Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-g7gxr Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-17T16:40:03.116Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Foucault's Challenge to Critical Theory

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 August 2014

Stephen K. White
Stephen K. White*
Affiliation:
Virginia Polytechnic Institute andState University
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Power, subjectivity, otherness, and modernity are concepts that contemporary political theorists increasingly find to be closely interwoven. In search of an adequate comprehension of the interrelationships among these concepts, I examine the work of Michel Foucault and Jürgen Habermas. I argue that Foucault, although he is provocatively insightful on a number of key points, ultimately provides a less satisfactory account than Habermas. The core problem is Foucault's inability to conceptualize juridical subjectivity, something which is necessary if he is going to connect his notion of aesthetic subjectivity with his endorsement of new social movements.

Type
Articles
Information
American Political Science Review , Volume 80 , Issue 2 , June 1986 , pp. 419 - 432
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 1986

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Adorno, Theodor W. 1966. Negative Dialectics. Ashton, E. B., trans. New York: Seabury.Google Scholar
Adorno, Theodor W. 1984. Aesthetic Theory. Lehnhardt, C., trans. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.Google Scholar
Bernstein, Richard. 1985. Habermas and Modernity. Cambridge, MA: MIT.Google Scholar
Connolly, William. 1983a. Discipline, Politics and Ambiguity. Political Theory, 3:325–41.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Connolly, William. 1983b. The Dilemma of Legitimacy. In Nelson, John S., ed., What Political Theory Should Be Now. Albany, NY: SUNY.Google Scholar
Dallmayr, Fred. 1981. Twilight of Subjectivity: Contributions to a Post-Individualist Theory. Amherst, MA: University of Massachusetts.Google Scholar
Dallmayr, Fred. 1984a. Response by the Author. Philosophy and Social Criticism, 2:121–27.Google Scholar
Dallmayr, Fred. 1984b. Polis and Praxis: Exercises in Contemporary Political Theory. Cambridge, MA: MIT.Google Scholar
Dietz, Mary. 1985. Citizenship with a Feminist Face: The Problem with Maternal Thinking. Political Theory, 1:19–37.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dreyfus, Hubert L., and Rabinow, Paul. 1983. Michel Foucault: Beyond Structuralism and Hermeneutics. 2d ed. Chicago: University of Chicago.Google Scholar
Elshtain, Jean. 1982. Antigone's Daughters. Democracy, 2:46–59.Google Scholar
Ferguson, Kathy E. 1984. The Feminist Critique of Bureaucracy. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.Google Scholar
Foucault, Michel. 1977. Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison. Sheridan, Alan, trans. New York: Random House.Google Scholar
Foucault, Michel. 1980. Power/Knowledge: Selected Interviews and Other Writings 1972–1977. Gordon, Colin, ed., trans.; Marshall, Leo, Merpham, John, and Soper, Kate, trans. New York: Pantheon.Google Scholar
Foucault, Michel. 1980a. The Confessions of the Flesh. See Foucault 1980.Google Scholar
Foucault, Michel. 1980b. Two Lectures. See Foucault 1980.Google Scholar
Foucault, Michel. 1980c. The History of Sexuality. Vol. 1, An Introduction. French, Robert, trans. New York: Random House.Google Scholar
Foucault, Michel. 1983. Power and the Subject. In Dreyfus, Hubert and Rabinow, Paul, eds., Michel Foucault: Beyond Structuralism and Hermeneutics. 2d ed. Chicago: University of Chicago.Google Scholar
Foucault, Michel. 1984. The Foucault Reader. Rabinow, Paul, ed.; Bouchard, Donald F. and Simon, Sherry, trans. New York: Pantheon.Google Scholar
Foucault, Michel. 1984a. Nietzsche, Genealogy and History. See Foucault 1984.Google Scholar
Foucault, Michel. 1984b. What is Enlightenment? See Foucault 1984.Google Scholar
Foucault, Michel. 1984c. Politics and Ethics: An Interview. See Foucault 1984.Google Scholar
Foucault, Michel. 1984d. On the Genealogy of Ethics. See Foucault 1984.Google Scholar
Frazier, Nancy. 1983. Foucault's Body Language: A Post-Humanist Political Rhetoric? Salmagundi, 63:55–70.Google Scholar
Frazier, Nancy. 1985. Michel Foucault: A Young Conservative? Ethics, 96:165–84.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Habermas, Jürgen. 1973. Wahrheitstheorien (Theories of Truth). In Fahrenbach, Hellmut, ed., Wirklichkeit und Reflexion [Reality and reflection]. Pfullingen: Neske.Google Scholar
Habermas, Jürgen. 1975. Legitimation Crisis. Boston: Beacon.Google Scholar
Habermas, Jürgen. 1979a. Consciousness-Raising or Redemptive Criticism. New German Critique, 17:30–59.Google Scholar
Habermas, Jürgen. 1979b. What is Universal Pragmatics?Communication and the Evolution of Society. McCarthy, Thomas, trans, and introd. Boston: Beacon Press.Google Scholar
Habermas, Jürgen. 1981a. Theorie des kommunikatives Handeln [The theory of communicative action]. Vol. 2, Zur Kritik der functionalistischen Vemunft [Toward a critique of functionalist reason]. Frankfurt: Suhrkamp. (English translation forthcoming from MIT Press.)Google Scholar
Habermas, Jürgen. 1981b. Modernity versus Postmodernity. New German Critique, 22:3–14.Google Scholar
Habermas, Jürgen. 1982. The Entwinement of Myth and Enlightenment. New German Critique, 26:13–30.Google Scholar
Habermas, Jürgen. 1984a. The Theory of Communicative Action. Vol. 1, Reason and the Rationalization of Society. McCarthy, Thomas, trans, and introd. Boston: Beacon.Google Scholar
Habermas, Jürgen. 1984b. Questions and Counterquestions. Praxis International, 3:229–49.Google Scholar
Habermas, Jürgen. 1985. Der philosophische Diskurs der Moderne. Zwölf Vorlesungsn [Philosophical discourse on modernity: twelve lectures]. Frankfurt: Suhrkamp. (English translation forthcoming from MIT Press.)Google Scholar
Held, David, and Thompson, John B., eds. 1982. Habermas: Critical Debates. Cambridge, MA: MIT.Google Scholar
Horkheimer, Max, and Adorno, Theodor W.. 1972. Dialectic of Enlightenment. Cummings, John, trans. New York: Seabury.Google Scholar
Luke, Timothy W. 1983. Informationalism and Ecology. Telos, 56:59–73.Google Scholar
Luke, Timothy W., and White, Stephen K.. 1985. Critical Theory, the Informational Revolution and an Ecological Modernity. In Forester, John, ed., Critical Theory and Public Life. Cambridge, MA: MIT.Google Scholar
McCarthy, Thomas A. 1984. Shadows in the “Twilight of Subjectivity.” Philosophy and Social Criticism, 2:115–19.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Megill, Allan. 1985. Prophets of Extremity: Nietzsche, Heidegger, Foucault, Derrida. Berkeley: University of California.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Poster, Mark. 1984. Foucault, Marxism and History: Mode of Production versus Mode of Information. Cambridge: Polity.Google Scholar
Rorty, Richard. 1979. Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University.Google Scholar
Rorty, Richard. 1982. Nineteenth Century Idealism and Twentieth Century Textualism. Consequences of Pragmatism. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota.Google Scholar
Rousseau, Jean-Jacques. 1964. Discourse on the Arts and Sciences. In Masters, Roger D., ed., The First and Second Discourses. Masters, Roger D. and Masters, Judith R., trans. New York: St. Martins. (Original work published in 1749.)Google Scholar
Ruddick, Sara. 1980. Maternal Thinking. Feminist Studies, 6:342–67.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Shapiro, Michael J. 1984. Literary Production as Politicizing Practice. Political Theory, 3:387–422.Google Scholar
Taylor, Charles. 1982. Rationality. In Lukes, Steven and Hollis, Martin, eds., Rationality and Relativism. Cambridge, MA: MIT.Google Scholar
Taylor, Charles. 1984. Foucault on Freedom and Truth. Political Theory, 2:152–83.Google Scholar
Wellmer, Albrecht. 1983. Reason, Utopia and the Dialectic of Enlightenment. Praxis International, 1:83–107.Google Scholar
Wellmer, Albrecht. 1984–1985. Truth, Semblance, Reconciliation: Adorno's Aesthetic Redemption of Modernity. Telos, 62:89–115.Google Scholar
White, Stephen K. 1984. Habermas' Communicative Ethics and the Development of Moral Consciousness. Philosophy and Social Criticism, 2:25–47.Google Scholar
White, Stephen K. 1985. Habermas on Reason, Justice and Modernity: Toward a Critical Research Program. Unpublished manuscript.Google Scholar
Submit a response

Comments

No Comments have been published for this article.