I found Megill's book enlightening. I can't see that lumping
Foucault with Nietzsche, Heidegger, and Derrida, as Riley puts its, is so
terrible. Leventhal writes
I know nothing of Megill's book, nor does it sound like a particularly
> interesting one if the quotation posted here is at all indicative of
> what sort of take on Foucault is contained therein. But why this
> urgency to 'rescue' F. from Nietzsche? If indeed this Megill believes
> "bunching [F.] together with Nietzsche" is somehow a one step means
> to "trivializ[ing]" him, then I would submit that this is perhaps
> about Megill's simple reading of Nietzsche (and his faith that
> his readers will be just as convinced that one cannot be too
> attached to Nietzsche as political/social theorist without getting
> infected by the poison of N.'s 'latent Nazism').
I agree that this bunching is not necessarily bad, but there is more to
Megill's argument, which takes Foucault's notion of discourse and
Nietsche's notion of will to share with Heidegger's notion of being a
certain capacity to resist or to undermine reason. These notions all
repudiate the rationality of the Enlightenment and, as a consequence,
they open their followers or believers to mystical or dictatorial
practices, including fascism. This liberal argument is fairly familiar, I
think; the trouble with it is that the horrors of fascism follow more
from the life of Heidegger than from the logic of the argument, for the
irrationality in question can mean that one ends up a flower child as
well as a fascist.
Philip Goldstein
Foucault with Nietzsche, Heidegger, and Derrida, as Riley puts its, is so
terrible. Leventhal writes
I know nothing of Megill's book, nor does it sound like a particularly
> interesting one if the quotation posted here is at all indicative of
> what sort of take on Foucault is contained therein. But why this
> urgency to 'rescue' F. from Nietzsche? If indeed this Megill believes
> "bunching [F.] together with Nietzsche" is somehow a one step means
> to "trivializ[ing]" him, then I would submit that this is perhaps
> about Megill's simple reading of Nietzsche (and his faith that
> his readers will be just as convinced that one cannot be too
> attached to Nietzsche as political/social theorist without getting
> infected by the poison of N.'s 'latent Nazism').
I agree that this bunching is not necessarily bad, but there is more to
Megill's argument, which takes Foucault's notion of discourse and
Nietsche's notion of will to share with Heidegger's notion of being a
certain capacity to resist or to undermine reason. These notions all
repudiate the rationality of the Enlightenment and, as a consequence,
they open their followers or believers to mystical or dictatorial
practices, including fascism. This liberal argument is fairly familiar, I
think; the trouble with it is that the horrors of fascism follow more
from the life of Heidegger than from the logic of the argument, for the
irrationality in question can mean that one ends up a flower child as
well as a fascist.
Philip Goldstein