Enlightenment and Domination: Foucault on Critique of Enlightenment’s Emancipation Discourse

Michel Foucault is well-known as a contemporary representative of counter-Enlightenment. His analyses bring to light finely a self-deception committed by social and political institutions inherited from Enlightenment which, in spite of their progressive, more humane self-image, facilitate domination and subjugation more than before. Based on some hints from Rorty, Habermas and Walzer, I would show that Foucault’s analyses presuppose some crypto-normativity, despite his persistent refusal of using such normative concepts as truth, emancipation, reform and progress. In his work, the concept of ‘power’ is constantly fluctuating between two meanings: neutral, descriptive on the one hand, and pejorative, normative on the other hand. Foucault’s fear of being bounded to a specific position subjected unconsciously to a ubiquitous power, related to first meaning, prevents him from making an invidious distinction between emancipatory and authoritative aspects of social and political disciplinary institutions. I would argue that this ambiguity of power concept makes him biased towards emancipatory contribution of Enlightenment.‏