Boulainvilliers read history to rediscover a primal rightful relationship of force

Evidence

Historical intelligibility also had a third meaning; it meant getting beyond these tactical displacements and all these historico-ethical misappropriations in order to demonstrate that a certain relationship of force was both right and fair. Boulainvilliers was concerned with the true relationship of force—in the sense that he had to rediscover a relationship of force that was not ideal but real, and that had, in this case, been recorded and inscribed by history in the course of a decisive ordeal by strength: the Frankish invasion of Gaul. A relationship of force, then, that was historically true and historically real and which was, secondly, a good relationship of force because it could be extricated from all the distortions to which betrayals and various displacements had subjected it. The theme of his search for historical intelligibility was this: to rediscover a state of affairs that was a state of force in its primal rightness. — Michel Foucault, Society Must Be Defended, 206

Categorization

• DEFINE: Establishes Boulainvilliers’ three-fold historical intelligibility: strategic thread, ethical divisions, constituent point.
• XREF: connects to: Boulainvilliers pioneered economico-political rather than juridical historical analysis; Historical knowledge is itself a weapon within the war it narrates — Michel Foucault, Society Must Be Defended, 189; Histories of conquest functioned as groundings of public right alongside natural law — Michel Foucault, Society Must Be Defended, 140 (+1 more)

Related

• Boulainvilliers sought a relationship of force both historically real and ethically right (similarity 0.92)
• Boulainvilliers pioneered economico-political rather than juridical historical analysis (similarity 0.83)
• Historical knowledge is itself a weapon within the war it narrates (similarity 0.79)
• Boulainvilliers read Frankish conquest as the origin of feudalism rather than Roman sovereignty (similarity 0.79)
• Histories of conquest functioned as groundings of public right alongside natural law (similarity 0.78)
• Strategic intelligibility forms a third logic distinct from epistemic coherence and sovereignty. (similarity 0.78)

Broader Connections

• Histories of conquest functioned as groundings of public right alongside natural law #expands (0.85) — Michel Foucault, Society Must Be Defended, 140
• Legitimacy and physical force are symbolically interlinked, not opposites #corroborates (0.80) — Niklas Luhmann, Trust and Power, 717