Foucault’s Culturalist Axiomatic: A Nietzschean Naturalist Rejoinder

Abstract The Nietzsche-Foucault relationship has been the subject of extensive scholarship, highlighting their affinity. In contrast, this paper foregrounds what I take to be their most significant point of divergence: it compares Nietzsche’s naturalist to Foucault’s culturalist axiomatic of power. First, I introduce a minor, naturalist tradition in the philosophy of power that culminates with Nietzsche. Second, I show how Foucault revolutionized the field of political thought and analysis by drawing on Nietzsche’s critique of logocentrism, and in so doing introduced a different and significantly more expansive image of politics. Third, I survey Foucault’s key writings on power to support the claim that the contrast between Nietzsche and Foucault can be described in terms of a contrast between naturalism and culturalism. Finally, I follow this theme in the writings of “new materialist” thinkers and their ambiguous reception of Foucault. Although Foucault is often read as politicizing Nietzsche, his circumscribing of power-relations to intra-human relations alone, and thereby confining politics to human cultures, in effect led to him depoliticizing Nietzsche.