ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the very ontology of the Foucauldian genealogy and describes the need to map the Foucauldian genealogy in a cartography of contemporary problematics upon social and historical research. Genealogy provides a functional microanalysis of power relations, operating on the smallest and most insignificant details. In examining the very Kantian concept, Michel Foucault introduces scepticism about universalist dogmas of truth, objectivity and pure scientific reason, and interrogates the supposed interconnections between reason, knowledge, progress, freedom and ethical action. Foucault has chosen colour aspects to initiate his theorising of the Nietzschean method. As opposed to grand historical events, the genealogical search renders itself attentive to details, many of them having remained unnoticed and unrecorded in the narratives of mainstream history. Foucault traces the historical development of the ‘care for oneself’ from the Platonic dialogue of Alkibiade, to the period of the Stoics and finally to the era of Christian asceticism.
