Starting with Foucault: An Introduction to Genealogy, Second Edition

Xt may be that the foregoing is too adversarial a way of pu~ing things,Rorty, for one, does not argue that his redescriptions are necessarily preferaMeto traditional construals of standards or disciplines. Rorq"s main aimis to defeat conception of traditional construals as inevitable and preclusiveof alternatives, Rorry" primary goal is to gain acceptance ol alternativecontingent accounts as the nom. The main task, therefare, is to impugn thepossibility of ahistoric theories rather than to press acceptance of particularhistoricist ones,s7 The case of Foucault is less clear. As we have seen, Foucaultcontends that all intellectual inquiry can da is to trace the descent andemergence of both what we theorize about and what we use to theorize,His alternative accotints do function to undermine the exclusivity of traditianalessentialist ones, However, Dkzipline and Punish and The Hktory ofSexzknlZty certainly seem to be &red as gerting thin@ right. No amount ofdiscussion will settle the point, In later chapters 1 offer quotes from Foucaultin which he claims to be right about his views, as opposed to offeringhis accounts as productive alternatives. What we can say to rnake someprogress is that Foucault cannot offer his genealogical analyses ur redescriptionsas competitive theovies. To do so would be to illegitimately exempthimself from historicity in a way that needs to be made clear.Rorty maintains thar pragmadsts do not offer a competing """relativistic"or %subjectivist"theory of Truth." According to him what pragmatists do istry "to change the subjectem58 F~clucault% genealogical malyses minimallyare changes of subjects fram theoretical praposals about allegedly undmlyingcontinuities to descriptions of putatively exhaustive surface discontinuities.His redescriptions are-again minirnally-intended to reveal thepoindessness of ahistoric theorizing, Foucault cannot offer competing theories,The new perspective he offers claims to show that thearies cannotachieve the objecrivity that is their main reason for being because theoriesare histoxical products, If we take holisric critics like Foucault as offeringcompeting thearies about truth, knowledge, rationality, and disciplinarystructure, "we shall get them wrong." This is because doing so will "ignoretheir criticisms of the assumption that there ought to be theories about suchmatters.m59We now can say something about how Foucatrlt thinks himself able tohistoricize truth, knowledge, and rationality and still offer cogent redescriptions.Qace we recognize that: Faucault does nat offer competingtheories, we can understand how he thinks "a rational critique of ratioaaiity"and a "conringetnt history of reason" are possible." What enables Foucaultto historicize what is most basic to intellectuai inquiry is his appreciationof something tfiat was ""gimpsed at the end of the eighteenth century."That was the realization "that anything could be made to look good orhad, important or unimportant, useful or useless, by being redescribed,"hlThe point here is thar we learned how to change and maniyuiate the lan-