ABSTRACT
In philosophy, conceptual difficulties are sometimes invisible in the bright light of the obvious. Michel Foucault’s well-known appropriation of F. Nietzsche’s concept of genealogy may give rise to few objections and doubts in certain circles and theoretical contexts. But the new use of an older concept may pose more problems than it can solve, especially when the very terms and conditions of its adoption are neglected. Since Nietzsche introduced the term ‘genealogy’ into philosophical discourse, the most obvious thing to say about it is that it is a way of writing history. Nietzsche’s interest in genetic and evolutionary reflection on the ‘origin of morality’ in the middle of the 1880s was born out of an interest in a potentially critical historicization of something that until then wasn’t historicized, namely moral attitudes and values, ideals, norms and institutionalized modes of thinking and acting. The terms contingency and denaturalization already give an indication of the critical and evaluative dimension.
