Starting with Foucault: An Introduction to Genealogy, Second Edition

Fournuit: ChaEEe~zge and Mi~,slter~tr~ti~f~~ 5citement about the concept of power, in particular, often prompts uncomprehendingappropriation and applicatim.2Wy intent, then, is to providea clear and accessible account of what Foucault is doing in Discipline andPzrrlzish and The History offexuali~y~ Vcllwme 1 in order both to providean introduction to his genealogy and, hopefully, to dispel misconceptionsand misinterpretations.Readers with broad philosophical backgrotrnds may consider The Orderof Thi~gs, with its emphasis on linguistic and epistemological topics, to beFoucaultss most properly ""philosophical," and therefore significant, work,They will wonder why that vvork receives cursory treatment in this book, Itis precisely because The Order of Things is most recognizable as a philosophicalwork that one should focus elsewhere to discern the deeper importof the ideas of a most anti-philosophical philosopher, Gilles Beleuze observesthat Foucault offers "counterphilasopby" and that his work is mostproductively read as a counterpoint to established philosophical assumptionsand practices, especially analytic ones.2"FThere is less to be gained byconcenmting an those of Foucault's books that better meet disciplinary expectationsthan on those that seem to Rout good philosophical sense. Aswill be considered later, Foucault exalts mind-stretching alternity in intellectualpursuits, To achieve alternity of thought, particularly in his genealogier-rlperiod, he concentrates on the unfamiliar, the enigmatic, theshunned, the obscure, the neglected, and the suppressed. In the spirit of hiswork, then, if the philosophical tradition prefers The Qder of Things toDkcipIine a7zd Pgnish and TI.7e Histo? Qf Sex~ality, it is the tatter two thatmost deserve our attention.Necessary Scene-SettingI need to clarify the reasons for the negative view that analytic philosophershave of Foucault and his work to situate both with respect ta my analyticreader's backgro~tnd and expectations. This is necessary to orient my expositionand to make it Inore accessible, but there is another reason. Beyondexposition, f also try to make a substantive contribution ta understandingof Foucault's philosophical vision of truth, To that end f complement theexpository chapters with one on truth (Chapter 6) and a related one on realism(Chapter 7). In those two chaptefs I address the hndamental sourcesof analytic impatience with Foucault's contentions and work, My objectiveis not only to make Foucault's work more accessible to amlyric philosophersbut to interest them in it. Doing so requires disabusing analyticphilosophers of the idea that Faucaulr's thought is hopelessly relativisticand irrealistic,There are a numlxr of more specific reasons for analytic philosophers"dismissal of Foucault than the general view of his vvork as unrigorous or too