I. Introduction Michael Forster, in his 2011 study of the historical emergence of the genealogical method of inquiry, performs a “genealogy of genealogy.”¹ In contrast to other commentators who take Nietzsche's method of genealogy to be informed by the likes of Paul Rée and David Hume,² Forster traces the historical emergence of genealogy back to J. G. Herder and G. W. F. Hegel.

Forster's genealogy of Nietzsche's method bears much insight and demonstrates that there are important differences in the various approaches to the genealogical method of inquiry.³ For example, as Forster notes, the sort of…