I haven't read enough D + L to comment, but I don't really understand what relation Foucault has to Heidegger. They're very different.
In any case, obviously Heidegger was influential. But I don't think it's possible to say he's the most influential. From an empirical perspective, Foucault is the most influential, since he has the greatest number of citations.
If you go over a citation ranking and look at each thinker in terms of schools of thought, the most influential would be marxism, structuralism, then critical theory, then probably phenomenology.
>I haven't read enough D + L to comment, but I don't really understand what relation Foucault has to Heidegger. They're very different.
Writing styles or even subject matters don't matter. Core ideas matter more. Foucault himself said:
"For me Heidegger has always been the essential philosopher. I began by reading Hegel, then Marx, and I set out to read Heidegger in 1951 or 1952; then in 1952 or 1953 – I don’t remember any more – I read Nietzsche. I still have here the notes I took when I was reading Heidegger – I’ve got tons of them! And they are much more important than the ones I took on Hegel or Marx. My entire philosophical development was determined by my reading of Heidegger."
That's fascinating. From what I was taught, I'd have expected Nietzsche to have held that position for Foucault. Did he change later? When does that quote date from?
Call me cynical - but I'd be very wary of taking Foucault's comments about his own work at face value. He could just be saying this to irritate the predominantly Hegelian, marxist academics in French academia at the time. Foucault is many good things - but he's generally very opaque about his influences. Or, at least, there are many very obvious influences he never talks about.
Foucault himself said "For me, Heidegger has always been the essential philosopher. My whole philosophical development was determined by my reading of Heidegger"
You can find much more about the Foucault-Heidegger connection if you search around the web. Here are some links to get you started:
In any case, obviously Heidegger was influential. But I don't think it's possible to say he's the most influential. From an empirical perspective, Foucault is the most influential, since he has the greatest number of citations.
If you go over a citation ranking and look at each thinker in terms of schools of thought, the most influential would be marxism, structuralism, then critical theory, then probably phenomenology.