Wissen und Macht statt Ideologie und Interesse

Plausibilität und Defizite in Foucaults Marx-Kritik

Abstract

The paper considers, in its first part, Foucault's earlier epistemological critique of Marx ("lack of an epistemological incision", "empirico-trancendental doublet", "naive realism"). In this context, the complex of "ideology" is considered from a discourse theoretical point of view. It is argued that a clear insight into the materiality of discourses and of subjectivizations is actually lacking in Marx. Within the second part of the paper, a sort of change of direction of the criticism is suggested: It seems evident that Foucault's way of reading Marx, before 1968, proves superficial and blind towards the crucial epistemological innovations which are characterized as "cyclological" and situated within a logic of reproduction, going beyond the dichotomy of the "empiricotranscentental doublet".