A Social Critique of Reflexive Reason: Relocating Critical Theory After Habermas and Foucault

219 p.Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2001.Chapters Four and Five present Foucault's genealogies as an externalist critique of reflexive agency. Contrary to the interpretation that genealogy dispenses with agency and precludes critique, I argue that our constitution as reflexive agents, and our capacity for taking normative stances and critical action, concern Foucault profoundly. His goal is to reveal how we ourselves sustain power in multiple, if not always apparent ways. By making our responsibility for current conditions more apparent, genealogy also calls on us to take cognizance of and active responsibility for the power relations we uphold. Through an analysis of "the care of the self," genealogy's critical and normative stance is elaborated as an art of living, as a self-distanciating practice of the examined life.U of I OnlyRestricted to the U of I community idenfinitely during batch ingest of legacy ETD