1. Critical Theory: Other Perspectives Michel Foucault “It’s not a matter of emancipating truth from every system of power (which would be a chimera, for truth is already power), but of detaching the power of truth from the forms of hegemony, social, economic and cultural within which it operates at the present time” Michel Foucault, “Truth and Power,” 131

2. 2 The relation between truth and power Theme of Foucault’s work: examination of the relation between truth and power. For him, “truth isn’t outside power, or lacking in power. … [Truth] isn’t the reward of free spirits, the child of protracted solitude … Truth is a thing of this world: it is produced only by virtue of multiple form of constraint” (131) This has implications for critical theory with its emphasis on critique of ideology. Why? Ideologies systematically distort social reality. This implies there is true view behind ideology

3. 3 Foucault on truth Foucault presents a different approach to the problem of truth from mainstream philosophy, as suggested by the passage of “[Truth] isn’t the reward of free spirits, the child of protracted solitude … Truth is a thing of this world: it is produced only by virtue of multiple form of constraint” (131)” What does it mean to say that truth is produced?

4. 4 How is truth produced? Foucault claims that “effects of truths are produced within discourses which in themselves are neither true or false” (118). Example: chess. In the game, some moves are correct or incorrect. Does it make sense to say of the game of chess itself that it is correct?

5. 5 What are discourses? A discourse “is what governs statements, and the way in which they govern each other so as to constitute a set of propositions which are scientifically acceptable, and hence capable of being verified or falsified” (110). The idea is that propositions have truth value only within certain system of thought. E.g. propositions involving hygienic practices make sense once we accept the germ theory

6. 6 Discourses and truth A more dramatic example: two different descriptions of the brain within 25 years (112). We are familiar with one description but not quite sure how to react to the other. Foucault: this points to “a modification in the rules of formation of statements which are accepted as scientifically true” (112). Such changes are connected to external social structures (109), to how “power imposes itself on science” (112).

7. 7 Discourses and historical—implication Discourses are to be studied historically—i.e. how they are constituted through historical events Foucault rejects the approach to knowledge taken by traditional philosophy. His approach does not “make reference to a subject which is either transcendental … or runs in its empty sameness throughout the course of history” (117). Indeed, the philosophical subject itself is constituted within history.

8. 8 Foucault on truth and power Foucault acknowledges that questioning the relation between truth and power is difficult to accept. Why? What is the problem with the interrelation between truth and power? One response: The tradition view “as always that power could be undermined by truth … Once you read Foucault as saying that truth is simply an effect of power, you’ve had it” (Alan Ryan cited by Sokal 1996: 3) What is Ryan getting at?

9. 9 Foucault on truth and power Truth and power are opposed to each other. Power corrupts truth. If power is involved, there is no truth. Example—Lysenko business (109). The official party line in the 50s on human biology in USSR is a kind of Lamarckism: inheritability of acquired traits. But is this how genetics explain traits are inherited? Many geneticists were imprisoned.

10. 10 Foucault on truth and power If Foucault had said that truth is reducible to power—i.e. truth is whatever the mighty says is true, then Ryan’s worries would be justified. He notes that since the 17 th Century, a form of power came “into being that begins to exercise itself through social production and social service. It becomes a matter of obtaining productive service from individuals … [Power] had to gain access to the bodies of individuals, to their acts, attitudes and … behaviour” (125)

11. 11 Foucault on truth and power How can we “gain access to the bodies of individuals, to their acts, attitudes and … behaviour”? Through compilation of meticulous records in various settings in schools, in factories, etc., with different techniques. What do these records yield? Knowledge about groups of individuals. Here think about knowledge about the development of school children.

12. 12 Foucault on truth and power Such knowledge induces parents to act in certain ways with regards to their children, to take pleasure/displeasure in how they perform at school. In this sense, power for Foucault is ‘productive’; it generates knowledge which guide the actions of individuals. It is different from the sovereign/juridical model, which is top-down, dictating to individuals what you can or cannot do.

13. 13 Foucault on truth and power Power, for Foucault, is not always repressive. He writes, “if power were never anything but repressive, if it never did anything but to say no, do you really think one would be brought to obey it? What makes power hold good … is simply the fact that it doesn’t weigh on us as a force that says no, but that it traverses and produces things, it induces pleasure, forms of knowledge” (119)

14. 14 Foucault on truth and power As opposed to the sovereign, where power is located in one source—the monarch—the form of power since the 17 th Century can’t be located in one source. We are enmeshed in the circulation of power through various relations. In his view, the insistence in modern political theory that individuals are their own masters miss out on how power works.

15. 15 Foucault and ideology For Foucault, the workings of modern relations of power cannot be explained by a ruling class generating a set of beliefs that systematically distorts social reality—i.e. an ideology. Why is that? Ideology is juxtaposed to truth. But the problem is not “a matter of emancipating truth from … power (which would be a chimera, for truth is already power) but of detaching the power of truth from hegemony. … The political question … is not error, illusion … it is truth itself” (133).

16. 16 Foucault and ideology Furthermore, Foucault sees ideology critique as focusing on the beliefs and intentions of individuals. The problem for him is not about “changing people’s consciousness– or what’s in their heads—but the political, economic, institutional regime of the production of truth” (133)

17. 17 What is to be done? Given his view of power and knowledge, what work is to be done by intellectuals? Intellectuals are not bearers of “universal values”; they are not masters of “truth and justice” (126). Rather intellectuals play a specific role—as specific intellectuals—because of their expertise they can map out the political, economic and institutional regime for the production of truth. Their role is to provide tools to aid everyday struggles (126).