The myth of the mass and the individual in the thought of Nietzsche, Heidegger, and Foucault (Friedrich Nietzsche, Martin Heidegger, Michel Foucault)

This dissertation analyzes the ways in which the idea of the people as a mass has been figured in post-Enlightenment thought and specifically in the work of Friedrich Nietzsche, Martin Heidegger, and Michel Foucault. In their work negative assumptions about the people arise in relation to their theories of subjectivity and epistemological anti-foundationalism. These thinkers rejected the idea that knowledge is grounded in any timeless or transcendent principles, and instead saw knowledge and truth as governed by shared historical and spatial contexts. In their work, however, these ideas are linked to a denigration of and suspicion toward the people as a whole. This dissertation suggests that it is important to think critically about their negative assumption that dominating and "leveling" patterns of conformity, enforced by a "mass mindset," necessarily arise from an epistemology of contextual knowledge. This examination of these three theorists suggests a different perspective on the use of their work for democratic political theory.