Foucault and the Problem of Power Genealogy as Historico-Critical Ontology to Problematize Truths and to Pursue Freedom

Kim, Seong Woo

Une histoire globale like a history written by Sartre's universal intellectual is abstract and limited. On the contrary to this, une histoire gnrale like Foucault's genealogy is concrete and general. For example, the problems of the insanity, the mental hospital, the crime and the prison are not only concrete and specific but also sufficiently general. However, they are general, though not in the usual sense of the word, for they is generalized to the problem of rationality. Therefore, the history of rationality is not Une histoire globale, but une histoire gnrale. The problems of knowledge, reason, and rationality are most general in the sense of their continual repetition at least in the Western society in our time. This is why Foucault never seeks to scatter people's political concerns nor to avoid the political by posing the localized and specific problems. Instead, in doing so, he tries to unfold une histoire gnral of rationality and to fight for 'a space of concrete freedom' in the existing regimes of truths in order to transform our time and ourselves.

Subject Sphere: Political Philosophy, Social Philosophy, Ontology

Key Words: Genealogy, Historico-Critical Ontology, Power, Truth, Subject