finally Became a Fable” Nietzsche develops this
idea at greater length by way of an attack on the
metaphysics of Plato. For Foucault’s own formula-
tion of this Nietzschean point, see Philosophy,
Politics, Culture: Interviews and Other Writings
1977–1984, ed. Lawrence Kritzman, trans. Alan
Sheridan (Oxford: Blackwell, 1988) 107.
64 Allen, “Government in Foucault” 438. Foucault,
“The Subject and Power” in Michel Foucault: Beyond
Structuralism and Hermeneutics, eds. Dreyfus and
Rabinow (Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1982) 212.
65 Nietzsche, Daybreak: Thoughts on the Prejudices
of Morality, trans. R.J. Hollingdale (Cambridge:
Cambridge UP, 1982). Cited by Kaufmann,
Genealogy 22.
66 Therefore, those authors who unquestioningly
cite “Nietzsche, Genealogy, History” as a clear
statement by Foucault about his own genealogical
method fail to grasp the significance of Foucault’s
evasiveness. Thomas Flynn, for example, tries to
distinguish four different ways in which Foucault’s
approach to history proves distinctive. Genealogy
clearly constitutes one of these distinct ways, and
Flynn introduces genealogy as follows: “no more
than archeology is genealogy a return to origins, a
project that Foucault associates with Platonic
essentialism. Rather, its concern is the descent
(Herkunft) of practices as a series of events”
(“Foucault’s Mapping of History,” Cambridge
Companion to Foucault 33). Certainly Foucault says
just this about genealogy, but, as the above discus-
sion demonstrates, what Flynn takes to be a
simple description of Foucault’s genealogical
method actually turns out to be a complicated,
dense and sophisticated reading of Nietzschean
philosophy. Flynn, “Foucault’s Mapping of
History,” Cambridge Companion to Foucault 28–46.
67 Foucault, “Nietzsche, Genealogy, History” 146.
This passage is also quoted in Visker, who places
the second sentence in italics. Visker proceeds
with harsh criticism for Foucault:
This passage would seem to be more a symp-
tom of the problematic perceptible here than
1 2 1
an adequate articulation of it: for why “the
moment it stops being pious”, does “every
origin of morality” (or science) imply
“critique”? How is this critique different from
base curiosity and the desire to belittle all
that is lofty which can apparently reconcile
the historian, from whom the genealogist
seems to distinguish himself, with his archival
existence. (60)
68 Nietzsche, The Gay Science. With a Prelude in
Rhymes and an Appendix of Songs, trans. Walter
Kaufmann (New York: Vintage, 1974) 280, empha-
sis in original.
69 Nietzsche, Gay Science 281.
70 Nietzsche, Gay Science 283.
71 Foucault, “Nietzsche, Genealogy, History” 146.
72 Foucault, “Nietzsche, Genealogy, History” 144.
73 Nietzsche, Genealogy of Morals 153.
74 Nietzsche, Genealogy of Morals 153, emphasis in
original.
75 Michael Mahon, Foucault’s Nietzschean
Genealogy: Truth, Power, and the Subject (New York:
State U of New York P) 11. It is precisely the ques-
tion of critique that Visker wishes to raise in the
context of Foucault’s writings. Thus, a more care-
ful reading of the passage he dismisses might have
led him in the direction of the answers he seeks.
In the end, then, it seems that the answer Visker
was looking for was right under his nose all along;
he only had to read the footnotes.
76 Nietzsche, Twilight 479.
77 Nietzsche, Twilight 480.
78 Nietzsche, Twilight 483; I italicize “faith” here to
emphasize the connections to the previous discus-
sion of piety.
79 Mahon 111.
80 Foucault, “Nietzsche, Genealogy, History” 147.
81 Foucault, “Nietzsche, Genealogy, History” 147.
82 Gilles Deleuze, Nietzsche and Philosophy, trans.
Hugh Tomlinson (New York: Columbia UP, 1983);
translation of Nietzsche et la philosophie (Paris:
Presses Universitaires de France, 1962). It should
go without saying that my purpose here is not to
delineate a close comparison of the interpreta-
tions of Nietzsche offered by Deleuze and
Foucault, respectively. Some would argue that
Deleuze provides a much more metaphysical
interpretation of Nietzsche than that which
emerges in Foucault’s reading, but issues such
as this are beside the point for my specific argu-
ment – for which I want to show only that
“Deleuze” offers Foucault another avenue of
evasion.
83 Macey 109.
84 Foucault, “Nietzsche, Freud, Marx,” trans. Jon
Anderson and Gary Hentzi, Critical Texts 3.2
(1986): 1–5. For an account of this exchange, see
Macey 152–54.
85 Macey 153.
86
Foucault,
“Theatrum
Philosophicum,”
Language, Counter-Memory, Practice 165–96.
87 Deleuze 52–55.
88 Foucault, “Nietzsche, Genealogy, History” 143;
Deleuze 3.
89 Foucault, “Nietzsche, Genealogy, History” 155;
Deleuze 25.
90 Foucault, “Nietzsche, Genealogy, History” 155;
Deleuze 25.
91 Foucault, “Nietzsche, Genealogy, History” 147.
92 Judith Butler, “Foucault and the Paradox of
Bodily Inscriptions,” Journal of Philosophy 86.11
(1989): 601–07.
93 See Foucault, “Nietzsche, Genealogy, History”
147; Nietzsche, The Gay Science 291–92, and
Deleuze 39–40. For further discussion of
Nietzsche’s critique of Spinoza, and in this case
with connections back to spiders, see Sarah
Kofman, Nietzsche and Metaphor, trans. Duncan
Large (Stanford: Stanford UP, 1993) 69.
94 Deleuze 39, emphasis added.
95 Foucault, “What is Critique?,” trans. Lysa
Hochroth, in The Politics of Truth, ed. Sylvère
Lotringer (New York: Semiotext(e), 1997).
96 Foucault, “What is Critique?” 25.
97 Foucault, “What is Critique?” 25.
98 Foucault, “What is Critique?” 28.
99 Foucault, “What is Critique?” 29.
100 Foucault, “The Ethic of Care for the Self as a
Practice of Freedom,” trans. Joseph D. Gauthier,
in The Final Foucault, eds. James Bernauer and
David Rasmussen (Cambridge, MA and London:
foucault’s maneuvers
1 2 2
chambers
MIT P, 1994) 38. See also “The Subject and
Power” 212.
101 Foucault, “What is Critique?” 32.
102 Foucault, “The Masked Philosopher” 304.
103 Foucault, The Use of Pleasure: Volume 2 of the
History of Sexuality, trans. Robert Hurley (New
York: Vintage, 1985) 9.
Samuel A. Chambers
Department of Political Science
Saint MaryÕs College of Maryland
18952 E. Fisher Road
Saint MaryÕs City, MD 20686
USA
E-mail: sachambers@smcm.edu