"Our entire epoch, whether by logic or by epistemology, whether by Marx or by Nietzsche, is trying to escape Hegel".¹ These words of Foucault are easily understood in the light of the last three chapters. From the standpoint of a philosophy of difference, which insists on the priority of multiplicity, which denies the possibility of a simple essence at the origin of things — "the true substantive, substance itself, is "multiplicity"", writes Deleuze,² Hegel, because his system envelops difference in the Absolute Idea, is the enemy who must be defeated, must be destroyed. This is the rationale of the anti-hegelianism which informs the writings of Foucault and Deleuze.³ Similar considerations underly the anti- hegelianism of otherwise widely differing versions of marxist philosophy.⁴ The difference is, however, that anti-hegelian marxists such as Althusser have, on the whole, sought to retain the notion of the social formation as an articulated whole, while Foucault and Deleuze have rejected it — the only concept of totality in their writings is that of the chaotic, undifferentiated, non-totalising body without organs.