The following article examines Nietzsche’s legacy and influence in some key moments of Foucault’s work. Nietzsche’s philosophy is not only important for radicalizing the critique of all forms of philosophical anthropology; it is also crucial for understanding the forms of pastoral power, here analyzed from the perspective of the critique of the morality of the priest; thirdly, rather than understanding Nietzsche’s transvaluation
of all values as an attempt to overthrow existing values, this article points out that it deals rather with the element from which values derive value.
Nietzsche’s approach gives new political impulse to the Foucauldian critique of anthropologism, since it shows that the problem consists neither in the discovery or rediscovery of the self nor in its liberation from the burden of established morals. It is likely that the conditions, which allowed the emergence of a neoliberal governemental practice, are precisely to be found at the point of intersection between two seemingly
antithetical movements, one aimed at the renunciation and sacrifice of the self, the other at its discovery and liberation. The critique of anthropologism includes all the variants of that culture of the self, in which the illusion could crystallize, that the self is the element in need of liberation, after the failure of the great collective-political projects, which characterized the 20e century. Nietzsche’s perspective seems doomed to madness, if it remains captured in its individual revolt against Christian morality and the nihilistic values of the Western tradition. But if anchored in the practices of current political movements, it can delineate une nouvelle politique de nous-même.