Introduction to G.W.F. Hegel, Friedrich Nietzsche, and Michel Foucault by Prof. Bernard E. Harcourt

Professor Bernard E. Harcourt of Columbia University presents an introductory lecture on Hegel, Nietzsche, and Foucault, as background for the public seminar with Cornel West at Hegel 13/13 on February 11, 2026. This lecture was held on February 9, 2026, and is part of the Hegel 13/13 series here: https://hegel1313.law.columbia.edu/ You can read this essay on Substack here: https://open.substack.com/pub/bernard... For more information about the 13/13 seminar series, and prior seminars, please visit the website here: https://cccct.law.columbia.edu/conten... *********** In his untimely meditations “On the Use and Abuse of History for Life” (1873), Nietzsche confronts Hegel’s philosophy of history, introducing a strong element of contingency into Hegel’s historical account and severely criticizing Hegel’s Germanic end-of-history approach. Nietzsche there begins to develop a genealogical method that would come to full fruition in On the Genealogy of Morals a few years later (1887). Foucault developed his method of genealogy in conversation with both Nietzsche’s and Hegel’s writings. In the seminar with Cornel West, we explore Hegel’s philosophy of history through the inversions that Nietzsche and Foucault operated on it. We do so to gain better purchase on our contemporary times. Core Seminar Readings G.W.F. Hegel, §§ 341-360, Hegel’s Philosophy of Right, trans. T.M. Knox (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1952) G.W.F. Hegel, Introduction: Reason in History. Introduction to the Lectures on the Philosophy of World History (1822-1828 and 1830-1831 versions), trans. H.B. Nisbet (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1975) Friedrich Nietzsche, “On the Use and Abuse of History for Life” (1873), especially §8 Friedrich Nietzsche, On the Genealogy of Morals, trans. Walter Kaufmann and R. J. Hollingdale (New York: Vintage, 1989). Michel Foucault, “Nietzsche, la généalogie, l’histoire,” p. 136-156, in Foucault, Dits et Écrits 1954-1988, Tome II 1970-1975, text no. 84, eds. Daniel Defert, François Ewald, and Jacques Lagrange (Paris: Gallimard, 1994); “Nietzsche, Genealogy, History,” p. 76-101, in Foucault, The Foucault Reader, ed. Paul Rabinow (New York: Pantheon Books, 1984). Michel Foucault, Nietzsche: Cours, conférences et travaux, ed. Bernard E. Harcourt (Paris: Gallimard/Seuil, 2024). Additional Readings G.W.F. Hegel, Hegel’s Lectures on the History of Philosophy, trans. E.S. Haldane and Frances H. Simson, in three volumes (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1892) Michel Foucault, L’ordre du discours. Leçon inaugurale au Collège de France, prononcée le 2 décembre 1970 (Paris: Gallimard, 1971). Bernard E. Harcourt, “Situation,” pp. 335-393, in Michel Foucault, Nietzsche: Cours, conférences et travaux, ed. Bernard E. Harcourt (Paris: Gallimard/Seuil, 2024). Additional Resources Rebecca Comay, Mourning Sickness: Hegel and the French Revolution (Palo Alto: Stanford University Press, 2010) Bernard E. Harcourt, “On Critical Genealogy,” Contemporary Political Theory (2024), https://doi.org/10.1057/s41296-024-00.... Colin Koopman, Genealogy as Critique: Foucault and the Problems of Modernity (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2013). Jean Hyppolite, Introduction à la philosophie de l’histoire de Hegel (Paris: Le Seuil, 1983 [1948]); Introduction to Hegel’s Philosophy of History, trans. Bond Harris and Jacqueline Bouchard Spurlock (Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 1996). Daniele Lorenzini, “On Possibilising Genealogy,” Inquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy (2019), OnlineFirst: https://doi.org/10.1080/0020174X.2020.... Pierre Macherey, “Did Foucault Find a ‘Way Out’ of Hegel?” Theory, Culture & Society, 40(1-2), 19-36 (2022), available at https://doi.org/10.1177/0263276422108.... Martin Saar, Genealogie als Kritik: Geschichte und Theorie des Subjekts nach Nietzsche und Foucault (Frankfurt: Campus, 2007).