This article pursues two questions: Can one use Foucault’s later writings on parrhesia and Kant to create a Foucaldian approach to public reason? If so, what lessons might those attracted to John Rawls’ well-known model of public reason draw from a Foucaldian orientation? By putting Foucault into a competitive yet productive relationship with Rawls, this article addresses some of the latter’s shortcomings. In doing so it also makes a larger argument about the need to develop approaches to democratic deliberation that (...) involve engagement with – rather than simple toleration and/or accommodation of – the various ‘reasonable’ ethical commitments deliberators, on some fundamental level, reason in light of. The justificatory aims of public reason are best achieved when participants’ most-cherished beliefs are opened to critical dialogue rather than banished to the realm of the ‘non-political’. The article begins by briefly illuminating the salient features of Rawls’ model of public reasoning as well as three problems that ensue with the limitations it places on discourses regulated by public reason. It then attempts to distill a Foucaldian approach to public reason by briefly discussing 4 elements of Foucault’s later work on Rawls’ philosophical godfather Kant together with several features of the antiquarian studies of parrhesia that Foucault was conducting at the time these Kantian works were written. Third, Jeffrey Stout’s recent account of theistic democratic actors in some of the most economically disadvantaged US localities demonstrates how many of the ideals integral to this Foucaldian approach to public reasoning built on engaging contrasting ethical perspectives are central to some concrete practices of public reasoning. It concludes with some thoughts on the necessity of publicly reasoning through rather than independently of our deepest commitments. (shrink)

The forceful impact of Michel Foucault’s work in the humanities and social sciences is apparent from the sheer abundance of its uses, appropriations, and refigurations. This article calls for greater self-conscious reflexivity about the relationship between our uses of Foucault and the opportunities afforded by his work. We argue for a clearer distinction between analytics and concepts in Foucault-inspired work. In so doing we draw on key moments of methodological self-reflection in Foucault’s Collège de France lectures and elsewhere. This distinction (...) helps identify different ways that Foucault might be put to productive use today as well as what can go wrong therein, a concern we develop with reference to Giorgio Agamben’s post-Foucaultian contributions to political theory. We are eager to open up a possibility that has been infrequently explored despite Foucault’s contemporary influence—-the idea that critique in and through Foucault is empirical critique. This idea can help facilitate a gain in reflexivity in the broader landscapes of contemporary theory, inquiry, and critique. (shrink)