Foucault and historical nominalism

Thomas R. Flynn

pp. 134-147

in: Harold Durfee, David T. Rodier (eds), Phenomenology and beyond, Berlin, Springer, 1989

Abstract

Sartre once claimed that existentialism was "nothing else but an attempt to draw the full conclusion from a consistently atheistic position."1/ One could characterize Foucault's approach to history as an attempt to draw the full conclusions from a consistently nominalistic position. For the "archaeologies," "genealogies" and most recently "problematizations" of human discursive and nondiscursive practices that have issued from his pen over the quarter century preceding his untimely death are united by their aggressively anti-Platonic and individualist stance. Foucault has noted this proclivity on several occasions.2/ Given the privileged place of history in his writings (all of his major works are "histories" of a kind), if the nominalist position is so central to his thought, it should afford us a valuable perspective on his work overall.

Cited authors

Sartre Jean-Paul

Foucault Michel