Document Type
Book Review
Abstract
Today, the defining event of our Western civilization is generative artificial intelligence (GenAI). Philosophically, it might be grounded in Walter Benjamin’s The Metaphysics of Youth where Benjamin’s return to an age of eternal youth, which, due to its lack of memory,4 aligns with the ethos of GenAI. Memory seems enough for those who remember the subject matter, the color, or the sound of what they seek in GenAI chats. It becomes adequate as we grow accustomed to summaries of “unread” texts, such as those by Benjamin.5 Unlike the AI era of Google searches, which provided an unlimited sea of stimuli, GenAI’s refracted taxonomy and organization based on the imaginary, when the texts are unavailable, brings to mind Nietzsche’s joyful wisdom through Foucault’s knowledge organization. Due to Bernard E. Harcourt’s magisterial work on Foucault and Nietzsche, their work joins Benjamin’s. Harcourt’s edition of Michel Foucault’s Nietzsche: Cours, Conferences et Travaux is the intellectual scaffolding one can only hope for that is rarely provided in these tumultuous times.
Repository Citation
Neacsu, D. (2024). Foucault, Michel. Nietzsche: Cours, Conferences et Travaux. Edited by Bernard E. Harcourt, Paris: Seuil/Gallimard, 2024 (in French) [BOOK REVIEW]. Retrieved from https://dsc.duq.edu/law-faculty-scholarship/151