Introduction

Abstract

The project of this book is a return to power. The task is to track the concept through the works of Foucault and Paul. To track it outside of the existing categories of religious and secular. To provide a commentary on politics, ethics, knowledge, and action. To search for power as something that not only continues to exist but which also does so precisely in terms of its absence. To follow the cut. As such this task responds to and is implicated in what might be termed “a loss of ethics,” with ethics broadly conceived as the responsibilities, or the duty of care, that we (no longer) demonstrate both toward ourselves and others. An ethics-oriented attempt to challenge the current status quo of perpetual crisis and war means thus to rethink our actions as informed, nonauthoritative, political, and ethical responsibilities. This demands a return to power.