The Hidden Asceticism of Knowledge: Rereading The Gay Science Genealogically with Nietzsche and Foucault

ABSTRACT: From the first edition of The Gay Science (1882) to the second (1887), Nietzsche gave considerable thought to the problem of how a will to truth emerged in the history of knowledge. In this article, I advance a threefold thesis: first, I argue that in 1887 Nietzsche reread his own Gay Science genealogically, and that it is within this new context that he uncovered a hidden asceticism of knowledge, inherent in the will to truth "at any cost." Second, I show that Foucault grasped this shift as early as his work in the early 1970s, where he in fact describes Nietzsche's history of truth as an ascetic history. Third, I seek to highlight the implications Foucault drew from this analysis for the genealogical project of The Will to Know , the first volume of The History of Sexuality .