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To what extent is genealogy necessary to regulating the task of “understanding human

activity”

1. Introduction

This essay looks at different approaches to the “understanding of human activity and

intercourse” (Oakeshott, 1967, p. 197) and claims that genealogy’s vital role is in its ability to

free this practice from being “held captive” (Owen, 2002, p. 226) to one discourse, yet still

allowing scientific discourse its (contingent) truth claims (Bevir, 2008, p. 269).

In the first part of the essay I outline the problems of scientific discourse, by analysing

Oakeshott’s concept of inquiry or debate. I expand on Oakeshotte’s concerns regarding the

totality of the “voice of ‘science’” (Oakeshott, 1967, p. 197) within inquiry, by examining this

claim through Foucault’s concept of subjugated and disciplined knowledges; namely their

selection, normalization, hierarchicalization and centralization (Foucault, 2004, pp. 8, 180).

With this lens, I expose the claims of power at work through methods such as inquiry, and offer

Oakeshott’s alternative metaphor; a conversation, but highlight the problems this itself has in

allowing for the voice of science.

In the second part of the essay I make the claim that it is in the communication between

these two philosophies of dialogue that a fully encompassing approach to understanding human

activity can be found, and genealogy is the key to enabling this relationship. I look at the

interplay between critical theory and genealogy as outlined by Owen, as reflective of inquiry

and conversation. I argue that critical theory, in its emphasis on conclusions and “getting to the

non-distorted view” (Owen, 2002, p. 227) is a method compatible with the idea of inquiry and

its occupation with a scientific discourse. I then draw on ideas from Bevir to deposit genealogy

as the “alternative” to critical theory, effectively positioning critical theory as the “regulative

ideal” (Bevir, 1999, pp. 125-126). Finally, I show how a similar move can be made between

inquiry and conversation; where the use of genealogy within conversation can be the field

where inquiry is questioned.

I therefore conclude that genealogy is a fundamental aspect in both conversation and

inquiry. Its distinction from critical theory, and its relationship with truth as a regulative ideal

show how genealogy is not just about understanding human activity from another perspective,

but how that alternative perspective encourages idioms built upon scientific discourse, such as

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inquiry or critical theory, to be reconstructed and refined. In essence, genealogy dismantles

voices which allude to truth through a scientific discourse, and by doing so, forces those voices

to continuously react to the environments in which they interact and maintain effectiveness as

the “best account of the world currently on offer”. Thus, by denying “utter certainties” (Bevir,

2008, p. 269), genealogy enables us to have approximations of truth from which the practice

of understanding human activity is possible, yet still allows us discourse choice.

2. Part One – The Problems of Discourse

2.1 Inquiry

Michael Oakeshott gives a clear distinction between two different ways of engaging in

the pursuit of understanding human behaviour, activity and thought: that of inquiry or debate,

and that of conversation. The problem with inquiry, argues Oakeshott, is that it becomes fixed

on an end goal, a conclusive answer built around notions of “truth”. As such, an inquiry

recognizes only one voice, namely the “voice of ‘science’” (Oakeshott, 1967, p. 197). In

addition to this exclusion of other modes of thought, the monopolisation of interpretation that

the scientific voice claims, applies a normalizing pressure to other voices, in order for them to

be acknowledged as authorial. Thus, whilst it appears a method of inquiry in understanding

human activity allows for a multitude of utterances, it in fact espouses only “one authentic

voice” (Oakeshott, 1967, p. 197).

Understanding in detail how this occurs and the wider effects of such a practice can be

seen with the use of Foucault’s concept on the “disciplinarization of knowledges” (Foucault,

2004, pp. 182-183) and subsequent “selection, normalization, hierarchicalization and

centralization” (Foucault, 2004, p. 181). Similar to Oakeshott, the claim is such an exclusive

appropriation of understanding by science, sets it up as the dominant discourse to be reproduced

in all engagements, where science can be defined as having the aim of a conclusive answer

alluding to truth: “For centuries, Western literature has sought to base itself on such notions as

nature, verisimilitude, sincerity, even science itself – in short, on true discourse” (Sheridan,

1980, p. 124). This further empowers the scientific discourse and subjugates other knowledges

that do not fit into it, for anything that makes claims at being a search for conclusive answers

is homogenised into being a science. That which does not follow this aim with its “verification

procedures” (Foucault, 2004, p. 10) is eradicated as a “non-knowledge”. This makes science

the “disciplinarization of knowledges” (Foucault, 2004, pp. 182-183). Firstly, the selection of

science as the principal voice of inquiry, results in other voices being “convicted in advance of

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irrelevance” (Oakeshott, 1967, p. 202). If another voice does not wish to suffer charges of

irrelevance then, it must “imitate” the voice of science (Oakeshott, 1967, p. 197). This therefore

sets off the process of normalization.

Once this has occurred, it is inevitable that particular voices or knowledges should be

hierarchicalized. This allows knowledges to be “interlocking”, some forming the foundational

base as “subordinated knowledges” (Foucault, 2004, p. 180), while others are given primacy

as knowledges which require further expertise and specialisation. Not only does this allow for

both subordinated and elevated knowledges to communicate within a paradigm of science, but

sets up the communication as being unequal. The knowledges that require greater expertise

enable the individual to speak with more authority, to be able to explain to others why they

think what they think, or how their own preferred knowledge-voice can be understood in light

of scientific discourse. This type of hierarchical expertise finally necessitates a certain degree

of centralization, in the form of institutions, where these knowledges are “redistributed”

through teaching (Foucault, 2004, p. 182).

Inquiry and its voice of science then, can be understood to be engaging in these

processes, when viewed through a Foucaulidan lens. This becomes somewhat more sinister

when we consider Foucault’s perspective on the reason for the disciplinization of knowledges

and their role: the power relation for political power.

2.2 Knowledge-Power

For Foucault, peace is the continuation of power relations exercised in war through

other means (Foucault, 2004, p. 46); peace is not established to “neutralize the disequilibrium

revealed by the last battle of war”, but to maintain and reproduce that disequilibrium (Foucault,

2004, p. 16). This is done through political power. Hence, as war continues through political

power, we are “always writing a history of the same war”, going from “combat to combat”

(Foucault, 1998, p. 378). Politics then, is about conflict and power.

If we accept this view, then the social contract theories of Hobbes (Hobbes, 1996, pp.

91-100) and the notion of a centralized power cannot hold. Such theories require the sovereign

to be the entity that ends the war, and from which order and subsequent power emanate. Yet

Foucault claims the war is not ended, merely reformed. Let us imagine therefore that in war

soldiers are what gives force its force, so to speak. In peace then, what gives political power

its power, if it is not a legitimacy of a social contract and a centralized sovereign head?

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Firstly, power is “capillary” (Foucault, 2004, p. 27), something that “circulates” and

“functions when it is part of a chain” (Foucault, 2004, p. 29). With such an idea, we can

understand power is not domination from a centre that requires contract-theory legitimization,

but a relation that moves through us. Sometimes we find ourselves exercising it, at other times

struggling against it; “they are in a position to both submit to and exercise this power”

(Foucault, 2004, p. 29). A manager in a company for example, does not exude power from him

or herself, but picks it up as an individual within the sequence of power. In essence, he or she

uses the relation, but is not power them self.

This relational power requires the existence of institutions as the places where we

engage in these relations, in the “struggles and submissions” (Foucault, 2004, p. 17). It is useful

to think of institutions as “networks” (Foucault, 2004, p. 29) dispersed amongst society,

providing spaces where we interact and exercise power. It would be a mistake to view the idea

of these institutions as merely physical, for that would imply that power is something to be

possessed, owned or traded. Rather, that the institutions are places where we conduit power,

not just as physical places but in the abstract also; it is not just the factory building that allows

the manager to exercise power, it is the institution of work, the concept of hierarchy and

expertise personified in the factory.

We can now understand the manager is a manager because he or she exercises a form

of knowledge that is considered expertise, and science, “defined as a general domain”, is the

“disciplinary policing of knowledges”. Science then, not only removes forms of knowledge

considered “false knowledge” by its own terms, but reproduces knowledge-power reliant upon

its own discourse (Foucault, 2004, pp. 181-182). This is how expertise are formed. Whether it

be an inquiry into human understanding, a manager disciplining a worker or the application of

political pressure, the knowledge that enables the exertions of such power gets its power from

the scientific discourse. When asserting a knowledge as a science for example, Foucault claims

that there primarily exists the “aspiration to power that is inherent in the claim to being a

science” (Foucault, 2004, p. 10). Thus, knowledge-power can be understood as follows:

political power is the continuation of war through other means – that all power is political,

dispersed and built on ideas of expertise – expertise are only acknowledged in a society which

overall elevates scientific discourse. In essence, scientific discourse then “sanctions and

reproduces the disequilibrium of forces manifested in war” (Foucault, 2004, p. 16). Thus

inquiry is part of this power relation, and reinforces the overall scientific discourse and the

disequilibrium it reproduces by calling upon it for authority.

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2.3 Conversation

As mentioned briefly earlier, Oakeshott does however give us another method for

understanding human activity and intercourse: that of a conversation. A conversation can be

understood as being open to other voices, for in a conversation there is “no ‘truth’ to be

discovered, no proposition to be proved, no conclusion sought”. There is no “argumentative

discourse” within a conversation, no sole intentions to “persuade” or “refute”, and so there is

no need for the utterances to belong to the same voice or idiom, as in an inquiry (Oakeshott,

1967, p. 198). As such, a conversation need not necessarily reproduce scientific discourse and

empower it, nor create a hierarchy of knowledges. Without a “conclusion sought” there is no

ultimate authority on an answer, for an answer is not the purpose. To understand human

activity, intercourse and thought then, Oakeshott argues that conversation is the appropriate

image and occupation, for to understand human activity and thought one must allow for other

voices. In short, a voice or idiom is a human activity in itself, and so cannot be barred from

understanding it; “Each voice is the reflection of a human activity” (Oakeshott, 1967, p. 199).

Yet, conversation is perhaps not without its own power-effects. Oakeshott asks us to

imagine a girl who finding a conversation “tiresome”, makes an “outrageously irrelevant

remark” to turn the conversation to something she is more comfortable with, more “at home

in” (Oakeshott, 1967, p. 198). What is this, if not a use of power relations? This attempt to turn

the conversation to a knowledge she is versed in, in essence, appears to be a use of a knowledge

for its power effects. The difference here however is the knowledge “owes nothing to an

external standard” (Oakeshott, 1967, p. 202), there is no “doorkeeper to examine credentials”

(Oakeshott, 1967, p. 198) or to put it another way, recognition of expertise. In short, the need

for an “arbitrating discourse” (Foucault, 2004, p. 39) such as science is removed. Thus,

conversation enjoys a “diversity of voices” (Oakeshott, 1967, p. 198).

Yet, conversation, in being open to other voices, by default has a problem allowing for

the voice of science within it. Conceptualised again within a Foucauldian framework, we can

understand that scientific discourse is a grasp at power, even potentially removing other

knowledges as irrelevant, and as a power relation formed as the means for continuing

disequilibriums shaped in war, will inevitably be used as such. Thus, if Oakeshott wishes to

defend the claim that “voices which speak in conversation do not compose a hierarchy”

(Oakeshott, 1967, p. 198), it must in some way regulate the propensity for scientific discourse

to do just that, that we require something which “reflects upon the relationship of one voice to

another” (Oakeshott, 1967, p. 200). It cannot exclude the voice of science, for this would be to

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undermine the claim that conversation can accommodate a multitude of idioms, but it must

regulate its claims to power, its inherent want to distort a conversation to a purpose or answer.

This task, being one of reflection then, he claims, is the work of philosophy. However, with

philosophy being the “the discourse of truth par excellence” (Foucault, 2004, p. 24), I argue

that something more contrary to the scientific discourse, not in some-part reliant upon

foundational truth claims, is required. Something that does not professionalize (Foucault, 2004,

p. 25) the search for truth, for that falls into similar problems of hierarchicalization. The idea

emerges that genealogy is fit for this role.

3. Part Two – Genealogy as the Solution

3.1 Critical Theory and Inquiry and Genealogy in Conversation

To further elucidate such a claim, it is useful to draw on the ideas of Owen and Bevir

regarding critical theory and genealogy.

With this idea that Inquiry involves prioritising the voice of science, and conversation

allows for other “universes of discourse” (Oakeshott, 1967, p. 199), we can begin to see how

Inquiry would include the practice of critical theory, and conversation conducive to the

approach of genealogy.

David Owen gives us a clear defence of genealogy, and whilst doing so, a useful

distinction. Critical theory is employed to free us from “captivity to an ideology”, whereas

genealogy allows us to be freed from “captivity to a picture or perspective” (Owen, 2002, p.

216). In essence, critical theory causes individuals to view their own ideas or ideology within

a given framework, a fixed way of viewing the world. Owen calls this “aspectival captivity”,

where subjects can reflect and act on their ideas “in terms of a given picture or perspective as

the only possible picture or perspective open to them” (Owen, 2002, p. 221). Oakeshott notions

of inquiry as understanding human activity, therefore appear perfectly compatible with critical

theory, for its “captivity” to a scientific discourse. Indeed, Owen describes the aim of any

dialogue that emerges from a critical theory context as getting to “the truth of the matter”,

where individuals see themselves as presenting an “undistorted view” to correct an “ideological

mistake” (Owen, 2002, p. 227). This sounds somewhat similar to the goals of conclusive

answers found in an inquiry, therefore necessitating scientific discourse. Critical Theory then,

has the same problems of totalising discourse as inquiry, and under a Foucauldian analysis,

suffers accusations of “first and foremost”, “assigning to those who speak that discourse the

power-effects” (Foucault, 2004, p. 10).

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Genealogy does not make such an attempt. Of course, in the Genealogy of Morality we

can see a good example of aspectival captivity; specifically where individuals have debated for

centuries what is good and what is bad. Nietzsche, rather than adding to the ideological debate,

asks us to question the very value of good or bad, its very meaning as a framework or

perspective: “under what conditions did man invent the value judgements good and evil? And

what value do they themselves have?” (Nietzsche, 1994, p. 5). Nietzsche therefore describes

how we have become “subject” to morality. Thus, the task of genealogy is to “free” individuals

from aspectival captivity by “exhibiting the possibility of other pictures” (Owen, 2002, pp.

221-222). As such, one is not limited to one authoritative discourse, but must be open to many

idioms from which various utterances claim their knowledge. A Genealogical dialogue

therefore is “reciprocal elucidation”, where the task is to pose alternative ways of thinking:

“the question is not ‘Who is Right?’ or ‘Who has the truth? ‘Rather, the question is: What

difference does it make to look at the problem this way rather than that? What difference does it make

to approach the problem under this picture rather than that?’” (Owen, 2002, p. 227)

Essentially, Genealogy is able to deal with any voice that appeals to a totalizing

discourse such as science, by revealing this is exactly what it is doing. Therefore, it is able to

free any utterance from the captivity in which it is held by the discourse of science, by revealing

the inherent claim to power in allusions to science. Genealogy, within a conversation, can take

up the role of allowing scientific discourse its voices, yet ensuring it cannot subjugate other

knowledges through selection, normalization, hierarchicalization and centralization, by

always offering alternative pictures.

3.2 Truth as a “regulative ideal” and genealogy as pressure

Yet in its powers to discredit or analyse a scientific discourse from a perspective other

than legitimate “structures” which objectively evaluate, genealogy has a secondary impact

(Foucault, 2004, p. 10). Indeed, when Foucault argues that claims to being a “science” are not

“first and foremost” attempts at a “rational structure” but at acquiring power-effects, the idea

is implicit that science does indeed then have a rational structure with verifiable “propositions”,

it is just that when an individual claims such a thing for a knowledge, their primary aim is the

power-effects (Foucault, 2004, p. 10). When describing rationality, Foucault tells us of an

“indispensability”, “crisscrossed” with “intrinsic dangers” (Foucault, 1991, p. 249); the same

could thus be understood regarding a scientific discourse.

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Therefore, in genealogy’s ability to dismantle a scientific discourse, emerges the

potential to put it back together again, in a form where individuals are aware of its power

effects, or indeed replace it with another concept of truth. Here, Bevir’s ideas on genealogy are

necessary to explain further. In many ways, Bevir’s notions echo that of Owen’s, in that

genealogy “frees us to imagine other possibilities” (Bevir, 2008, p. 272). By doing so, it

contributes to the concept of alternative pictures Owen espouses, as genealogies “contribute

fairly directly to the task of theory choice” (Bevir, 2008, p. 269). This is an important claim,

for by doing so, Bevir gives us the idea of genealogy as a “rival” theory. Such a claim not only

positions genealogy as another choice, but also sets up that which it attacks as necessary also.

In essence, it is here we reach the idea of a “regulative ideal” and an “alternative” (Bevir, 1999,

p. 126), that it is not just genealogy as the “alternative” in itself, but the alternatives that come

out of genealogy’s attacks on the regulative ideal.

What exactly is the “regulative ideal” however? Bevir is clear that it is an idea of truth,

but not a universal truth or the truth of Leo Strauss (Strauss, 1988, p. 11), but a truth that is

discovered through our “interactions with our environment”. It is this interaction that “gives us

a good reason to take the theories we select using our criteria of comparison as successive

approximations to the truth” (Bevir, 1999, p. 126). Here we have a paradox; as “successive

approximations”, Bevir appears to be accepting that truth itself is a genealogical construct, but

that is the point; it is this fact that means it must continuously justify itself to “the alternatives

on offer”, or the genealogy (Bevir, 1999, p. 126). This is how a scientific discourse can be

limited in its power-effects, through the demand of genealogy to justify, not just its ideology,

but its picture.

Essentially, genealogy can be used as a tool of comparison, that either frees us from an

aspectival captivity or allows us to reaffirm our belief of a given picture. Bevir claims that a

denial of certainties does not mean a denial of all truth claims, but that geneaogists or radical

historicists can themselves still make truth claims, provided they see truth not as a “timeless

certainty”, but “the best account of the world currently on offer” (Bevir, 2008, p. 269). Indeed,

he even goes so far as to claim that exposing contingencies that hold ideological beliefs in

captivity is not necessarily to deny their “validity” (Bevir, 2008, p. 270). Furthermore, Owen

argues that a genealogy can be commonly “motivated by specific normative interests”, if not

built on normative criteria (Owen, 2002, p. 225). The argument is tempting, particularly when

we consider Foucault’s concern over ideas of universal rights and “just undertaking” of war

(Foucault, 1997, p. 112), with his absolute insistence on individuals having access to the means

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of change, to the potential for “modifying” any limitations imposed (Foucault, 1982, p. 16);

arguably the origins of a normative claim to rights itself. Indeed, his philosophy on power

relations being dispersed and passing through individuals can be likened to a commitment to

“broadening” political engagement and the potential for self-government (Thiele, 1990, pp.

921-923).

Thus, it is possible for critical theory and genealogy to communicate, as an ideal and

its counterpart, ensuring that the ideal is recognised as contingent and constructed from

interactions and not as a universal. This means that the scientific voice must always have its

discourse justified, and can be open to being questioned, limiting its ability totalize and its

claims to power. It is also possible for genealogy to be invested in normative interests such as

the concern over subjugation, implicitly showing an interest in such normative concepts as

equality and self-governance. Such concerns mean that genealogists will continuously be alert

for scientific discourse’s totalising tendencies within these fields of interest.

4. Conclusion

Understanding and interpreting human activity and thought, is open to many methods,

approaches and practices. Inquiry as an approach, necessitates the need to solve, conclude or

prove. It is an argumentative discourse, an investigative discourse, but one that requires

resolution. As such, the idiom of science or scientific discourse is its natural ally or knowledge-

base, for this is what science is shaped to be; observation, with procedures to verify theories

with results. The unification of science as this general principle, invariably results in

knowledges becoming normalized to this principle and being ratified as a knowledge, or not,

and being eradicated as “false knowledge” (Foucault, 2004, p. 181). Thus scientific discourse,

as problem solver, becomes totalizing. Yet there is more. The voice of science becomes further

empowered, for to be a problem-solver par excellence, it must also be the primary discourse

for understanding a problem, and therefore all problems. It is from this concept that notions of

expertise are built; understanding a problem, and applying solutions. Through a Foucauldian

lens, the obvious power that scientific discourse then produces in knowledges unified under its

principle and idiom, makes it desirable for the expertise and knowledges necessary for politics.

In essence, wherever scientific discourse is called upon to verify above all other discourses,

whenever it is used to remove forms of knowledge that have not been unified within it, it

reinforces the power base of political power. This is more worrisome, once we understand

Foucault’s analysis of political power reproducing the disequilibriums established in war,

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merely being a continuation of war through other means. In essence, scientific discourse is

peacetime’s power relation, and its use in whatever knowledge claim, strengthens it.

This power relation that is scientific discourse therefore, being dispersed amongst

various knowledges, also exists in all forms of understanding human activity and thought. Yet,

such power effects can be limited, by ensuring that all knowledges recognise their own

contingency, even if in recognising it they see its validity, for it is only in this genuine

questioning that any comparative or approximation to truth can occur, and in this, genealogy

is the key. Thus, it is possible for critical theory and genealogy to communicate, as a paradigm

and its opposite number, ensuring that the ideal is recognised as contingent and constructed

from interactions and not as a universal. It is also possible for genealogy to be invested in

normative interests such as subjugation, implicitly showing a concern over such normative

concepts as equality and self-governance, which revolve around the use of power.

It is clear then, that the tensions and apprehensions over knowledge-power in both

inquiry and conversation, can be understood and reflected between the interplay of critical

theory and genealogy; that both approaches need not be enemies, but rivals, both necessary

and able to elucidate each other. In short, inquiry and conversation can also be made to

effectively communicate as Bevir claims critical theory and genealogy do. In essence, what

this allows is conversation to engage in the practice of questioning the methods and approaches

of inquiry, to offer alternative pictures to its scientific discourse and denaturalize it (Bevir,

2008, p. 272). As such, it is only in the practice of conversation that the voice of science can

potentially lose its authorial voice and inherent power relation. Thus, it is acceptable that

inquiry remain as a manner of understanding human activity, as long as it is understood to be

limited within a certain framework of “yes/no speech acts” (Owen, 2002) or question and

answer pursuits, and that when it produces its answers, it is understood that those answers,

however well verified by the discourse of science, can always be questioned because of their

aspectival captivity. In essence, this allows us a foundational base from which to develop new

ideas and understanding, always with one eye on undermining that understanding, knowing it

is not fact or truth, merely a truth within a picture of truth that is capable of suddenly shifting.

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