A Genetic History of Thought

Abstract

This chapter moves into the nineteenth century and brings Friedrich Nietzsche into the fold of the pragmatic genealogical tradition. It is argued that in his Basel years, Nietzsche sketches primarily fictional and vindicatory genealogies of justice and truthfulness which bring him closer to the ‘English’ genealogists than he later cared to admit. Nietzsche’s significance for pragmatic genealogy is shown to be threefold: he diagnoses philosophers’ tendencies to dehistoricize and denaturalize their objects, and envisages, as a remedy for these failings, a systematic application of genealogy across our conceptual practices; he views concepts as growing out of needs, but, under the influence of Darwinism and historicism, he indexes needs to socio-historical perspectives and invites genealogists to think more historically; and he highlights that what has a point under some circumstances might become pointless or dysfunctional once it takes more demanding forms or comes to be applied beyond those circumstances.