Foucault and the Genealogy

Foucault’s philosophy presents itself accessibly in large part because it consists of genealogies. To begin with, genealogies are topical; that is, their investigations peer into common subjects experienced widely. When Foucault writes on medical institutions in The Birth of the Clinic and punishment in Discipline and Punish, many readers will prefer this concrete analysis of familiar structures to a more abstract philosophical analysis of the issues raised. When he writes on sexuality in particular, he addresses an experience nearly universal. He offers an explanation on the genealogy and its usefulness in the essay “Nietzsche, Genealogy History.” Ultimately, the essay provides an essential foundation to understanding Foucault’s power when it describes the nature of conflict and how the genealogy can address this nature. In the first place, the genealogy appears as an alternative to an historical analysis. Foucault’s intention is not to discredit historians and their detailed work. Instead, he wants to show that historians often burden themselves with a search for origins that do not exist. “Genealogy does not oppose itself to history as the lofty and profound gaze of the philosopher might compare to the molelike perspective of the scholar; on the contrary, it rejects the meta-historical deployment of ideal significations and indefinite teleologies. It opposes itself to the search for ‘origins’” (140). Why reject the concept of an origin? Foucault’s problem, and Nietzsche’s problem as well, is simply that the origin is commonly understood as being “the site of truth” (143). Foucault rejects the notion that “the origin makes possible a field of knowledge whose function is to recover it [truth]” (143). The genealogy rejects using history as a search for origin as a means of recovering truth; instead it challenges the very idea of cause and effect in history, thus weakening any connection between the hypothetical origin and events that followed.
To better understand cause and effect, Nietzsche and Foucault introduce the term “non-place” as the location of conflict.
Emergence designates a place of confrontation but not as a closed field offering the spectacle of a struggle among equals. Rather…it is a ‘non-place,’ a pure distance, which indicates that the adversaries do not belong to a common space. Consequently, no one is responsible for an emergence; no one can glory in it, since it always occurs in the interstice (150).

Here appears a fundamental principle for introducing Foucault’s power. He uses the genealogy precisely because it rejects the claim that truth can be found by the exposition of historical sequences. Put simply, change happens due to a conflict occurring nowhere. There is no truth inherent in the study of historical developments; the phrase itself would likely be contested by Foucault. Does this mean that the genealogy pays little attention to the details of beginnings and ends in history? “On the contrary, it will cultivate the details and accidents that accompany every beginning; it will be scrupulously attentive…[the genealogist] must be able to recognize the events of history, its jolts, its surprises, its unsteady victories and unpalatable defeats” (144). The genealogist does not ignore historical sequences but instead declines to give them authority to dictate truths on cause and effect. So of what use is this information on the genealogy in this investigation of Foucault’s power? To begin with, it is a reminder of one element that makes Foucault accessible: the common topical content of his genealogies. Further, the use of genealogy introduces Foucault’s thoughts on truth and knowledge. By showing that truth does not conform to an origin and that historical investigation does not inevitably lead to primary truth he reminds the reader of the following:
"In appearance, or rather, according to the mask it bears, historical consciousness is neutral, devoid of passions, and committed solely to truth. But if it examines itself and if, more generally, it interrogates the various forms of scientific consciousnesses in its history, it finds that all these forms and transformations are aspects of the will to knowledge: instinct, passion, the inquisitor’s devotion, cruel subtlety, and malice" (162).

This insight, that even historical inquiry that purports to be objective is subject to other elemental processes such as the will to knowledge, alerts the reader that what is at stake in this power inquiry is more than just cause and effect, dominance and slavery.