Normativity and the Critical Functions of Genealogy: The Case of Modern Science1

Abstract

AbstractThe first part of this article offers some general remarks about genealogical approaches to history, focusing on historical narratives that stress the role played by theological considerations in the formation of aspects of secular modernity. A central question is whether such genealogies can serve to critique the present without drawing upon contestable moral or religious commitments. I suggest that genealogies fulfil this function when they identify inconsistencies in putatively neutral or secular stances by revealing how their coherence ultimately relies upon unacknowledged theological foundations. Key figures in this initial discussion include Friedrich Nietzsche, Karl Löwith, Hans Blumenberg, Carl Schmitt, Walter Benjamin, Alasdair MacIntyre, John Milbank, and Brad Gregory. The second part of this article sets out a theological genealogy of modern science, offering it as a test case for some of the analytical considerations outlined in the first part. These latter sections are a summary of my own previous arguments about the theological foundations of modern science, considered under the description of theological genealogy. Here I discuss the religious legitimation of modern science, the origins of the idea of laws of nature, and the role played by theological anthropology in the development of experimental methods of inquiry.