Limitations on Genealogy I: Nietzsche on Subjectivity and Power

Abstract

To approach Foucault through Nietzsche is itself to pose the central problem of genealogy: need a flawed ancestry brand the line of descent? Denunciations of arguments from origins are surely familiar enough to produce a certain scepticism. Yet if origins do not produce alternative definitions, why is it relevant to look at genealogies at all? How, in other words, might a genealogical enquiry be framed in order to produce an understanding of current affairs?