Genealogie in guerra. Foucault critico di Schmitt

The issue of war, its status and its relationship to politics is one of the most pressing key problems of our time. I analyze this subject starting from the reflections of Michel Foucault. By examining the author’s unpublished manuscripts, located at the ‘Fonds Foucault’ at the Bibliothèque nationale de France, I show that although the analysis of war played a decisive role in Foucault’s thought, this subject has not always received adequate attention in scholarship. Following this first line of investigation, I then propose a second line of inquiry, which consists in putting Foucault’s reflections in relation to those of Carl Schmitt: a comparison between two different genealogies which has rarely been examined and on which the critical literature is still scant today. Considering the unpublished materials, I show that the Foucaultian’s polemocritical model has some relevant theoretical proximity to the Schmittian theory of the political, and in fact develops as a radical critique of it. Rethinking Foucault as a critic of Schmitt proves to be not only important in order to understand the French philosopher’s thought, but also fundamental to explore the relevance of these two authors on the topic of war. This is the research question that runs through the entire work.