Critical Theory: Other Perspectives Michel Foucault

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Critical Theory Other PerspectivesMichel
Foucault

• Its 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

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The relation between truth and power

• Theme of Foucaults work examination of the
  relation between truth and power. For him, truth
  isnt outside power, or lacking in power.
  Truth isnt 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

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Foucault on truth

• Foucault presents a different approach to the
  problem of truth from mainstream philosophy, as
  suggested by the passage of Truth isnt 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?

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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?

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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

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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).

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Discourses and historicalimplication

• Discourses are to be studied historicallyi.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.

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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, youve had it (Alan Ryan cited
  by Sokal 1996 3) What is Ryan getting at?

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Foucault on truth and power

• Truth and power are opposed to each other. Power
  corrupts truth. If power is involved, there is no
  truth.
• ExampleLysenko 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.

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Foucault on truth and power

• If Foucault had said that truth is reducible to
  poweri.e. truth is whatever the mighty says is
  true, then Ryans worries would be justified.
• He notes that since the 17th 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)

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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.

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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.

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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 doesnt weigh on us as a force
  that says no, but that it traverses and produces
  things, it induces pleasure, forms of knowledge
  (119)

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Foucault on truth and power

• As opposed to the sovereign, where power is
  located in one sourcethe monarchthe form of
  power since the 17th Century cant 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.

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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 realityi.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).

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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 peoples consciousness or whats in
  their headsbut the political, economic,
  institutional regime of the production of truth
  (133)

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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 roleas
  specific intellectualsbecause 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).