c Write an essay on the interview with Foucault linking knowledge, truth and
power.
According to Michael Foucault, the interrelation between knowledge, truth and
power is interwoven in a threefold structure. The analysis of this structure is
possible by defining all of the three and placing them in the epistemological context
subject to the dominant historical materialism. Thus, the scope of knowledge is
subject to its contribution to the politics of the society and the propagation of
knowledge is directly dependent upon the political and economic structure of the
society. In this assignment, the focus will be on how this structure of knowledge
contributes to the µmaking¶ of truth and how this truth is an integral, constituent
and dominant part of power.
The importance given to various constituent parts of what we call knowledge has so
far been determined by dominant ideologies and notions. As in, the periodical
ideology has shaped the discourse of knowledge. An attempt to break away from
the dominant discourse itself is confining an intellectual to a structure that has
selected some branches of knowledge as privileged. What is then accepted as the
scientific truth is the truth of the regime and what is revised is a renewal of old
truths and is also reflective of the importance of external power on knowledge.
Thus two conclusions can be derived from the above analysis, firstly that the
propagation of knowledge is accepted as the truth unless it is discontinued and
refuted by an alternate regime and secondly that knowledge and hence truth is the
backbone of power which both defines the power and is used by the dominant
power to exert itself. Foucault uses the term µepisteme¶ to describe the orderly
'unconscious' structures underlying the production of scientific knowledge in a
particular time and place.It is the 'epistemological field' which forms the conditions
of possibility for knowledge in a given time and place.
This then brings up the problem of what is truth. Foucault believed that the
'regimes of truth' are the historically specific mechanisms which produce discourses
which function as true in particular times and places. According to him, truth is an
event which takes place in history. It is something that 'happens', and is produced
by various techniques (the 'technology' of truth) rather than something that already
exists and is simply waiting to be discovered. Each society has design of discourses
which accepts and functions facts as the truth. The discourse is dependent on
economic and political institutions of demand which equate the discourse of truth
with economic production and political power. Such a debate as to µwhat is the real
truth¶ is produced and transmitted by social institutions like universities, Army and
the media etc.
This kind of a break down analysis of the roots of truth also implies what is false
and wrong and what exactly demarcates the line dividing the true and false.
Foucault calls this the battle for truth. This is exactly where the position of the
intellectual is defined within the structure of truth and power. It is already assumed
that the intellectual is in the possession of knowledge which is pure in its empirical
value and free from the politics of ideology. Thus, the position of the intellectual is
defined by what knowledge she/ he may possess and how this can be used in the
propagation of µtruth¶. After this has been done both the knowledge and the
intellectual become the symbols of truth and the credit for the advancement of
knowledge is simply advertised as the brain child of the structure of power.
Truth in its original form is a means in itself, not an end. It is a whole process in
continuation and a part of the physical world. It is not powerless or outside the
realms of power. Foucault implies that truth cannot be separated from power and it
is the general condition of the human mind to believe that an institution that can
claim the right to power is necessarily true. This is not always the case. The same
relation may be played out vice- versa and the impression of µtruth¶ in person is
liable also to install power in that person. This prejudice must be understood on the
ground that the function of truth is to produce knowledge as the truth in and not to
install an ideology in some one. This again raises the credibility of knowledge and
Foucault feels that the problem lies with the political and economic institutions that
are responsible for the production of truth and not with the consciousness or the
thinking of the people.
Considering Foucault¶s definition of power not as a thing but as a relation which is
exercised throughout the social body at all micro- levels, the obvious conclusion can
be that it is not a matter of separating truth from every structure of power but a
matter of not surrendering to hegemony manipulating what forms the truth. This is
true to all economic, political and cultural structures. Hence, knowledge and power
is not the same thing until so propagated as the truth and that the mechanisms of
power produce different types of knowledge which collate information on people's
activities and existence thereby making a cyclic process of social organization and
the chain relation between knowledge, truth and power.
