John Ransom wrote:
> "It is true that there is no such thing as truth."
Although I find this logical exercise fascinating, I believe it has not
dealt fairly with Foucault's reconceptualization of truth. Foucault has
never said "that there is no such thing as truth". In fact it is truth
that he studies. One of the clearest statements to this effect can be
found in "Questions of Method". Here Foucault says that his "problem is to
see how men govern (themselves and others) by the production of truth (I
repeat once again that by production of truth I mean not the production of
true utterances, but the establishment of domains in which the practice of
true and false can be made at once ordered and pertinent)" (79). In some
sense, Foucault takes 'truth' at face value, not concerned to dispute the
fact of its correspondance or coherence with reality (in this way F. is
moving beyond epistemology). Rather, Foucault is interested to see the
'effects' of truth, what moves of power it authorizes, what forms of ethics
it mobilizes, to see the governing-effects of truth (and here we should pay
attention to his notion of 'governmentality' which exists in the "contact
between the technologies of domination and those of the self").
Therefore, I do not see Foucault saying that there is no such thing as
truth, rather the opposite. Truth exists and is 'real', but it is produced
as such. I am not sure this adds anything to the conversation in progress,
and perhaps others might feel inclined to critique it. However, I feel
that the posting concerning "the truth that there is no truth" while
entirely legitimate within the discourse of epistemology, talks past
Foucault (who, as I said above, seems to be attempting to move outside this
discourse) and does not engage with his insights.
Matt Archer