How Is The Lineage Of The Power Of Discipline

The most influential thinker in Germany today——Peter Sloterdijk sees Michel Foucault as “the only non-Platonist through the ages”, “the modern Socrates". Throughout history, almost all philosophy are the footnotes of Plato, however, Michel Foucault got out of the bondage of the traditional Platonism, adopting a different approach to solve philosophy problems,which is using the concepts and methods of non-philosophy. And it is this practice that lays the unique status of Foucault in the ideological circle, not only making subversive impact on the traditional philosophy, but also giving a new perspective to examine philosophy problems.The author believes that the difference between “genealogy of power” and the thoughts of traditional philosophers because of the unique methodology used by Foucault, furthermore, the understanding of thought of “disciplinary power” depends on the well understanding of the methodology Foucault applied. That is the breakthrough point of the paper. The author attempts to clarify the connotation and basic principles of “methodology of genealogy”, and tries to prove the possibility of this. With this work, as one kind of “instrument”- the “methodology of genealogy” forms, and then we can discuss the characteristics as well as the reason of operation mechanism of “disciplinary power” in modern society, that is discussing the important role played by “methodology of genealogy” which Foucault applied. The finish of these works may respond to the research status quo of Foucault –only noting the “power”, ignoring the “methodology”, or only noting the “methodology”, ignoring the “power”-which has great significance for well understanding of “genealogy of disciplinary power”.Firstly, this article discusses the domestic and foreign research status quo of “genealogy of power”,then the author discusses why Foucault turns to the “methodology of genealogy” in the research of power. And the author analyzes the shortage of the archaeology comparing with genealogy, it is possible for Foucault to analyze “disciplinary power” with this new methodology. Secondly, the author compares Foucault’s statements about “methodology of genealogy” in Nietzsche, Genealogy, History with Nietzsche’s statements in On the Genealogy of Morality, to present the correlations and differences between them. This may explain the relations of thoughts between Foucault and Nietzsche’s, so as to respond to academic debate between them, what’s more, this may sum up the basic connotations and principles of “methodology of genealogy”, and give possibility to “methodology of genealogy” in theory. All these works clarify the theory blind spot(methodology of genealogy) of the scholars nowadays. The last part of the paper, the author focuses on the application of “methodology of genealogy”, that is the “Discipline and Punish”,- the first successful application of “methodology of genealogy” when Foucault analyzed “disciplinary power”. “Disciplinary power” can be presented only under the application of basic principles of “methodology of genealogy”. “Methodology of genealogy” has played an important role in the analysis of “disciplinary power”.Thus, in the two aspects-necessity and importance- we can answer this question, “Is the existence of ‘genealogy of power’ possible?” We get out of the erroneous zone of the past research of “genealogy of power”, at the same time, we put forward a new perspective to understand “genealogy of power”(methodology).