The danger of disturbing the public tranquillity by interesting too strongly the public passions is a still more serious objection against a frequent reference of constitutional questions to the decision of the whole society. —James Madison, Federalist 49At a time like this, scorching irony, not convincing argument, is needed.—Frederick Douglass, “What to the Slave is the 4th of July?”.

This paper suggests that genealogy is an exemplary form of critique. The stakes of this argument are established in the course of on intial response to critics of genealogy such as Habermas and Fraser throght the distinguishing of legislative and exemplary forms or critique. The essay then goes on to to show how Foucault's central concern, namely, the relation of humanism and bio-power, leads him to articulate an ethics of creativity which exhibits an ethods of ironic heroization and discloses a (...) conception of the political as agon. Reflecting on these features of genealogy's saying, it is argued that the form of genealogical reflection manifests these features. This emphasis on the showing of genealogy leads to the claim that Foucault's anti-humanism, mode of historical consciousness and perspectivism reproduce the substantive commitment of genealogy to the value of autonomy within the structure of genealogical reflection. (shrink)

The danger of disturbing the public tranquillity by interesting too strongly the public passions is a still more serious objection against a frequent reference of constitutional questions to the decision of the whole society.—James Madison, Federalist 49At a time like this, scorching irony, not convincing argument, is needed.—Frederick Douglass, “What to the Slave is the 4th of July?”.