History and the Will to Power: Foucault and Nietzsche on Genealogy

Abstract

In recent years, there has been a revival of interest in genealogy among social and political philosophers. I argue, however, that this growing literature has tended to obscure what distinguishes genealogy as an approach to the interpretation of history. Any normative evaluation of something that appeals to an account of its origins has come to be called a “genealogy,” even if this account is explicitly hypothetical or unabashedly teleological. But a genealogy, according to Friedrich Nietzsche and Michel Foucault, is not merely an account of origins: it is an account of the contingent origins of the integration of an institution, practice, or concept within a regime of power and control. In other words, genealogy investigates an institution, practice, or concept through the lens of what Nietzsche calls “the will to power.” This paper aims to reconstruct the conception of the will to power Foucault inherits from Nietzsche in a way that explains why investigations into struggles for power from the past can provide insight into the strategies used for exercising and maintaining power in the present. The critical contribution of genealogy, I argue, is not normative insight but tactical knowledge: to oppose something successfully, first you must know your enemy.