Abstract
This chapter first develops a Foucauldian theory of power, then applies it to analyze the apparatus that controls the operation of the truth predicate within the social fabric—what Foucault calls the regime of truth. Throughout, I focus on how the operation of power on the functioning of the word “true” within a social fabric beset with inequity and oppression is distinct from truth itself. Whether a sentence is true or false is not decided by the operation of power. Truth itself is not the product of power. But our social epistemic fabric is strongly influenced by power, to the point where political struggle for control over the social epistemic apparatus that controls the operation of the truth predicate cannot be disentangled from our epistemic struggle to generate knowledge of the truth, especially where the truth concerns systems of oppression.
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Notes
- 1.
For example, the methods of mainstream analytic philosophy may be taken for granted, simply assumed, while a critical theory paper presented in an analytic context must justify and defend its methodology—against extreme skepticism—in addition to making its central point.
- 2.
- 3.
Foucault (1978), p. 92, including the following quotes to be explained.
- 4.
Ibid., p. 92.
- 5.
Even the most powerfully predictive social dynamic theory ever imagined—psychohistory—falls prey to this essential shortcoming; see Isaac Asimov’s (2004) Foundation and Empire.
- 6.
Ibid., p. 92. The proceeding quotations are all from this passage.
- 7.
This part makes me think of Hobbes’s (1651) Leviathan. The sovereign or the state can be decomposed when the social order fails, in which case what remains is the power of the individuals in the state of nature. The microscopic constituents of macroscopic social entities like the sovereign or the state include the myriad power relations that exist in the state of nature among people, including their physical abilities, their weapons, and their knowledge. When these micro power relations are organized in a certain way through the social contract, the sovereign is created and imbued with power from below. Of course, Foucault’s theory of power is much more generalized than social contract theory.
- 8.
This idea is an artifact of De Saussure’s (1916) linguistic theory, semiotics, which postulates that semantics depends on binary opposition: words only have semantic values insofar as their semantic function can be contrasted with an oppositional term. Binary opposition is also the precondition for deconstruction as that concept was deployed by Derrida (1967). Binary opposition is not entailed by model-theoretic semantics, which can assign meanings to terms which have no binary oppositional term. For example, the expression “trumpet” can be assigned an extension, the set of trumpets, without postulating that there is some term which is the binary opposite of “trumpet” (which I suppose would be a word for all and only non-trumpets?). Most analytic philosophers of language reject binary opposition as a precondition on semantic value. This fact has something to do with why analytic philosophers are typically baffled by Derrida’s concept of deconstruction.
- 9.
- 10.
Ibid., p. 94.
- 11.
Ibid., p. 93.
- 12.
Ibid., p. 93.
- 13.
Foucault et al. (1980), p. 132.
- 14.
Ibid., p. 132.
- 15.
Ibid., p. 131.
- 16.
Foucault (1978), pp. 101–102.
- 17.
Ibid., p. 131.
- 18.
Trump (2020).
- 19.
Ibid.
- 20.
- 21.
Ibid., p. 133.
- 22.
The syntactical conception I am presenting is very much influenced by Neurath’s (1983) conception of the operation of statements within a social fabric (see also Anderson, 2019). As far as I know, it is an unexplored question whether Foucault ever read Neurath’s work. It would not be completely surprising given that Neurath was a Marxist philosopher of science with an interest in the role of truth in politics.
- 23.
Foucault (1980), “Truth and Power,” pp. 131–132. Bracketed numbers added.
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Anderson, D.E. (2021). Power and Regimes of Truth. In: Metasemantics and Intersectionality in the Misinformation Age. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-73339-1_7
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