Date: Fri, 10 Feb 1995 10:11:26 -0600 From: Jim Elson <jlelson-AT-utdallas.edu> Subject: Re: Nietzsche/Foucault/Genealogy (fwd) > >[In repsonse to Hippen's early post, Jim Elson replied:] > > I would also concur that genealogy subverts/undermines the "rules", > > but I wonder about your usage of "parasitic" since this term is > > usually employed as a prophylatic against arguments which call > > the foundations/methods/grounds of traditional thought into question. > > > On Thu, 9 Feb 1995, Benjamin Erik Hippen replied: > > Raymond Geuss (but please don't hold him responsible if I get this wrong) > likes to distinguish between "genealogy" and "pedigree", where a pedigree > serves the function of legitimating a claim by establishing an unbroken > though sometimes convoluted lineage (such as a family tree), whereas a > genealogy is designed to make use of the convolutedness or > discontinuities for delegitimating purposes. I don't know if that is a > more useful distinction or not. The legitimacy/delegitimacy distinction > might capture your "why"/"how" suggestion. > It captures some of it. What I see occurring in genealogies is not so such a historical narrative, but an 'unmasking'. They may be very direct and polemic, e.g. _On the Genealogy of Morals_ which invites the reader to interpret religion as being governed by the very principles which it denounces. Less polemic one invite the reader to take a number of interpretative perspectives which also functions as 'unmasking', but not "unmasking", in since it shows the possibilities of interpretations other than the "accepted"/ "authorized"/"authentic"/"true" one. > I think you're right about the possibly negative nuance of the word > "parasitic", and though I didn't mean to use it in the prophylatic sense, > I thought it captured the way in which genealogy directly relies on the > framework in question and breaks it down from within that framework. You're right, it does. I wasn't sure if you were using it ironically. [Some excellent commentary by Ben omitted.] > Thus, an awareness of the "death of God" is an awareness of seeing > "truth" as a set of instantiated structures that do not derive from some > overarching authority. The result is either nihilism ("There is no > truth!") which may have a variety of consequences, or a new-found freedom > to create oneself. It is this self-creation that I believe lies at the > heart of both Nietzsche's and Foucault's projects: the idea that once > emancipated from particular games of truth, one can create one's own > structures: self-creation becomes the creation of both form and content, > rather than just content. > > Does this sound plausible? Very much so. The "demise of the highest of all values" can also be described as becoming aware of the _Abgrund_ in which we as humans have always found ourselves. We may write whatever we desire into our tables of value. I think your comment about "both form and content" is right on, for N.'s notion of _Ubermenschen_ seems to demand it. ===========================================================================James L Elson: |<o When you stare into the abyss too long o>| School of Arts & Humanities |<o the abyss stares back into you. o>| University of Texas-Dallas | --Nietzsche-- | ------------------
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