Purdue University Purdue e-Pubs Open Access Dissertations Theses and Dissertations Spring 2015 Foucault, Kant, Deleuze, and the problem of political agency Christopher S. Penfield Purdue University Follow this and additional works at: https://docs.lib.purdue.edu/open_access_dissertations Part of the Philosophy Commons Recommended Citation Penfield, Christopher S., "Foucault, Kant, Deleuze, and the problem of political agency" (2015). Open Access Dissertations. 534. https://docs.lib.purdue.edu/open_access_dissertations/534 This document has been made available through Purdue e-Pubs, a service of the Purdue University Libraries. Please contact [email protected] for additional information. Graduate School Form 30 Updated 111512015 PURDUE UNIVERSITY GRADUATE SCHOOL Thesis/Dissertation Acceptance This is to certify that the thesis/dissertation prepared By Christopher Penfield Entitled FOUCAULT, KANT, DELEUZE, AND THE PROBLEM OF POLITICAL AGENCY For the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Is approved by the final examining committee: Daniel Smith Kevin Thompson Chair William McBride Christopher Yeomans Todd May To the best of my knowledge and as understood by the student in the Thesis/Dissertation Agreement, Publication Delay, and Certification Disclaimer (Graduate School Form 32), this thesis/dissertation adheres to the provisions of Purdue University's "Policy of Integrity in Research" and the use of copyright material. Approved by Major Professor(s): _D_a_m_·e_ls_m_ith ____________ _ Approved by: Rod Bertolet 3/2/2015 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Head of the Departmental Graduate Program Date i FOUCAULT, KANT, DELEUZE, AND THE PROBLEM OF POLITICAL AGENCY A Dissertation Submitted to the Faculty of Purdue University by Christopher S. Penfield In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy i May 2015 Purdue University West Lafayette, Indiana ii TABLE OF CONTENTS Page ABSTRACT ..................................................................................................................... viii CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION ..................................................................................... 1 1.1 Overview: On the Problem of Political Agency in Capitalist Society ................... 1 1.2 Neoliberal Governmentality and the Two Kantian Traditions ............................... 6 CHAPTER 2. THE DEGREE ZERO OF VERTICALITY: FREEDOM AND TRANSGRESSION IN THE KANTIAN SUBLIME ...................................................... 15 2.1 The Sublime Source of Ethical Agency ............................................................... 18 2.1.1 The Sublime as Aesthetic Expression of Moral Feeling ............................... 21 2.1.2 Moral Feeling as the Ratio Cognoscendi of Human Freedom ...................... 29 2.2 Anguish and Exaltation: The Limit-Experience of Transgression and the Critical Vocation of Thought ......................................................................................................... 37 ii 2.2.1 The Sublime as (i) Experience of Absolute Finitude and (ii) Experience of Impossibility ..................................................................................................................... 41 2.2.2 The Sublime as (iii) Rupture of the Unities of Subject and Object and (iv) Opening of Thought to the Absolute ................................................................................ 48 iii Page 2.2.3 The Sublime as (v) Negative Presentation of the Absolute, (vi) Elevation of Thought, and (vii) Feeling of Anguish and Exaltation ..................................................... 52 2.2.4 The Sublime as (viii) Thought of the Limitless Limit ................................... 57 2.3 Conclusion ........................................................................................................... 64 CHAPTER 3. FOUCAULT’S ‘SECRET VERTICALITY’: TOWARD THE POLITICAL PROBLEM OF MATERIAL EXPRESSION ............................................. 66 3.1 The ‘Vertical Axis’ of the Death Dream: Foucault’s Existential Poetics of Tragic Expression ......................................................................................................................... 68 3.2 The ‘Constant Verticality’ of Unreason in History of Madness .......................... 74 3.2.1 The ‘Vertical Dimension’ of Tragic Experience in Foucault’s ‘History of Limits’ ....................................................................................................................... 74 3.2.2 The Critical Force of Tragic Expression: ‘Ruse and New Triumph of Madness’ ....................................................................................................................... 81 3.3 Early Critique: The ‘Vertical Investigation’ of Positivism .................................. 91 iii 3.3.1 The Medical Capture of Death in The Birth of the Clinic ............................. 91 3.3.2 ‘For That I Must Ascend into the Depths’: Critical Renewal along the ‘Vertical Line’ of Nietzschean Interpretation ................................................................... 97 3.4 Early Experience: The Verticality of Literary Language ................................... 105 3.4.1 The ‘Vertical Writing’ of Transgression: Literature’s Recursive Auto- Doubling Function .......................................................................................................... 105 iv Page 3.4.2 Radical Finitude and the Immanent Infinity of Literature’s ‘Vertical System of Mirrors’ ..................................................................................................................... 113 3.4.3 The Structural Esotericism of Madness and Literature: On the Material Expression of Transgression ........................................................................................... 119 3.4.4 Foucault’s Literary Politics and Its Failure: Enter the Problem of Capitalism ..................................................................................................................... 129 CHAPTER 4. THE CONCEPT OF TRANSVERSAL CONNECTION: CAPITALISM, POWER, AND RESISTANCE ....................................................................................... 137 4.1 Schizo-Politics: A Transversal Response to the Political Problem of the Two Regimes of Madness ....................................................................................................... 140 4.2 Foucault’s Debt to Deleuze: The Question of Transversal Resistance and the Micropolitical Problem of Power .................................................................................... 146 4.3 Assembling Denumerable Multiplicities: The Anti-Transversal Function of Disciplinary Power .......................................................................................................... 156 iv 4.4 Foucault’s Economico-Political Thesis: Capitalism, Modern Power, and the Divided Plebe .................................................................................................................. 161 4.5 Connecting the Non/Proletarianized Plebe: Transversal Struggle and the Prison Movement ....................................................................................................................... 170 CHAPTER 5. TOWARD A THEORY OF TRANSVERSAL POLITICAL AGENCY: COLLECTIVE MINORITARIAN BECOMINGS ......................................................... 176 v Page 5.1 The Prison Movement and the Problem of Collective Subjectivation: Reconceiving the ‘Plebe’ ................................................................................................ 176 5.2 The Line of Flight and Revolutionary Subject-Groups: The Case of George Jackson ............................................................................................................................ 188 5.3 The Principle of Transversal Connection: A Double Condition for Transformative Political Agency .................................................................................... 199 5.3.1 Arborescence, Striation, Segmentarity ........................................................ 201 5.3.2 Multiplicities of Becoming: Collective Lines of Flight and the Danger of Abolition ..................................................................................................................... 206 5.4 Foucault’s Transversal Ethico-Politics: The Case of Becoming-Queer ............ 215 5.4.1 Sexuality, Biopower, and the Politics of Friendship ................................... 216 5.4.2 The Connective Strategy of Becoming-Queer: Minoritarian Resistance to Neoliberal Governmentality ............................................................................................ 225 CHAPTER 6. INTENSITY, UPRISING, CRITIQUE: FOUCAULT’S POLITICAL v PHILOSOPHY OF AGENCY ........................................................................................ 231 6.1 Return to Verticality: In Defense of the Limit-Experience ................................ 231 6.1.1 The Sublime Function of the Limit-Experience: The Project of Desubjectivation ............................................................................................................. 234 6.1.2 Foucault’s ‘Reply to Derrida’: Toward a Politics of the Limit-Event ......... 239 6.2 Middle Experience: The ‘Vertical Dimension of Intensities’ ............................ 249 vi Page 6.2.1 The Verticality of Deleuzian Repetition: Evental Thought and Eternal Return ....................................................................................................................