ABSTRACT
In everyday speech, we are both serviced and deceived by our most commonplace concepts: we have grown into their usage to such an extent as to forget that they are actually using us. Their functions appear selfevident, and their rules of reference remain largely implicit. Even in more disciplined discursive fields such as the historical sociology of ideas-which forms the subject of this study-such deceptive utensils proliferate in great quantity. The genealogy of ‘master concepts’ such as property and power offers no exception to this rule. As summary notations for fundamental building blocks of social life, they manifest the familiar translucency which comes from uninterrupted, mindless daily usage.
