>On Tue, 24 Nov 1998 19:03:43 +0100,
>marx@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote...
>Please, can you give me an explanation of or a hint to the
>Foucauldian concept of truth ...
>Regards
>Joerg, Cologne/Germany
>
>
Here's a hint from an old paper:
In "Nietzsche, Genealogy, History" the approach of the genealogist is
contrasted with that of the "traditional" historian, whose "pursuit of the
origin" is seen as "an attempt to capture the exact essence of things, their
purest possibilities, and their carefully protected identities." Such a
search "assumes the existence of immobile forms that precede the external
world of accident and succession" and is directed toward "the image of a
primordial truth" (*Language, Counter-Memory, Practice [C-M], 142).
Such "traditional historians" according to Foucault see the origin as a
place where "the truth of things corresponded to a truthful discourse"
(C-M,143). In the context of this argument over the content and
significance of the traditional historians' search for origins and the
concomitant desire to discover the truth ("essence") of things, Foucault,
echoing Nietzsche, refers to truth itself as "the sort of error that cannot
be refuted because it was hardened into an unalterable form in the long
baking process of history" (C-M, 144). In opposition to this account of
origins and the concomitant link between essence and truth, Foucault argues
that the contingencies and accidents of history are the stuff out of which
are true selves are made (144-145). If so, it follows that the truth of
"those things that continue to exist and have value for us" will not be of
an absolute or essentialist kind.
The question is, do the kinds of comments concerning truth reproduced
above represent a rejection of truth tout court? For instance, "Truth is an
error...", but of what kind? We could say one kind of error would be to
claim that all human beings have souls. But in our secular age we know we
do not have souls, really, and so the asserted truth is false, an error.
But that does not seem to be the true thrust of Foucault's argument. The
error made in asserting something to be "true" in "Nietzsche, Genealogy,
History" resides in the claim to absoluteness, essentiality. For something
to be true, it is thought, it must shine through or at least be discoverable
despite the obscuring lens of inessential accidents or of the Fall. Truth
must stand outside history. Could something be "true"--for instance, the
existence of the soul--absent such metaphysical assumptions? If so, it
would not be "truth" that is being attacked or disposed of, but Truth.
What, at least, is Foucault's own argument? It is that in tracing the
complex course of descent of those objects having value and meaning for us,
we "discover that truth or being does not lie at the root of what we know
and what we are, but the exteriority of accidents" (C-M, 146). Certainly a
metaphysical conception of Truth cannot be extracted from the "exteriority
of accidents" associated with history. Not every possible meaning of the
term "truth" is, however, thereby excluded from consideration or
automatically to be classified as an "error." It would be wrong, for
instance, to say
the soul is an illusion, or an ideological effect. On the contrary,
it exists,
it has a reality, it is produced permanently around, on, within the
body. (DP, 29)
Of course, the soul Foucault has in mind is not the one presented to us by
theology. Foucault's soul is a terrestrial object, produced out of the
activity of the disciplines. But precisely for that reason, it is no
illusion--"it has a reality."
Does Foucault believe in "truth" after all? If so, what consequences
for our understanding of his work follow? Following Nietzsche, Foucault
argues that truth as a metaphysical, essentialist category is an "error."
>From this it does not follow, however, that all forms of truth are in error.
Various "true" things could, for instance, be said to exist in an empirical
way as Foucault's comment above on the soul indicates. But if the soul
exists empirically does it not follow that it exists absolutely and
essentially? The answer can only be the justly hated, "Yes and no." Yes,
as long as the soul exists it will in a very real way make sense to say,
"Man is a creature with a soul." But no, in the sense that it will not be
true that this essence was present at humanity's creation and will continue
to persist in "empty sameness" throughout time. We must attempt to see the
double-edged quality of statements like the following:
[T]ruth isn't outside power, or lacking in power: contrary to a myth
whose history and functions would repay further study, truth isn't the
reward of free spirits, the child of protracted solitude, nor the privilege
of those who have succeeded in liberating themselves. Truth is a thing of
this world: it is produced only by virtue of multiple forms of constraint.
And it induces regular effects of power. (*Power/Knowledge*, [P/K], 131)
Not truth, but the metaphysical attributes and assumptions which usually
accompany the term, are criticized by Foucault. The argument is not that
truth does not exist, but that truth is profane: a thing of this world.
>marx@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote...
>Please, can you give me an explanation of or a hint to the
>Foucauldian concept of truth ...
>Regards
>Joerg, Cologne/Germany
>
>
Here's a hint from an old paper:
In "Nietzsche, Genealogy, History" the approach of the genealogist is
contrasted with that of the "traditional" historian, whose "pursuit of the
origin" is seen as "an attempt to capture the exact essence of things, their
purest possibilities, and their carefully protected identities." Such a
search "assumes the existence of immobile forms that precede the external
world of accident and succession" and is directed toward "the image of a
primordial truth" (*Language, Counter-Memory, Practice [C-M], 142).
Such "traditional historians" according to Foucault see the origin as a
place where "the truth of things corresponded to a truthful discourse"
(C-M,143). In the context of this argument over the content and
significance of the traditional historians' search for origins and the
concomitant desire to discover the truth ("essence") of things, Foucault,
echoing Nietzsche, refers to truth itself as "the sort of error that cannot
be refuted because it was hardened into an unalterable form in the long
baking process of history" (C-M, 144). In opposition to this account of
origins and the concomitant link between essence and truth, Foucault argues
that the contingencies and accidents of history are the stuff out of which
are true selves are made (144-145). If so, it follows that the truth of
"those things that continue to exist and have value for us" will not be of
an absolute or essentialist kind.
The question is, do the kinds of comments concerning truth reproduced
above represent a rejection of truth tout court? For instance, "Truth is an
error...", but of what kind? We could say one kind of error would be to
claim that all human beings have souls. But in our secular age we know we
do not have souls, really, and so the asserted truth is false, an error.
But that does not seem to be the true thrust of Foucault's argument. The
error made in asserting something to be "true" in "Nietzsche, Genealogy,
History" resides in the claim to absoluteness, essentiality. For something
to be true, it is thought, it must shine through or at least be discoverable
despite the obscuring lens of inessential accidents or of the Fall. Truth
must stand outside history. Could something be "true"--for instance, the
existence of the soul--absent such metaphysical assumptions? If so, it
would not be "truth" that is being attacked or disposed of, but Truth.
What, at least, is Foucault's own argument? It is that in tracing the
complex course of descent of those objects having value and meaning for us,
we "discover that truth or being does not lie at the root of what we know
and what we are, but the exteriority of accidents" (C-M, 146). Certainly a
metaphysical conception of Truth cannot be extracted from the "exteriority
of accidents" associated with history. Not every possible meaning of the
term "truth" is, however, thereby excluded from consideration or
automatically to be classified as an "error." It would be wrong, for
instance, to say
the soul is an illusion, or an ideological effect. On the contrary,
it exists,
it has a reality, it is produced permanently around, on, within the
body. (DP, 29)
Of course, the soul Foucault has in mind is not the one presented to us by
theology. Foucault's soul is a terrestrial object, produced out of the
activity of the disciplines. But precisely for that reason, it is no
illusion--"it has a reality."
Does Foucault believe in "truth" after all? If so, what consequences
for our understanding of his work follow? Following Nietzsche, Foucault
argues that truth as a metaphysical, essentialist category is an "error."
>From this it does not follow, however, that all forms of truth are in error.
Various "true" things could, for instance, be said to exist in an empirical
way as Foucault's comment above on the soul indicates. But if the soul
exists empirically does it not follow that it exists absolutely and
essentially? The answer can only be the justly hated, "Yes and no." Yes,
as long as the soul exists it will in a very real way make sense to say,
"Man is a creature with a soul." But no, in the sense that it will not be
true that this essence was present at humanity's creation and will continue
to persist in "empty sameness" throughout time. We must attempt to see the
double-edged quality of statements like the following:
[T]ruth isn't outside power, or lacking in power: contrary to a myth
whose history and functions would repay further study, truth isn't the
reward of free spirits, the child of protracted solitude, nor the privilege
of those who have succeeded in liberating themselves. Truth is a thing of
this world: it is produced only by virtue of multiple forms of constraint.
And it induces regular effects of power. (*Power/Knowledge*, [P/K], 131)
Not truth, but the metaphysical attributes and assumptions which usually
accompany the term, are criticized by Foucault. The argument is not that
truth does not exist, but that truth is profane: a thing of this world.