ON FOUCAULT’S “TRUTH AND POWER”

Power can never be a thing of the past, or present or future. Its existence is always simultaneous to that of a civil society. Power based relationships have defined society for the longest time and continues to do so. How does power emerge then? And is it always right? Or is it wrong? Maybe both? Philosopher, writers, thinkers and theorists have pondered on these question throughout history. The emergence of power may come from wealth and authority. Or it perhaps comes from status and class. Maybe through the ‘natural’ hierarchy between men and women. Or that of the society. A general notion of power would sate “power involves the capacity to produce or prevent change.” Some people use “authority” and “control” to define power. Control and authority that have brought order as well as exploited it. The French historian and philosopher, Michel Foucault observes that power comes from knowledge. In an “Interview with Michel Foucault on “Truth and Power”, Foucault states that power is based on knowledge and makes use of this knowledge to execute change and order. It produces and reproduces knowledge in accordance with its anonymous intentions. Foucault sums up the range of interesting questions posed for political status of science and ideological functions in these two terms: power and knowledge. This paper will focus on this nexus between power, knowledge and truth as well as its implications in the society as suggested by Foucault in his essay “Truth and Power.”


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