Derrida and Foucault

Reviews / Votes

In this excellent book, Paul Rekret shows how Derrida's and Foucault's writings are caught in the paradox of, at once, affirming and denying the contingency of their post-foundational ontologies. This is an important contribution to the debates about the politics of post-structuralism. This outstanding contribution to the literature on Derrida and Foucault demonstrates both convergence and irreducible difference between them. It outlines their common points of departure in Nietzsche and Heidegger, but also the parallel aporia in philosophy, ethics and politics to which their 'grander narratives' lead. Rekret sheds new light on both the tensions and the possibilities of continental political philosophy. Recent political theory celebrates situatedness and contingency, but often fails to appreciate fully the contingency of its own affirmative positions. Paul Rekret carefully exposes this problem and its implications by returning to the two philosophers who have most inspired contemporary political thought, Michel Foucault and Jacques Derrida. Beginning with their shared background in Nietzsche's genealogy and Heidegger's fundamental ontology, Rekret traces the Foucault-Derrida relationship from their critical exchanges over the Cartesian cogito through their various positions on epistemology, ethics, and politics. He shows not only how their positions remain incommensurable even while they follow parallel tracks, but that through their exchange the limits of each become apparent. In this way, Rekret explains the basis for the impasse faced by political theory today.