Rohan Joshi

Prof. James Schmidt

PO592: Enlightenment and Its Critics

13 November 2019

Paper Proposal

Proposal:

An exploration of the connection between Hegel and Foucault, namely the similarities and

differences in how they contextual their “respective” periods of the Enlightenment. Of special

consideration is Foucault’s belief of the inability of the Enlightenment to be considered a

hypersubject, while Hegel very actively takes an opposite side with his conceptualization of

Spirit.

Significance:

In my reading of Hegel and Foucault, there are similarities in both of their observations of the

developments of [the] Enlightenment. I believe relating these characteristics together heighten

their exegesis. On top of this, their proximity to major historical events, namely the French

Revolution for Hegel, and the post-WWII geopolitical sphere of Foucault, makes them serve

similar “spearhead” positions in their respective eras. Engaging with Foucault through Habermas

and his criticisms, and his respective viewpoints, will serve to strengthen the connection to

Hegel. Exploring the origins of the specificity of the question, through Kant, will help orient the

papers structure.
(Preliminary) Bibliography

Immanuel Kant, “An Answer to the Question: What is Enlightenment?,” in Schmidt, ed.,
What is Enlightenment? 58-64

Hegel, Selections from Phenomenology of Spirit

Habermas, The Philosophical Discourse of Modernity pp. 238-293

James Schmidt, “Habermas and Foucault,” in Habermas and the Unfinished Project of
Modernity: Critical Essays on The Philosophical Discourse of Modernity, ed.
Maurizio Passerin d’Entreves and Seyla Benhabib (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1996),
147–71.

Foucault, “Nietzsche, Genealogy, and History” in Essential Works of Foucault: Aesthetics,

Method, and Epistemology, 369-392

Foucault, “The Politics of Health in the Eighteenth Century,” in Essential Works of Foucault:
Power 90-105

Foucault, Discipline and Punish pp. 195-230

Foucault, “What is Critique?” in Schmidt, ed. What is Enlightenment?, pp. 382-398

Foucault, “What is Enlightenment?”, in Essential Works of Foucault: Ethics, Subjectivity, and

Truth 303-321

Foucault, “The Art of Telling the Truth,” in Foucault, Politics, Philosophy, Culture 86-95

Habermas, “Taking Aim at the Heart of the Present: On Foucault’s Lecture ‘What is
Enlightenment?’”, in The New Conservatism: Cultural Criticism and the Historians’
Debate 173-180