Nietzsche and Foucault both question the methods for thinking that preceded them, although Nietzsche did so more radically. Nietzsche rejects the work of all the philosophers, claiming that they cannot separate their “truths” from their own human experiences.1 Underlying this criticism is Nietzsche’s disagreement with the concept of objective truth. While Nietzsche concedes that objective truth might exist, he does not believe humans are capable of understanding it, because every moment of our existence is experienced as human—in other words, we cannot achieve objective truth because it will always be tainted by our perspectives.2 While this perspective seemingly leads to an utterly nihilistic view of life, Nietzsche argues otherwise. Ultimately it is freeing to let go of the futile search for objective truth, because it allows the individual to pursue their own morality.3 Moreover, there are still better and worse moralities, but Nietzsche claims that no morality is exempt from humanity’s interpretation. This relates to the divide in the sciences because Nietzsche essentially posits that, as there is no true objectivity, there is no purpose to dividing the sciences between objective and subjective.
Foucault also rejects objective truth, but he is far less radical about it than Nietzsche. He outlines three main elements: refusal, curiosity, and innovation.4 Refusal refers to questioning and challenging everything “proposed to us,” curiosity to “the need to analyze and know,” and innovation to the creation of new ideas and concepts.5 Foucault’s principles do not belong to a theory as much as to what he terms a “theoretical practice,” meaning that he suggests individuals can incorporate this practice into their daily lives.6 Incidentally, this differs from Nietzsche, who calls for radical, societal level changes. Furthermore, these elements epitomize Foucault’s rejection of the divide in contemporary methods of thinking—by ‘refusing,’ the individual automatically questions the objectivity of everything, making the divide pointless, similarly to Nietzsche.
Nietzsche and Foucault are primarily related to interpretivism, which, like both of them, questions and challenges previously accepted assumptions about the world. Furthermore, like Nietzsche, interpretivism disregards the concept of universality, because the researcher cannot fully separate themselves from their research. While I am not conducting interpretivist research, and therefore am subscribing to the divide in the sciences, I agree with Nietzsche and Foucault that there is no such thing as objective truth. Consequently, while I am not including this in my research design, throughout the process I have been questioning and challenging my position and motivation in my research.
1. Frederich Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002, 3.
2. Ibid.
3. Ibid, 6.
4. Michel Foucault, “An Interview with Michel Foucault,” November 3, 1980, 1.
5. Ibid.
6. Ibid, 5.