NIETZSCHE, FOUCAULT AND THE CRITICAL THEORY: PRELIMINARY ELEMENTS FOR A DEBATE

Abstract

During the so-called first generation of Critical Theory, that of Adorno and Horkheimer, Nietzsche, alongside Marx and Freud, was a privileged interlocutor. The critique of Habermas, a central name for the second generation, separated Nietzsche from Critical Theory, attributing him a decisive part of the critical problems that the first generation directed to reason. By its turn, the third generation, of which Axel Honneth is the famous name, once again problematizes the relations between Nietzsche and Critical Theory by the means of Michel Foucault’s thoughts. This article intends to show some aspects of this rescue, on which the names of Nietzsche – as a precursor – and Foucault – as a continuer – are included in the horizon of Critical Theory.