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Inheriting Nietzsche: the Frankfurt School and Foucault on The Duquesne University Duquesne Scholarship Collection Electronic Theses and Dissertations Spring 2015 Inheriting Nietzsche: The rF ankfurt School and Foucault on the Foundation of Critique George Shea Follow this and additional works at: https://dsc.duq.edu/etd Recommended Citation Shea, G. (2015). Inheriting Nietzsche: The rF ankfurt School and Foucault on the Foundation of Critique (Doctoral dissertation, Duquesne University). Retrieved from https://dsc.duq.edu/etd/1181 This Immediate Access is brought to you for free and open access by Duquesne Scholarship Collection. It has been accepted for inclusion in Electronic Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of Duquesne Scholarship Collection. For more information, please contact [email protected]. INHERITING NIETZSCHE: THE FRANKFURT SCHOOL AND FOUCAULT ON THE FOUNDATION OF CRITIQUE A Dissertation Submitted to the McAnulty College and Graduate School of Liberal Arts Duquesne University In partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy By George William Shea, IV May 2015 Copyright by George William Shea, IV 2015 INHERITING NIETZSCHE: THE FRANKFURT SCHOOL AND FOUCAULT ON THE FOUNDATION OF CRITIQUE By George William Shea, IV May 4, 2015 ________________________________ ________________________________ James Swindal Tom Rockmore Professor of Philosophy Distinguished Humanities Chair and Dean, McAnulty College and Graduate Professor of Philosophy School of Liberal Arts Peking University (Committee Chair) (Committee Member) ________________________________ Dan Selcer Associate Professor of Philosophy (Committee Member) ________________________________ ________________________________ James Swindal Ronald Polansky Dean, McAnulty College and Graduate Chair, Department of Philosophy School of Liberal Arts Professor of Philosophy Professor of Philosophy iii ABSTRACT INHERITING NIETZSCHE: THE FRANKFURT SCHOOL AND FOUCAULT ON THE FOUNDATION OF CRITIQUE By George William Shea, IV May 2015 Dissertation supervised by James Swindal My dissertation examines the theoretical ramifications that rejecting a metaphysical foundation has for providing critical and normative resources. While commentators often dismiss post-metaphysical philosophies as contradictory variants of anti-metaphysics, I demonstrate using the work of Nietzsche that they proceed instead from a deliberate “methodological decision” to suspend the use of metaphysical principles. For this reason, while the methodological commitments of post-metaphysical critical social theories establish a theoretical orientation for their inquiries, they must forego analyses that attribute domination to the distorting effects of illusion, error, or illegitimacy, and would thus cast liberation from domination as a return to a metaphysical foundation. In this light, Horkheimer’s critique of instrumental reason ultimately fails insofar as it invokes a rational, human essence in need of liberation from the distorting effects of Western reason. Alternatively, Foucault’s conception of iv critique, “the art of voluntary insubordination,” succeeds as a viable post-metaphysical practice since it uniquely advances a form of social and political resistance that refrains from appealing to any such essences. In the end, my dissertation establishes the coherence of post-metaphysical methodologies in general as well as the import of the Frankfurt School and Foucault’s normative resources specifically, both of which continue to be a source of debate in critical social theory. v DEDICATION To the lean and hungry spirits that go forth to fatten themselves… vi ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS For the author of any project whose genesis belongs to a system of institutionalization such as academia there are of necessity innumerable persons without whom one could not have possibly brought one’s project to completion. I am grateful, of course, for all the efforts of these people. More specifically, I would like to thank Dr. James Swindal and Dr. Daniel Selcer for taking the time to read this dissertation and for their thoughtful comments and questions, which transformed what could have been a mere formality into a truly memorable and rewarding endeavor. I would like to thank my mother, father, grandmother, and grandfather for urging me, since I was a wee little one, to pursue my passions in life, whatever they may be, and to strive for excellence and beauty in the pursuit of those passions. I blame you entirely for the life that resulted in (and from) this dissertation. I would like to thank my friends Evan Strevell, Stephanie Findlay, Luke Trusso, Dana Trusso, and Andy Hoffmeister for pulling me from the pit when, in the course of trying to tame my dissertation, it bared its claws, gnashed its teeth, knocked me down, and almost devoured me. I am still not certain why you did not just leave me in the pit. I would like to thank Michael Zander, Jared Welsh, and Clayton Fowler for the many late night, impassioned conversations that provided the early inspiration and insights, which eventually blossomed into this project. If those nights had not been so exciting, so intoxicating, and so addictive, I might just have gone on and done something useful with my life. vii Lastly, I would like to thank the one and only Katherine Filbert, not only for the innumerable discussions that helped me to articulate many of the ideas in this dissertation, but more importantly for the understanding and encouragement that she freely gave as I descended into the depths of Jigoku, transforming into a demonic spirit that restlessly roamed our apartment, yearning to return to the land of living. If it were not for your saintly love and patience, I never would have made it! viii TABLE OF CONTENTS Page Abstract .............................................................................................................................. iv Dedication .......................................................................................................................... vi Acknowledgments............................................................................................................. vii Chapter 1 – Introduction ......................................................................................................1 Chapter 2 – Nietzsche ..........................................................................................................8 Chapter 3 – Horkheimer.....................................................................................................52 Chapter 4 – Foucault ........................................................................................................127 Chapter 5 – Conclusion ....................................................................................................166 Bibliography ....................................................................................................................186 ix CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 1 At first glance, the work of Friedrich Nietzsche, Max Horkheimer, and Michel Foucault would seem to make for strange bedfellows. The generally accepted picture of Nietzsche presents him as an idiosyncratic loner who touts the modern triumph of an individualistic nihilism that finds its highest expression in the living existence of the Übermensch. Horkheimer, to the contrary, is most famously known as the early, socially-engaged, director of The Institute for Social Research and for penning, in conjunction with Theodor Adorno, the twentieth century’s most scathing critique of the Enlightenment, Dialectic of Enlightenment. Foucault, alternatively, is known as the twentieth century’s most renowned theorist-historian-philosopher- sociologist who sought to investigate the mechanisms of normalization and subjectivation that are linked to discourses of madness, discipline, and sexuality. Given the disparate focus of their work, they appear to share little in common. Despite these surface differences, there are nonetheless a few key theoretical concerns that link their work. One might even say that Nietzsche, Horkheimer, and Foucault form a “loose” and “unofficial” tradition within the history of philosophy itself. All three thinkers undertake serious engagements with the entire history of Western thought, examine the interpenetration of reason and power, grapple with the contradictions of modernity, and reformulate the Enlightenment ideals of freedom and self-determination. However, as I will argue, the most significant thread that ties their work together is their sophisticated engagement with the history of Western metaphysics. All three thinkers characterize Western metaphysics as the project of ascertaining the essential, universal, and immutable structures of reality that underlie the totality of existence for the purpose of securing an indubitable foundation for our judgments concerning the world, our relation to it, our relation to one another, and our relation to ourselves. Under this interpretation, Western metaphysics aims to secure a primordial truth that 2 elicits everyone’s assent. Moreover, at the very heart of this project, Nietzsche, Horkheimer, and Foucault discern an impetus to tyranny and fascism. The drive to metaphysics is the drive to a singular primordial truth—or set of truths—that excludes all others and forces one’s fidelity. Metaphysics stands as an ideological weapon to include and exclude through its mechanisms of validation and invalidation, thereby establishing the legitimacy and illegitimacy of that over which it reigns. In this way, the dream of metaphysics
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