A 'limit attitude': Foucault, autonomy, critique

On Foucault's own telling; his distinctive approach to critique is to be ch aracterized as a 'limit attitude'. Definitive of this limit attitude is a p roblematizing, transgressive style of thinking oriented toward challenging existing ways of being and doing, with a view to liberating new possibiliti es for advancing 'the undefined work of freedom'. From the outset, however, the efficacy of this problematizing approach to critique has been beset by doubts about the adequacy of its normative resources. In the present artic le, it is argued that progress can be made toward a productive resolution o f this contested issue if adequate account is taken of both the Nietzschean and the Kantian dimensions of Foucault's thought. Specifically, it is argu ed that the balance between these potentially conflictual elements must be appropriately (re)negotiated, if the normative efficacy of Foucauldian crit ique is to be ensured, while its distinctive problematizing thrust is prese rved. In defending this view, the Foucauldian concept of autonomy is seen t o have a pivotal role to Flay both in advancing the task of problematizatio n and, in its relation to intersubjectivity, in securing its normative effi cacy. In thus vindicating the integrity of Foucault's distinctive approach to critique, new light is shed on the structure, dynamics and logic of a co ntemporary mode of inquiry committed to the problematizing exercise of crit ical reason.