Journal of Philosophy: A Cross-Disciplinary Inquiry, Winter2010, Vol. 5, No. 11 44 Active/ Reactive Body in Deleuze and Foucault Sergey Toymentsev Abstract The paper attempts to establish a methodological complementarity between Foucault’s and Deleuze’s accounts of the body on the basis of Nietzsche’s theory of active and reactive forces systematically elaborated in Deleuze’s Nietzsche et la philosophie. Deleuze’s reading of Nietzsche’s physics of forces opens up two prospective developments of Nietzsche’s legacy: the genealogical critique of the historical body produced by reactive forces on the one hand and the invention of a new unknown body produced by active forces on the other. The paper shows how throughout their careers both Foucault and Deleuze pursue these two divergent yet mutually complementary scenarios respectively. Given the shared background of both thinkers, neither is complete without the other, especially when the question of resistance is at stake. Just as active force is necessarily presupposed by the existence of reactive force in the Nietzschean calculus, Foucault’s reactive body cannot exist without its own inverse, Deleuze’s active ‘body-without-organs’. D eleuze’s Nietzsche and Philosophy may be considered as one of the earliest studies that presents Nietzsche as a philosopher rather than a poetic thinker by foregrounding the systematic element of his legacy. As a result, Deleuze’s Nietzsche turns out to be impersonally objective and rigorously scientific/mathematical: his science is the concrete physics of forces that studies the formation of bodies as the effects of the dynamic relations of forces. As I’ll attempt to show, it is Nietzsche’s physics of forces that lays the foundation for the divergent yet complimentary methodologies of Deleuze and Foulcault. 1. Deleuze’s Reading of Nietzsche’s Theory of Active and Reactive Forces Active and reactive forces are the basic functions of Nietzsche’s calculus where one force is necessarily viewed in relation to its opposite. According to Nietzsche’s hierarchy of forces, active forces are those of domination and form-giving; while reactive ones are those of obedience and form-receiving. In reality, however, the interpretation of what kinds of forces are involved in the formation of the body is complicated by the fact that reactive forces prevail over active ones and thereby shape a reactive body. In history, the original hierarchy of forces is therefore inverted: reactive forces are dominant, while active ones are dominated. To illuminate the dynamic of force struggles, Deleuze-Nietzsche introduces the concept of the will to power, an inner motive force whose more primordial qualities of affirmation and negation determine the qualities of forces in a given relation. The affirming will to power expresses itself through active forces (by affirming itself); while the negating will to power, or the will to nothingness, through reactive forces (by negating the other). Furthermore, “affirmation and negation extend beyond action and reaction because they are the immediate qualities of becoming itself. Affirmation is. . . the power of becoming active... Negation is. . . a becoming reactive.” 1 1 Gilles Deleuze, Nietzsche and Philosophy , trans. Hugh Tomlinson (New York: Columbia University Press, 1983), p. 41. Hereafter, NP. Therefore, depending on what quality constitutes the nature of the will to power (which, in turn, determines the qualities of forces), the