The scholarly works of Jürgen Habermas and Michel Foucault have been subject to ongoing scrutiny for a number of decades. However, less attention has been given to their activities as public intellectuals and the relation between these and their philosophical and theoretical projects. Drawing on their own conceptualization of the role of the intellectual, the article aims to illuminate these issues by examining Habermas’ advocacy of a ‘Core Europe’ and his defense of NATO bombardments in Kosovo in 1999 as well (...) as Foucault’s involvement with the Groupe d’Information des Prisons (GIP) and a wide variety of his interviews, op-ed articles, etc. In showing that the intellectuals’ views differ in important ways from those of the scholars but nevertheless inhabit a crucial position in the overall edifice of their oeuvres, the article concludes that the practices of theorists deserve more attention for a comprehensive and more nuanced account of their thought. (shrink)

Wie können Freiheit und Widerstand innerhalb von Foucaults Theorie der Macht und Subjektivierung konzipiert werden? Diese zentrale Frage der Interpretation von Foucaults vielschichtigem Werk wurde breit diskutiert und dennoch nicht befriedigend beantwortet. Dass bis heute kaum Klarheit über den Status von Freiheit in Foucaults Werk erreicht werden konnte, liegt auch daran, dass die gängigen Interpretationen die verschiedenen Freiheitsbegriffe, die in Foucaults Werk zu finden sind, vermischen. Der Artikel bringt deshalb Ordnung in diese unübersichtliche Lage, indem er die verschiedenen Freiheitsbegriffe und (...) Freiheitsprobleme in Foucaults Werk differenziert. Dies ermöglicht ein besseres Verständnis von Foucaults Freiheitsdenken und Machttheorie und führt zu einem neuen Freiheitsbegriff: Freiheit als die Fähigkeit zur kritischen Reflexion der eigenen Subjektivierung. Weil diese "Freiheit als Kritik" nur durch politische Institutionen ermöglicht werden kann, produziert dieser Freiheitsbegriff neue Anschlüsse von Foucaults Denken an die normative politische Theorie und postfundamentalistische Demokratietheorie. How can freedom and resistance be conceived within Foucault's theory of power and subjectivation? This central question of the interpretation of Foucault's multi-layered work has been widely discussed and yet not satisfactorily answered. The fact that until today there has been little clarity about the status of freedom in Foucault's work is also due to the fact that the current interpretations confuse the various concepts of freedom which can be found in Foucault's work. The article therefore brings order to this confusing situation by differentiating the various concepts and problems of freedom in Foucault's work. This enables a better understanding of Foucault's thinking of freedom and his theory of power and leads to a new concept of freedom: freedom as the capability to critically reflect on one's own subjectivation. Because this "freedom as critique" can only be made possible by political institutions, this concept of freedom produces new connections from Foucault's thinking to normative political theory and post-fundamentalist democratic theory. (shrink)

The authors take up Amy Allen's suggestion that while Foucault's work may be able to support a certain type of self-critique and self-development, it does not permit the kind of interpersonal relations that are necessary for the development of intersubjective meaning in struggles against imposed identities. The authors contend that for Foucault, relations of ‘truth’ play an important constitutive role in subjectivities, and that understanding the ‘politics of ourselves’ in the context of this truth shows not only an openness to (...) meaningful interpersonal relations, but also that these relations are capable of generating the conceptual and normative resources necessary for resisting socially imposed subjectivities. The authors present such an account of intersubjective relations based on Foucault's discussion of parrhesia, and develop a model of collaborative political action that addresses the criticisms raised. (shrink)