The Evolution and Integration of Life and Theory in Foucault’s Work on Power

Abstract The article is a response to Kaldybekov and his colleague’s, 2024 paper about Foucault’s theory on power. I argue that it is difficult to understand Foucault’s theory of power without looking into his intellectual life and experiences, especially his war experiences. The objective of my study is to show that there is a connection between Foucault’s ideas about power and his own lived life, and that he always has been critical of totalitarian theories although he seems influenced by Marxist theories, early in his career. In the paper I show how he deals with this dilemma by incorporating some of Nietzsche’s ideas into his thinking. To illustrate the connection between Foucault’s lived life and his theories about power, I take a particular point of departure in Foucault’s lecture series on psychiatric power in the 1970s and an interview conducted by the Italian journalist Trombadori.