FUKOOVA KRITIČKA ONTOLOGIJA
Foucault’s critical ontology

Summary/Abstract: In this paper, we deal with Foucault’s interpretation of Kant’s understanding of Aufklärung and critique, following first reactions to his later interest in these topics. Then we present the textual situation through which Foucault’s attitude towards Kant was determined, starting with his supplementary thesis from 1961, through the ninth chapter of Order of Things (1966), and up to the text „What is Enlightenment?” from 1984. In addition, we find that the central was his lecture given in 1978, which was published in 1990. In contains several motifs from Order of Things (related to the question of epistemic coercion), and through the interpretation of Kant’s Aufklärung as critical attitude, a line of thought was opened that leads to the essay from Foucault’s last year. The accent of the exposition is placed on Foucault’s combination of Aufklärung and criticism with archaeology and genealogy, and on showing not only the face but, understood in a Foucauldian way, the other side of those connections. After that, we come to Foucault’s examination of interpreting Aufklärung as a position of critical ontology that will explore the possibilities of transgressing the limits set for us. Finding that Foucault’s late approach to Kant is largely conditioned by his genealogical views and analysis of governance/resistance relationship, we conclude that Foucault did not become a Kantian in the end, but that he carried out a genealogical appropriation of Kant, in order to obtain a greater philosophical communicativeness of his thesis on the subject as a field of self-elaboration. In the final part of the paper, we examine Habermas’ objection about Foucault as young conservative.

• Details
• Contents