Nietzsche, Knowledge, and Interest

ABSTRACT: Habermas and Foucault read Nietzsche at exactly the same period (1968–1970) and started from the same problem of knowledge and science. This paper aims to explore the parallel between these two readers of Nietzsche, not in order to compare them but to highlight the specificity of the Foucauldian reading. My hypothesis is that Habermas and Foucault have in common not only their reading of Nietzsche but also how they use it to rethink the status of social struggles by reconfiguring the relationship between theory and practice, reason and emancipation. If Habermas makes emancipation an interest of reason, Foucault aims at another emancipation concerning the truth in which Nietzsche is the great instigator.