The Power of the Reduction and the Reduction of Power: Husserl's and Foucault's Critical Project

This chapter will focus on the aims, methods, and problems of both Husserl’s and Foucault’s projects in order to mark their differences and their similarities. In so doing, it will underscore their shared (Kantian) goal: to strengthen the human capacity for reason as a critical means of theoretical and practical reflection. It is my contention that the differences between the thinkers’ specific aims only reinforce their respective routes toward a common objective. In this respect, I will argue that both thinkers engage in a project to objectify subjective reason. It is my contention that both thinkers apply a methodological reduction in order to understand and clarify the discursive and social powers that determine the praxis of reasoning. As a result, Husserl sought to make the sciences aware of their foundations in the lifeworld, while Foucault sought to expose their basis in and through the workings of power.