Miserable or irrational: Brazilian Marxists welcome Foucault

Abstract

This present paper analyses the reception of Foucault’s archeological work in the work of one of the most important Brazilian Marxists, Carlos Nelson Coutinho, who wrote a book criticizing the Structuralism movement in the 70’s. In this text, Carlos Nelson situates himself in a Lukacsian horizon, and, because of that, we analyze also one the sources of Coutinho’s criticism, the positions of Lukács related with what he calls Irrationalism, including Nietzsche, and so Foucault. After this exposition of Lukács and Coutinho thesis, we make a critical analyze of them, judging their relevance.