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A Nietzschean reading of Foucauldian thinking: constructing a project of the self within an ontology of becoming
Thibaut Bardon and Emmanuel Josserand Organization published online 11 October 2010 DOI: 10.1177/1350508410384758 The online version of this article can be found at: http://org.sagepub.com/content/early/2010/10/07/1350508410384758

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Organization 119 The Author(s) 2010 Reprints and permission: sagepub. co.uk/journalsPermissions.nav DOI: 10.1177/1350508410384758 http://org.sagepub.com

A Nietzschean reading of Foucauldian thinking: constructing a project of the self within an ontology of becoming
Thibaut Bardon

Universit Paris-Dauphine, Paris, France University of Geneva, HEC, Switzerland

Emmanuel Josserand

University of Geneva, HEC, Switzerland Ecole de Management de Normandie, France

Abstract As influential as Michel Foucault may be in organization theory, several critics have seriously questioned the epistemological foundations of the Foucauldian philosophical project (Ackroyd and Thompson, 1995, 1999; Caldwell, 2007; Habermas, 1990; Newton, 1994, 1998; Reed, 2000; Thompson, 1993). If these remain unanswered, the Foucauldian approach could be relegated to a self-contradictory, ultra-relativist and partial reading grid of reality. In this article, we develop a Nietzschean reading of Foucaults thinking that offers answers to these criticisms, and reinstates it as an independent philosophical project grounded in epistemological assumptions that are coherent with its ontology and methodology. Finally, we suggest that, following Nietzsche, the whole Foucauldian project can be approached as a genealogy of morals. Subsequently, we call on scholars to further explore the third generation of Foucauldian studies which would study management practices as morals understood as an art de vivre. Keywords epistemology, ethics, Foucault, genealogy of morals, methodology, Nietzsche, ontology, power/ knowledge, project of the self Michel Foucault is indisputably a major figure in organization theory. In fact, he has been identified as the seventh most quoted author in the field (Carter, 2008). However, the Foucauldian turn has sparked heated debate between Foucauldian sympathizers and detractors (e.g. Organization,
Corresponding author: Thibaut Bardon, 40, Bd du pont dArve, 1211 Genve 4, Switzerland. Email: Thibaut.bardon@unige.ch

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2002 special issue). Critics seriously question the epistemological foundations of Foucaults philosophical project (Ackroyd and Thompson, 1995, 1999; Habermas, 1990; Newton, 1994, 1998; Reed, 2000; Thompson, 1993). If these remain unanswered, the Foucauldian approach could be relegated to a self-contradictory, ultra-relativist and partial reading grid of reality. In this article, we attempt to develop a Nietzschean reading of Foucaults thinking that offers answers to these criticisms and reinstates it as a philosophical project grounded in epistemological assumptions that are coherent with its ontology and methodology.

Setting the scene: Foucauldian thinking and the agency/resistance debate

Without attempting to exhaustively render the agency/resistance debate between Foucauldian sympathizers and detractors in its detailed historical development, we nonetheless need to retrace its main developments.

The first generation of Foucauldian studies: the disciplined subject

The first generation of Foucauldian-based organization theory studies looked at management practices as technologies of power that discipline individuals and regulate organizations through social and technical mechanisms. The oldest studies describe new management practices as panoptical devices and, consequently, organizations as kinds of normalizing institutions (Poster, 1990; Sewell and Wilkinson, 1992; Zuboff, 1988). Subsequent studies went beyond the restrictive panoptical figure, exploring how management practices have the power to create the reality of organizations by defining norms, implementing omniscient supervision systems and applying subtle carrot and stick mechanisms (Townley, 1993, 1995). More recent studies have added to earlier work by focusing on how participation in management practices subjectifies individuals by securing their sense of identity (Covaleski et al., 1998; Deetz, 1998; Knights and Morgan, 1995). However, this first generation of studies has been criticized for marginalizing misbehaviours. Organizations tended to be described as having no kind of resistance, as if the shop floor was composed of entirely disciplined subjects (Ackroyd and Thompson, 1995, 1999). Indeed, these studies appeared to hypothesize the efficacy of disciplinary devices rather than attempting to evaluate or question them. More problematically, it has been argued that if power is productive, creates reality and constructs identity, it appears impossible to understand how individuals can resist their own subjection without rehabilitating a kind of essential power-free human agency figure (Mouzelis, 1995; Thompson, 1993).

The second generation of Foucauldian studies: rehabilitating resistance?

A second generation of Foucauldian studies provided two differentiated propositions regarding human agency for rehabilitating resistance: A first stream of studies provides a realist reading of Foucault that recognizes the need to admit an essentialist ground for action to restore a form of human agency (Al-Amoudi, 2007; Baratt, 2003). Al-Amoudi (2007: 553) invokes a biological realm while Baratt (2003: 1077) hypothesizes minimal assumptions, considering individuals as smart animals capable of figurative and creative thoughts. However, such essentialist sin appears wholly inconsistent with the antiessentialism explicitly embraced by Foucault (Knights, 1990, 1997).

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A stream of studies provides a non-essentialist conception of agency, arguing that Foucauldian individuals are social individualities, defined as an idiosyncratic combination of the heterogeneous discourses to which they have been exposed (Knights and McCabe, 2003). Social individuality gives individuals the capacity to resist when internal and external inconsistencies in the dominant discourse make them realize the power of knowledge. Internal inconsistency occurs when the dominant discourse fails to provide a coherent narrative, while external inconsistency emerges when individuals are strongly attached to a dissonant basis of identification from outside the dominant discourse (Knights and Vurdubakis, 1994). Grounded in the social individuality proposition, the second stream of Foucauldian studies exemplifies the occurrence of spaces of resistance in which individuals decide to act otherwise (Ball and Wilson, 2000; Knights and McCabe, 1998, 2000, 2003).

The three lines of criticisms addressed to Foucault thinking

However, far from pacifying the debate, the social individuality argument led to further criticisms that relegate Foucauldian thought to a self-contradictory, ultra-relativist and partial reading grid. We decided to thematize the interconnected charges addressed to Foucault based on these three lines of criticism as they encapsulate the underlying rationale behind each charge without overlapping too much.

The critic of self-contradiction

First, criticism against the social individuality argument concerns the apparent incompatibility between the radical constructivist non-essentialism viewpoint and the necessary recognition of active agency and resistance. Notably, it has been argued that Foucauldian individuals are largely constituted by the intersection of discursive planes (). The problem is that whilst there may be no pre-social subject that exists outside discourse (Knights, 1995), there nevertheless remains a need to explain how subjects relate to and maneuver round discourse (Newton, 1996: 139). On the one hand, social individuality implies embracing a concept of resistance as a mere counteraction to power that can only exist within the interstices of power. This corresponds to a passive conception of agency whereby actions arise from the hazardous friction between autonomous discourses rather than from the sovereign decisions of free subjects. In short, the critics argue that Foucauldian subjects still appear as passive puppets of discourse (Newton, 1998: 427) and that we have trouble understanding the agonistic relationship between power and resistance in which power would energize resistance (Newton, 1994). On the other hand, it has been argued that such a concept implies a psychologization of the self where resistance arises from individuals need to secure a consistent narrative of themselves (Newton, 1998). The Foucauldian individual appears as a kind of Lockean tabula rasa (Benhabib, 1992: 217) with a discursively-built need to secure a consistent identity. However, such a psychologization of the self appears out of kilter with both the decentring of the subject in Foucaults earlier work and with the attention to an ethics of the self in his later work (Newton, 1998: 422). Ultimately, both Foucauldian supporters and critics suggest that an active agential figure should be rehabilitated to cope with active resistance and to really explain change, i.e. to understand how individuals can make the difference (Caldwell, 2007; Giddens, 1984). Since anti-essentialism contradicts such a rehabilitation of active agency (Al-Amoudi, 2007), the Foucauldian project would ultimately deem to be deterministic and thus to downplay the role of agency in the construction, reproduction and transformation of discursive formations (Reed, 2000: 525).

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The critic of ultra-relativism

Second, the concept of agency and resistance has been criticized for being localist, leading to ultrarelativism and moral nihilism (Habermas, 1990). Organizational scholars (Ackroyd and Thompson, 1995, 1999; Reed, 2000) extensively use this line of criticism, initially formulated by Habermas (1990), to reaffirm the limitations of Foucauldian thinking. Foucauldian discourse analysis has thus been accused of only focusing on localized disciplinary processes and relations to the virtual exclusion of institutionalized power (Habermas, 1990; Reed, 2000: 526). This ascendant view of power flattens social reality without recognizing the agency/structural duality, and then ignores the structural reality of more permanent and hierarchical power relations (Reed, 2000: 526). Moreover, Habermas (1990) claims that the bias of localism means that the Foucauldian approach could only conceive of resistance at best in localized settings. This is closely linked to Habermas (1990) accusation of apolitism and futility of struggle according to which Foucauldian thought is unable to provide any universal normative criteria which would sustain a global emancipation project. The Foucauldian framework thus appears ill-equipped for understanding how collective action is possible and can cohere to a common project (Ackroyd and Thompson, 1995, 1999). It has been argued that this impossibility to provide a reason to fight, a possibility to escape our subjection and a hope to emancipate outside of power automatically leads to ultra-relativism and moral nihilism (Habermas, 1990).

The critic of partiality

Finally, it has been argued that the Foucauldian concept of power, understood as specific discursive games of relationships in local settings, only provides a partial view of reality where there is nothing outside discourse than more discourse (Reed, 2000: 525). It thus eludes the embeddedness of discourse in real material settings (Reed, 2000). Notably, critics suggest that the development and establishment of specific discourses, whether mainstream or resisting, not only proceed from local discursive games but also from material conditions. Newton (1998), for example, argues that the development of resisting feminist discourse after WW2 was also possible due to the development of contraception and the fact that women were gaining financial autonomy. Subsequently, it has been argued that this Foucauldian nominalism, which considers everything as talk and texts, cannot take real material conditions into account, and tends to be reductionist (Reed, 2000).

Towards a Nietzschean reading of the Foucauldian thinking

In the following section, we explore ways to approach these three interrelated criticismsself-contradiction, ultra-relativism and partialityvia the Nietzschean inheritance of Foucauldian thinking. Thus, we approach Foucaults work as a Nietzschean genealogy of morals understood as a general re-evaluation of the value of values (Deleuze, 1965/2008: 19) through which human life organizes itself and has been organized (Knights, 2002: 576). We argue that both philosophers perform and invite us to perform a moral examination of our culture as a project of self-fashioning, i.e a transforming test of oneself () an exercise of the self in thought () (of which) the challenge (is) to know to what extent the effort to think ones own history can free thought from what it silently thinks, and so enable it to think differently(Foucault, 1984d: 1617). Obviously, this project does not have a precise goal but constitutes perpetual self-problematization (Foucault (1984a: 1431) through which we can transfigure the taken-for-granted hierarchy of values and practice our liberty. However, our aim is not to compare Nietzsches thinking with that of Foucault in order to identify convergent and divergent points because this would inevitably boil down to a final and true

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reading of both authors, which would not only be nave but would also be inconsistent with their projects (Foucault, 1974a: 1418). Neither do we argue that Foucault is a straightforward Nietzschean, because his thinking was also influenced by references as diverse as Bataille, Heidegger, Kant, Merleau-Ponty and even Marx (Dreyfus and Rabinow, 1984; Eribon, 1989). Valuable though it may be, undertaking such a philosophical genealogy of Foucauldian thinking is beyond this articles scope, and would necessitate several volumes. We do not even argue that Nietzsche enables us to understand all Foucauldian writings, or that we provide a totally faithful image of Foucauldian thinking. Our aim is simply to examine how approaching Foucaults work as a Nietzschean genealogy of morals can help us to deal with the three main criticisms and thus offer an interpretation with internal consistency, reinstating his work as a coherent philosophical project. The Nietzschean reading of Foucault we propose appears consistent with Foucaults own approach. Indeed, as he provocatively states: I use the people I like. The only real sign of recognition we can make to thinking like that of Nietzsche is in fact to use it, to distort it, make it squirm and scream. Thus, whether the commentators say we are faithful or not is of absolutely no interest whatsoever Foucault (1975c: 1621).1 In a sense, we want to make Nietzsche scream a little bit more to understand what else he can add to Foucaults philosophical project. By exploring how Foucault relates to the dual Nietzschean rupture with metaphysicsthe rupture between knowledge and things and the rupture between knowledge and instincts (Foucault, 1974a), we offer a reading of Foucault that re-establishes the coherence of his philosophical project. Indeed, we argue that Foucault refuses the metaphysics embracing Nietzsches (1876/2007: #18) claim that:
Belief in freedom of will is a primary error () belief in unconditioned substances and identical things is likewise an old, original error () to the extent that all metaphysics has dealt with substance and freedom of will, however, one may characterize it as that science which deals with the basic errors of manbut as if they were basic truths.

The rupture between knowledge and things

Foucault explicitly embraces the Nietzschean rupture between knowledge and things, in other words the impossibility to determine any continuity between knowledge and things to know (objet connaitre) (Foucault, 1974a: 1412). We need to develop a comprehensive exploration of the rupture between knowledge and thingsreinterpreted from Foucault through a reading of Nietzscheto understand why Foucaults radical constructivist posture does not automatically involve being doomed to the partiality of reductionism. Theoretically, Foucault acknowledged embracing Nietzschean perspectivism (Foucault, 1974a: 1419). Adopting the hypothesis of an ordered world would imply the existence of a metaphysical organizing force. Indeed, the metaphysical principle answers the need for a unifying principle that would ensure continuity between knowledge and things, but this principle is absurd since it deduces the conditioned from the unconditioned following traditional dualist thinking (Nietzsche, 1886/2006: 2021). Nietzsche identifies such dualist reasoning as one of the main prejudices of philosophers (Nietzsche, 1886/2006: 2044). In Foucaults archaeological period, modern discourses should also be considered as fundamentally dualist, creating dichotomies and favouring one term while excluding its counterpart. Following Nietzsche, Foucault suggests that metaphysics is no longer necessary if we consider that knowledge is an invention (Erfindung): If the relationship between knowledge and things is arbitrary (), God at the centre of the system of knowledge is no longer indispensable (Foucault, 1974a: 1410).1 Thus, Nietzsche stresses the inconsistency of

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modern science which cannot apply the condition of rationality it imposes on everything else to itself (Nietzsche, 1886/2006). Foucault (1974a: 1415) concludes that the break with theology via the theory of knowledge must always begin by an analysis like that of Nietzsche.1 Finally, both philosophers suggest that the non-existence of a truth by itself, i.e. continuity between knowledge and things, theoretically appears to be the most scientific hypothesis. Accordingly, it is more plausible to assume that knowledge is invented and has no essential origin. For both Foucault and Nietzsche, our premise should be that the world is chaos and that order is only a human, all too human hypothesis (Foucault, 1974a:1415; Nietzsche, 1882/2008: 137)chaos sive natura (Nietzsche, 18851887/1976: 197). Obviously, this claim is not an ontological onethat would mean replacing an ordered world by a chaotic onebut only a belief that definitively annihilates the chimerical hope to ground a project of knowledge on truth. Hence, the origin is not to be found in a deep metaphysical essence but in a small beginning, i.e. in pure and obscure relations of power (Foucault, 1974a: 1412).1 In practical terms, Foucault (1971, 1974a) suggests that the continuity between knowledge and things is undecidable because the quest for an essence is impossible. He argues that we should not seek a universal essence of things (which, like Nietzsche, he calls Ursprung) because if we attempt to capture the exact essence of things, their purest possibilities, and their carefully protected identities (), what is found at the historical beginning of things is not the inviolable identity of their origin; it is the dissension of other things. It is disparity (which, like Nietzsche, he calls Herkunft) (Foucault, 1971: 1006).1 Interpretation can never end because every interpretation leads to another interpretation (Foucault, 1971: 1012). Subsequently, the Foucauldian project of knowledge is not to discover the essence of things but rather to investigate the Erfindung of truth. This is precisely the role of genealogy via the depiction of the complex relationships of power that constitute the Herkunft of knowledge. Indeed, Foucault explicitly recognizes that the Nietzschean genealogy constitutes a model for his own work (Foucault, 1974a: 1418). Both Nietzsche and Foucault showed that when we look for the origin of things, what we find, following the retrograde movement of genealogy, is not the unique but the disparity, not the nature but the culture, not the essence but actions. Indeed, Foucault defines power as actions upon actions (Dreyfus and Rabinow, 1984: 313), implying that the essence of things resides in actions and that language is no longer a system of representations with the power to dissect and reconstitute other representations; it designates, in its roots, the most constant of actions, of states and of wills (Foucault, 1966: 303).1 In Nietzschean terms No things remain but dynamic quanta, in a relation of tension to all other dynamic quanta; essence lies in their relation to all other quantas, in their effect upon the samethe will to power (Nietzsche, 1967: 635).1 Foucault grasps this idea of an ontology of becoming through the conceptualization of the world as a matrix of power/knowledge (Dreyfus and Rabinow, 1984: 266). In Foucauldian terms Power is everywhere; it is not that it encompasses everything but that it comes from all parts, () it is the name that we lend to a complex strategic situation in a given society (Foucault, 1976: 122123).1 Thus, both Nietzsche and Foucault reject an ontology of being, which is, by essence, metaphysical, atomist and dualist and embraces an ontology of becoming, involving a historical, processual and multiple vision of the world. The historical essence of life resides in action upon other actions. In Nietzschean terms: The world seen from within, the world defined and designated according to its intelligible natureit would simply be will to power and nothing else () a force of action (Nietzsche, 1886/2006: #36).1

Saving Foucault from partiality?

If we accept the discontinuity between knowledge and thingsand thus reject any undecidable metaphysicwe are bound to accept that the criticism of nominalism, understood as the absence of

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such continuity, is as futile as the quest for an undecidable essence of things. Indeed, as continuity between knowledge and things cannot be determined without metaphysical hypotheses, the criticism of nominalism makes no sense for a scientist and appears more appropriate for theologians. Hence, Foucaults radical constructivism can also be presented as the most plausible choice on which to ground a philosophical project. This project would encompass the principle of nominalism. Indeed, both Nietzsche and Foucault may be considered as nominalist. This does not imply that there is nothing outside discourse than more discourse (Reed, 2000: 525), however, especially if this acceptation implies that discourse is trivially defined as talk and text (Reed, 2000: 527). Foucault explicitly clarifies this point when he argues that: the moment came to consider these facts of discourse no longer simply in their linguistic dimension, but in a sense () like games, strategic games of action and reaction question and answer, domination and evasion, as well as struggle (Foucault, 1974a: 1407). In effect, the essence of things is actions upon actions. Embracing an ontology of becoming means that materiality can be fully acknowledged, not for what it is but for what it does, i.e. for its actions upon other actions. In Nietzschean terms: Granted that nothing is given as real except our world of desires and passions (,) is it not permitted to make an experiment and to ask the question whether this which is given does not suffice for an understanding even of the so-called material world (Nietzsche, 1886/2006: #36).1 Subsequently, this nominalism does not mean that Foucault adopts a reductionism that would lead him to marginalize social practices other than those of talk or text (Reed, 2000: 527). This critique is hard to understand in the light of the broad definition of discourse adopted by Foucault, but also in that of the concrete content of Foucaults historical research. Indeed, Foucault was interested in the genealogical period to describe the functioning of diverse apparatus (dispositif), understood as networks of actions comprising thoroughly heterogeneous ensemble consisting of discourses, institutions, architectural forms, regulatory decisions, laws, administrative measures, scientific statements, philosophical, moral, and philanthropic propositionsin short, the said as much as the unsaid (Foucault, 1977: 299). Notably, Foucault provided detailed descriptions of the carceral apparatus (Foucault, 1975) and that of sexuality (Foucault, 1976) which take full account of the effects of heterogeneous material elements on the field of possibilities. In fact, Foucault provides a unique and extremely fine perception of practices through an ascending view of the analysis of micro-exercises of power, whether expressed through language, text, or in other ways. Following the nominalist stance adopted, Foucault does not obviously recognize any ontological existence to these heterogeneous elements (institutions, laws, legislative decisions, etc.). They are not approached as social beings but as convenient names that help emphasize that actions can produce heterogeneous events in the field of possibilities. Thus, Foucault argues: Its not a matter of locating everything at one level, that of the event, but of realizing that there are actually a whole order of levels of different types of events differing in amplitude, chronological breadth, and capacity to produce effects (Foucault, 1980a: 114). Far from indicating reductionism, Foucauldian nominalism is well able to take material elements into account, not for what they are but for the events they create in the field of possibilities.

The rupture between knowledge and instincts

Criticisms regarding self-contradiction and ultra-relativism are linked to the fundamental issue of human agency. Using Foucaults Nietzschean foundations, we explore how a comprehensive understanding of the rupture between knowledge and instinct provides a sound conceptualization of human agency in Foucaults philosophical project. Postulating the rupture between knowledge and instinct is synonymous with accepting that there is no such thing as a knowing subject that would be controlled by any essential instinct. Refusing metaphysics involves thinking that there is no being as such, in the same way as there is

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no knowledge as such (Foucault, 1974a: 1419).1 Embracing an ontology of becoming leads us to question the primacy of the subject (Foucault, 1975a: 38) and to consider the belief of its sovereignty as an act of faith (Nietzsche, 1887/2002:58): the subject is action, not the cause of actions. Foucault suggests that if it is true that between knowledge and instinctseverything that makes and shapes the human animalthere is only rupture, relations of domination and servitude, and relations of power, then it is no longer God that disappears, but the subject in its unity and its sovereignty (Foucault, 1974a: 14181408).1 This extends the Nietzschean idea that the sovereign subject is an empty fiction,2 that the doer is merely a fiction imposed on the doing (Nietzsche, 1887/2002: 56).1 The Nietzschean subject is a battlefield involving different historical instincts, i.e. a collection of wills to struggle that has been imprinted on the body from repeated contact with its environment. In this way, refusing the ontology of being also means refusing the biological interpretation of the instincts to embrace the fiction of the historical instincts that can be approached as the actions upon actions that composed the fictional subject. In this way, Nietzsche uses words as desire, force, instincts, judgements, pulsions or will, etc., precisely to recognize such an interpretation as mere fiction and to not reify it as if it were truth (Wotling, 2008: 237238). Finally, the subject appears as a configuration of petrified actions in competition, an oligarchy of historical instincts (Nietzsche, 1887/2002: 67). Certain instincts can dominate individual actions but may also be temporarily forgotten, replaced by stronger instincts, and can resurface at any time. This accumulation of incorporated effects or ingestion (Einverseelung) of historical instincts (Nietzsche, 1887/2002: 67) constitutes a real memory of the will (Nietzsche, 1887/2002: 40) whose particular hierarchy defines what an individual feels, thinks and does. Nietzsche concludes that the awakened and knowing say: body am I entirely, and nothing else; and soul is only a word for something about the body. The body is a great reason, a plurality with one sense, a war and a peace, a herd and the shepherd (Nietzsche, 1885/2008: 48).1 Nonetheless, questioning the primacy of the subject over effect does not seem to bring us closer to a theorization of Foucauldian agency. Indeed, how can we escape determinism if, as Nietzsche and Foucault suggest, the subject is slave to his appetites (Nietzsche, 1882/2008)? This conceptualization of the individual does not have to be understood as another metaphysical belief, replacing an ontology of being by one of becoming, but rather as a mere fiction, which is recognized likewise. Subsequently, the goal is not to propose another true interpretation through a psychologization of the self (following Newton, 1998) but to adopt the necessary practical posture to construct our agency. Indeed, following an ontology of becoming, the challenge is no longer to search for the essence of our pre-given freedom but to understand how we can practice our liberty (Foucault, 1984b:1530). Foucault suggests that this practice of liberty consists of adopting an ethos of enlightenment, characterized by three interconnected attitudes: modernity, limit and experiment (Foucault, 1984g: 13881393). In the following sections, we assess how such an ethos of enlightenment can save Foucaults project from self-contradiction and ultra-relativism.

Saving Foucault from self-contradiction? Adopting an attitude of modernity

First, the attitude of modernity means refusing any metaphysical beliefs in order to accept the present as it is and at the same time to transfigure it. Thus, refusing metaphysics means abandoning the quest for hypothetical eternal existents that we could find in chimerical back-worlds (Nietzsche, 1885/2008: #18) and instead privileging the more plausible belief that the world is not a game that

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masks a truer reality taking place behind the scenes (Dreyfus and Rabinow, 1984: 162163). This is the complete opposite of the Christian attitude which renounces life to reach a hypothetical salvation in a metaphysical paradise (Foucault, 1983). Instead, the attitude of modernity involves living the present without metaphysical beliefs and pursuing our salvation in life through the transfiguration of the present in the way we want. This is a remarkable echo of the Nietzschean refusal of the priest figure, this weak man of resentment who imagines a better world in a metaphysical salvation because he cannot produce this world in the present (i.e. Nietzsche, 1887/2002: 5860). In Foucauldian terms, this attitude of modernity means considering that the high value of the present is indissociable from a desperate eagerness to imagine it, to imagine it otherwise than it is, and to transform it not by destroying it, but by grasping it in what it is () an exercise in which extreme attention to what is real is confronted with the practice of a liberty that simultaneously respects this reality and violates it (Foucault, 1984g: 1389).1 It is precisely through this anti-metaphysical gesture, which involves thinking that the self is not a given, that we can engage in the production of an agency. In Foucauldian terms: From the idea that the self is not given to us, I think that there is only one practical consequence: we have to create ourselves as a work of art (Foucault, 1983: 1211),1 i.e. produce ourselves in our singularity by refusing the normalizing metaphysical beliefs which define what we are and consequently limit what we can become. This means deciding to quit a state of minority in which we are only passive elements of the power/knowledge matrix who accept things are true and taken-for-grantedincluding ourselvesand performing the courageous act (Foucault, 1984g: 1383) of refusing metaphysics and deciding to become an active agent of this matrix. Constructing our agency involves practicing our liberty by perpetually re-evaluating what has been presented as true or necessary in the present time. This involves patient self-elaboration whereby we care for ourselves and progressively form our ascetic. Through this permanent ascetic we memorize a truth we have learnt, reconfigure the oligarchy of our historical instincts, construct ourselves and practice our liberty (Foucault, 1983), progressively elaborating a growing quasi-subject, a consciousness of oneself, to be developed and mastered (Foucault, 1984c: 1532). We learn to broaden and control an ever-growing intransigence of freedom and recalcitrance of the will (Foucault, 1982a: 221). This quasi-subject, understood as the historical self-construction of perpetual becoming, constitutes Foucaults alternative vision of agency. Following such a reading, we argue that there is no contradiction between refusing a metaphysical ground for action and rehabilitation of an active agential figure, an event that can make the difference. Indeed, following an ontology of becoming, individuals are not inherently active agential subjects, but can make the difference by practicing their freedom even in the absence of primacy of the subject over action. The condition of such becoming is precisely to perform the anti-metaphysical gesture through which we recognize the futility of referring to an essential ground for action. This involves embracing an ethos of enlightenment, i.e. permanently pushing our limits to increasingly master our own selves and develop free consciousnesses. Subsequently, we argue that the absence of conceptualization of a metaphysical ontological foundation for agency and resistance cannot be considered as an omission (Al-Amoudi, 2007) or a failure (Caldwell, 2007) but rather as a deliberate choice that is constitutive of Foucaults project. It is precisely through this anti-metaphysical gesture that individuals can practice their freedom and refuse to be the puppets of discourse (following Newton, 1998 critic). Indeed, in Foucaults project, the quest for an essential agency is replaced by an ontology of becoming in which individuals are called upon to make the difference in the power/knowledge matrix (following Caldwell, 2007 critic) of cultivating their singularity, i.e. constructing their life as a work of art. In short, this involves embracing the claim that everything is fiction and that there is no essential freedom, posing the ethical question of what is the fiction we will privilege? to practice our freedom.

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Hence, far from being determinist, the Foucauldian project invites individuals to make the ethical decision to refuse the back-worlds(Nietzsche, 1885/2008: #18) and assess how we can practice our liberty and become active agents of the power/knowledge matrix. This project can be considered as more concrete and plausible than alternative conceptions grounded in essential agency.

Saving Foucault from ultra-relativism? Adopting a limit-attitude

Second, the ethos of enlightment also involves adopting a limit-attitude (Foucault, 1984g: 1393). This attitude is a historico-practical test that can be understood as something we have to perform regularly on ourselves in order to go beyond the historical limits of what we think, say and do. The exercise consists of continually exploring how we have become what we are by questioning that which is given to us as universal, necessary, obligatory, what place is occupied by whatever is singular, contingent and the product of arbitrary constraints(Foucault, 1984g: 1383).1 This limitattitude allows us to push the problematization of reality ever further, i.e. to overcome what appears to us as universal, necessary and compulsory. It is precisely this kind of exercise that Nietzsche performs and invites us to perform in his work. Notably, he poses the questions he wants to answer in the Genealogy of morals: i.e. Under what conditions did man invent these judgments of good and evil? And what inherent value do they have? Have they hindered or fostered human well-being up to now? Are they a sign of some emergency, of impoverishment, of an atrophying life? Or, is it the other way rounddo they indicate fullness, power, a will for living, courage, confidence, the future? (Nietzsche, 1887/2002: 28).1 This is a project in which individuals are invited to rise above Good and Evil (Nietzsche, 1886/2006), i.e. to go beyond the taken-for-granted hierarchy of moral values that have been presented as universal, unquestionable and metaphysical; a project in which individuals are invited to assess the value of such values as an active agent and, as an artist, to create their own hierarchy of values, and their own morality (Nietzsche, 1887/2002: 6566). Foucault (1984i: 1550) explicitly recognized that his work as a whole could be understood as a Nietzschean genealogy of morals. Following the traditional periodization of Foucaults work (Dreyfus and Rabinow, 1984), it is possible to say that archaeology re-evaluates fields of knowledge, genealogy re-evaluates fields of power/knowledge and the ethical period re-evaluates fields of power/knowledge/subjectivity (Foucault, 1983: 1212). Subsequently, this genealogy of morals provides a general re-evaluation of how human life has been experienced and experiences itself, where experience is understood as the correlation between fields of knowledge, types of normativity, and forms of subjectivity in a particular culture (Foucault, 1984d: 10). Foucault adds that the concept of moral, because of its polysemy, allows us to approach this general re-evaluation within a single framework. Foucault understood moral in three complementary ways (Foucault, 1984d: 36): first, as a moral code defined as a set of values and rules of action that are recommended to individuals through the intermediary of various prescriptive agencies such as the family, educational institutions, church and so forth. Moral codes were clearly the focus of the genealogical period (drawing upon archaeological conclusions), when Foucault studied how modern discourses normalize the environment and discipline individuals to certain behavioural norms. Second, moral can be understood as an ethic or an ascetic, in other words, the way one ought to form oneself as a moral subject acting in reference to prescriptive elements that make up the code (Foucault, 1984d: 16). This aligns with Foucaults work during the ethical period (Foucault, 1983, 1984a, 1984b). Third, moral can be understood as the morality of behaviours, i.e. the concrete behaviours of individuals with regard to prescribed values. Although Foucault did not study individual

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morality of behaviours in detail due to archival constraints, he recognized that it was necessary to perform a general re-evaluation of the value of values in a particular culture, i.e. its moral (Deleuze, 1987/2003: 319). Contrary to Habermas (1990) claim, the moral re-evaluation to be pursued is not a nihilist one where the violent deconstruction of our certainties leaves us stripped of sense or value. As Nietzsche suggested, such re-evaluations are performed to help individuals problematize taken-for-granted values and reconstruct their own hierarchy of values in a self-fashioning project. Both Nietzsche and Foucault called on us to reconstruct our own morals as active subjects, i.e. to become moral subjects of our own actions. This reconfiguration involves equipping ourselves with certain moral principles and codes of conduct that we consider as worthy (as opposed to Good in the absolute sense), and rejecting those we consider as bad (as opposed to Evil in the absolute sense). In line with the limit-attitude, this project obviously cannot be finalized but must be performed continually on a day-to-day basis. As Foucault (1984a: 1431) says: I think that we have to work continually at problematizing and re-problematizing.1 This elaboration of oneself through a continual ascetic can be understood as the Foucauldian reading of Nietzsches endless heroic quest (Thiele, 1990). The Nietzschean hero does not take god as a judge for his actions and does not have a precise goal. He is his own judge and his goal is orientated toward self-overcoming. Thus, the Nietzschean hero is perfectly conscious of himself and his will to struggle is total. We must pursue this perfect consciousness of ourselves as an idealterrestrial, not metaphysical (Nietzsche, 1885/2008). Finally, this care of the self consists of a permanent elaboration of oneself through which we constitute ourselves as moral subjects by disciplining our actions and mastering our internal instincts, i.e. we develop free consciousness of ourselves by practicing our liberty. The growing moral quasi-subject that we elaborate through this perpetual elaboration of ourselves can be approached as a logos. Foucault (1984b: 1532) quotes Plutarch to define such a quasi-subject: You must have learned principles so firmly that when your desires, your appetites or your fears awake like barking dogs, the logos will speak like the voice of the master who silences his dogs with a single cry. This ascetic helps us to memorize a truth, practice a certain code of conduct and construct our own morality (Foucault, 1983).

Adopting an experimental attitude

Third, and along the same lines, the ethos of enlightenment implies adopting an experimental attitude (Foucault, 1984g: 1393). The care of the self is not simply an individual practice but also a social one that must be experienced in action and confronted with the historical context: This work, done at the limits of ourselves must, on the one hand, open up a realm of historical enquiry and, on the other, put itself to the test of reality, of contemporary reality, both to grasp the points where change is possible and desirable, and to determine the precise form this change should take. This means that the historical ontology of ourselves must turn away from all projects that claim to be global and radical (Foucault, 1984g: 13931394).1 Indeed, following the ontology of becoming adopted by Foucault, we need to realize that we are both agents and elements of the power/knowledge matrix. Our capacity to construct ourselves as a work of art, i.e. in our singularity, depends on the actions of others for three reasons. First, because the construction of our agency depends on the strength and rigidity of the historical limits we meet in our social milieu. In states of domination, individuals or groups can block a field of power relations and in such states, the practices of freedom do not exist or only exist unilaterally or are extremely constrained and limited (Foucault, 1984b: 1530). For example, racist or xenophobic environments constitute constraining ideological environments that impede the capacity to develop our singularity (Coles, 1992). In the same vein,

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Nietzsche stated that commanding is more difficult than obeying. And not only because the commander beareth the burden of all obeyers, and because this burden readily crusheth him (Nietzsche, 1885/2008: 141).1 Second, because adopting a posture of openness facilitates the experimentation of difference and informs our own problematic. Thus, Foucault invites us to perform limit experiences to facilitate the problematization of ourselves (Foucault, 1984g: 1393). These experiences are also social experiences. Third, because those who do not dominate themselves try to dominate others: the risk of dominating others and exercising tyrannical power over them only comes from the fact that one did not care for oneself and that one has become a slave to his desires (Foucault, 1984b: 1535).1 Foucaults project is thus fundamentally dialogic (Coles, 1992: 85). This is precisely the role of Foucaults work, namely to act as a toolbox that can help the reader-user to enhance the problematization of himself and his social milieu (Foucault, 1974b: 523). As Foucault says: I would like my books to be like surgeons knives, Molotov cocktail or galleries in a mine, and, like fireworks, they combust after use (Foucault, 1975b: 1593).1 Thus, when Foucault introduces different ascetics from the Greeks care of the self (Foucault, 1984b, 1984e) to hedonism, with practices of alternative sexualities (Foucault, 1982b, 1984f), and political activism (Foucault, 1980b), he does not advocate that we copy such aesthetics (which would be paramount to imposing another god) but rather that we construct our own aesthetic by making everything which appears true as problematic (Foucault, 1984a: 1431). This experimental attitude is crucial if we are to assess and push our historical limits further so as to progressively attack stronger rigidities of power and unlock states of domination. It is precisely because Foucault does not underestimate the structural reality of power relations that he adopts a localized point of view and an ascending conception of power which considers the global unit of domination as a terminal form of power. This constitutes the viewpoint that permits one to understand its exercise, even in its more peripheral effects, and which also makes it possible to use its mechanisms as a grid of intelligibility of the social order (Foucault, 1976: 122).1 For instance, Foucault indicates how sexual technologies of power were constitutive of the affirmation of bourgeoisie as a class in the mid-18th century before becoming an instrument of its domination (Foucault, 1976: 162163). Consequently, it is precisely by using the fine description of micro-exercises of power as a point of departure that we can progressively develop a wellgrounded account of the constitution, mechanism and extent of structural domination. Attacking Foucault for his ascending approach may thus be assimilated with an expeditious assessment where the method is judged for what it isan analysis of the micro-exercise of power rather than for what it doesi.e. providing a concrete understanding of the structures of domination. On the contrary, radical and global approaches that adopt a descending view of power can only propose universal, utopian and totalizing projects of emancipation. Foucault proposes a project which is both individual and collective, singular and universal, local and global. Indeed, as outlined above, the Foucauldian project is fundamentally dialogic and involves global solidarity between the agents/elements of the power/knowledge matrix that is based on developing interdependant local singularities. This is a project which individuals can cohere to without embracing a uniform and totalizing project of emancipation. Moreover, it is a project in which individual resistance does not proceed from the inconsistency between autonomous discourses alone, but also from the ethical choice to perform historico-practical tests to identify and combat the most dangerous historical limits we are confronted with. Finally, it is a project in which collective action is facilitated when individuals embedded in identical local settings are confronted with the same immediate historical limits. Following Nietzsche, such a project involves taking oneself beyond moral (Nietzsche, 1881/1989: 18),1 i.e. a kind of vitalist philosophy which would celebrate life for itself and would improve our capacity to act while improving the capacity of others to act, a

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philosophy that invites us to consider that everything is action and to raise questions as to the most ethical actions to perform. This line of reasoning enables us to overcome the moral nihilism and ultra-relativism critique that Habermas (1990) addressed to Foucault.

Discussion
By exploring the Foucauldian project in its Nietzschean inspiration, we showed that we can effectively address the three lines of critiques of self-contradiction, ultra-relativism and partiality. We do not claim that our Nietzschean reading provides an ultimate reading of Foucault, but simply that it gives an interpretation that reinstates Foucauldian thinking as an integral philosophical project, coherent in its ontological, epistemological and methodological aspects. We thus call on Foucauldian scholars not to accept certain interpretations of Foucault as taken-for-granted but to question how we can problematize and reproblematize them. One way to address and extend the historical limits of existing interpretations of Foucault is to consider his other philosophical influences. Notably, we encourage scholars to undertake Kantian and Heideggerian readings of Foucauldian thought. Our Nietzschean reading therefore restores the Foucauldian approach as an alternative to mainstream research on management practices because it does not rely on a metaphysical principle, and does not seek to change values in a descending act of power that might be impossible to achieve. On the contrary, the Foucauldian alternative invites us to question the values of the dominant discourse and to go beyond the historical limits by reconstructing our own moral values. By adopting such an ethos of enlightenment we can become moral quasi-subjects who do not jeopardize the capacity of others to act. As seductive as it may be, the idea that modern society can achieve happiness through the rationalization of management practices seems less plausible than the perspectives offered by an agency of becoming.

Foucault versus Habermas

Of course, the Habermasian project remains a plausible alternative. However, we argue that the Foucauldian project, re-established in its coherence and entirety, has more to offer. In this article, we defend the idea that it is more plausible epistemologically and also that it is more practically sound. We showed that a Nietzschean reading can help to counter Habermas critique of relativism and moral nihilism. However, because Habermas wrote extensively on Foucault (e.g. Habermas, 1990: chapter IX and X) while Foucault wrote little about Habermas, the dialogue between the two philosophers has traditionally been evoked in Habermasian terms (see Ashenden and Owen, 1999; Kelly, 1994 for exceptions). We would like to turn the argument around and show that the Foucauldian project as presented in this article is not necessarily subjected to the possible limitations of the Habermasian project. Contrary to Foucault, Habermas distinguished power from knowledge and suggested that a discourse is only valid if it can be rationally demonstrated (Kelly, 1994: 388). Habermas argued that valid knowledge can only be reached in ideal speech situations where the only acceptable power is that of the better argument (Habermas, 1994). He thus invites us to respect the rules of the discourse ethic to reach a consensus which would constitute the condition of our emancipation (Habermas, 1994). However, the practical possibility of establishing such a situation is, at the very least, unlikely. Habermas project thus appears to remain a utopia that cannot find empirical applications in concrete situations (Kelly, 1994: 399) while Foucaults project is concrete and can be immediately conducted at individual level. Referring to Habermas, Foucault states: The problem is not to dissolve (relationships of power) in the utopia of perfect transparent communication, but to givethe rules of law, the techniques of management and also the ethics

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which would allow these games of power to be played with a minimum of domination (Foucault, 1984b: 1546).1 This joins Starkey and Hatchuels (2002: 652) call to academics to search for undogmatic normative forms of organizations. It is also a call for managers to lead organizations in such an undogmatic normative way and for employees to perform historico-practical tests to assess and combat the historical limits that organizational life imposes on them. Moreover, Habermas project is totalizing because he states that the normative criteria of the validity claim is universal and that it is the only acceptable way to emancipation. We believe that Foucaults project is more desirable because it transcends the radical totalizing project by being both singular and universal. Foucault is very clear on this point when he says: The search for a form of morality acceptable by everyone in the sense that everyone would have to submit to it, seems catastrophic to me (Foucault, 1984h: 1525).1

Management practices as morals

We also believe that approaching Foucaults thinking as a Nietzschean genealogy of morals has important implications in organization studies. By mobilizing the three Foucauldian acceptations of the concept of moralmoral as moral code, moral as morality of behaviour and moral as ethics (Foucault, 1983, 1984d)we can provide an integrative view of existing Foucauldian work and develop new research avenues. The two well-established generations of Foucauldian work have focused respectively on management practices as a moral code and on the individual morality of behaviours regarding management practices. Indeed, the first generation of Foucauldian studies (Covaleski et al., 1998; Sewell and Wilkinson, 1992; Zuboff, 1988) approached management practices as moral codes which discipline individuals and regulate organizations through social and technical mechanisms, while the second generation explored the individual morality of behaviours by describing the way individuals concretely behave with regard to the prescribed moral code (Ball and Wilson, 2000; Clegg, 1994; Knights and McCabe, 1998, 2000, 2003). Furthermore, only a few studies empirically explored management practices as ethics, i.e. how organizations prescribe individuals to engage in a project of the self (Grey, 1994; Jrgensen, 2004; Mangan, 2009; McCabe, 2008; Pezet et al., 2007). While these studies make significant contributions, we argue that they present several limitations that offer interesting research avenues. First, they do not use the four dimensions of asceticism provided by Foucaultnamely the ethical substance, mode of subjection, form of elaboration and teleology (Foucault, 1983:1212 1219; 1984d: 3645)as a reading grid to deconstruct the prescribed organizational asceticism. We find just one study which uses this typology to understand management practices (Kelly et al., 2007). However, despite its interest, this study focuses on a very specific workplace health and fitness program that is of little significance with respect to current moral domination in organizations. We believe it would be fruitful to engage in cumulative work by using the four dimensions of asceticism as a common reading grid to compare more central management practices in different contexts. Notably, we encourage scholars to compare the prescribed organizational asceticism in the public and private sector in order to reveal the degree of managerialization of moral values in the former. The four dimensions of asceticism could also be used to compare whether the prescribed asceticisms are differentiated according to the hierarchical levels concerned, which would help the different ideal figures that are prescribed within organizations. Third, scholars could compare such ideal figures with those prescribed in non western-culture, helping to evaluate the globalization of values between societies. Finally, engaging in cumulative work that compares the prescribed art de vivre between hierarchical levels, sectors and cultures would progressively delimitate the frontiers and extend the moral domination we face in contemporary societies.

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Second, while these studies offered some insights into the prescribed organizational asceticisms in our contemporary culture, they failed to explore how individuals practice their liberty when conducting their own art de vivre. Indeed, Foucault notes that art de vivre entails both the models proposed for setting up and developing relationships with the self, for self-reflection, selfknowledge, self-examination, for deciphering the self by oneself, for the transformation one seeks to accomplish with oneself as object and the manner in which one ought to form oneself as an ethical subject (Foucault, 1984d: 36). Subsequently, Foucault suggests that these asceticisms can either be disciplinary practices, if they are prescribed by institutions and introduced following a docility-utility logic, or liberating practices, if they are autonomously performed by ethical subjects. We believe that while organization studies have explored how individuals experience the prescribed art de vivre, they have neglected how individuals can practice their liberty by performing their own art de vivre as liberating practices. Grey (1994), for instance, suggests that pursuing a career constitutes the unifying moral principle that grounds self-management projects undertaken by accountants. He then depicts how such projects are prescribed during the three stagesfuture recruit, trainee and managerof an accountants career. He also provides interesting insights into how accountants experience such projects. Surprisingly, however, all the accountants he interviewed seem to embrace their career as the only moral ground guiding their life. Indeed, he gives no cases of accountants who refuse the pursuit of a career as a guiding principle or even who relativize the importance of pursuing a career by balancing it with other moral values. We certainly do not wish to discard Greys (1994) study which provides an important contribution. Moreover, this absence of moral controversy in accountant populations can be explained by the fact that accounting firms constitute extreme settings that are particularly effective at reproducing corporate clones [for example, Grey (1994: 489] describes how such firms frequently organize sackings, called culls). However, we believe that further exploration would reveal that certain individuals criticize the prescribed organizational asceticism they are confronted with on moral grounds, and decide to practice their own art de vivre. Notably, by exploring how individuals construct their own art de vivre, Foucauldian scholars could rehabilitate figures of active agents that not only criticize the prescribed asceticism on moral grounds but also practice their liberty by reconstructing their own morality. Subsequently, understanding how individuals develop their own art de vivre alongside the dominant ethos would help to rehabilitate resistance as an affirmation. Indeed, Foucault argues that saying no constitutes just the minimal form of resistance but saying yes can constitute a more accomplished form of resistance (Foucault, 1984f: 15601561). We believe that such an exploration would be particularly useful as it would show that individuals are not only reactive agents who can display resistance against management practices but are also active agents, able to display resistance for the preservation or even the reaffirmation of their own art de vivre.

Towards an academic ethos of enlightenment

Finally, we hope that our article illustrates the benefits of borrowing from other social sciences. Several scholars have questioned the use of interdisciplinary research, criticizing organizational studies as an extensive importer of ideas from other fields. Some have argued that such borrowing results in a multiplication of divergent perspectives that impede the paradigmatic consensus needed to engage in (positive) cumulative work (Markczy and Deeds, 2009; Pfeffer, 1993). We, on the other hand, believe that it is far more beneficial to adopt an academic ethos in line with Foucaults ethos of enlightenment. Such an ethos involves adopting an attitude of modernity whereby we refuse the (dogmatic) belief that chimerical paradigmatic unity would help us to progress towards truth. On the contrary, we prefer to practice our academic liberty in the present time

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to make the difference in the power/knowledge matrix. This attitude of modernity leads us to adopt a limit-attitude through which we explore the limits of our discipline to problematize social reality ever further. We believe the best way to do this is to adopt an experimental attitude whereby we confront ourselves with different ways of thinking, especially those from other fields. Nonetheless, some scholars criticize such borrowing, arguing that salient thinking is often distorted to make it square with a specific research agenda [see Heracleous and Fellenz (2005) for a useful discussion]. Obviously, following Foucaults ideas (1975c: 1621), we encourage such distortions. However, these may be problematic if they result in impoverished appropriations that are only used to confirm what is already known and not for thinking the unthinkable (Knights, 2002). This is particularly true regarding Foucauldian use in organization studies, as most scholars use very limited quantities of material (Carter, 2008; Knights, 2002). However, such selective appropriation can lead to inconsistencies. The debate within our field regarding Foucauldian epistemology is a good illustration. In effect, distortions resulting from selective appropriation create a new discursive space, engaging scholars in original controversies about Foucault. This catalyzes fresh interpretations that would be impossible without the intense debate created by selective appropriation. We have tried to provide a renewed interpretation using a wide range of Foucauldian texts incorporating a Nietzschean reading. We thus hope to contribute to beneficial interdisciplinary exchange, and expect this debate helps to rehabilitate organization studies as a contributor to other social science disciplines rather than simply a borrower. Notes
1 Translation by authors. 2 Our thanks to reviewer 1 for illuminating this point.

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Biographies Thibaut Bardon is a PhD Candidate at Universit Paris-Dauphine, DRM-CREPA and University of Geneva, HEC. His publications and research deal with Foucauldian thinking, strategyas-practice, neo-institutionalism and new management practices. He has also worked as a management consultant in various industries. Address: 40, Bd du pont dArve, 1211 Genve 4, Switzerland. Email: Thibaut.bardon@unige.ch Emmanuel Josserand is Professor at HEC, University of Geneva. He has published more than 40 papers in peer reviewed journals and edited books. He has taught management in various universities and business schools in Europe, the US, Australia and Africa. He is currently the Editor-inChief of M@n@gement and Affiliated Professor at Ecole de Management de Normandie. Address: 40, Bd du pont dArve, 1211 Genve 4, Switzerland. Email: Emmanuel.josserand@unige.ch

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