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Single Idea 15043
[filed under theme 24. Political Theory / B. Nature of a State / 1. Purpose of a State
]
Full Idea
Each society has its regime of truth, its 'general politics' of truth - the types of discourse it accepts and makes function as true; the mechanisms for distinguishing; the means of sanctioning it; the values in its acquisition; the status of its keepers.
Gist of Idea
Every society has a politics of truth, concerning its values, functions, prestige and mechanisms
Source
Michel Foucault (Truth and Power (interview) [1976], p.131)
Book Ref
Foucault,Michel: 'Essential Works 1954-1984 3: Power', ed/tr. Faubion,J [Penguin 2002], p.131
A Reaction
[compressed] This idea is appropriately filed under 'society' rather than under 'truth'. Foucault knows there is a genuine truth beneath the complex social story.
The
31 ideas
from Michel Foucault
7418
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The idea of liberation suggests there is a human nature which has been repressed
[Foucault]
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7419
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Ethics is the conscious practice of freedom
[Foucault]
|
7420
|
When logos controls our desires, we have actually become the logos
[Foucault]
|
7422
|
A subject is a form which can change, in (say) political or sexual situations
[Foucault]
|
7423
|
Philosophy and politics are fundamentally linked
[Foucault]
|
7424
|
Saying games of truth were merely power relations would be a horrible exaggeration
[Foucault]
|
7425
|
The aim is not to eliminate power relations, but to reduce domination
[Foucault]
|
7426
|
Critical philosophy is what questions domination at every level
[Foucault]
|
21947
|
Power is localised, so we either have totalitarian centralisation, or local politics
[Foucault, by Gutting]
|
21946
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Prisons gradually became our models for schools, hospitals and factories
[Foucault, by Gutting]
|
7498
|
Greeks and early Christians were much more concerned about food than about sex
[Foucault]
|
7500
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Early Greeks cared about city and companions; later Greeks concentrated on the self
[Foucault]
|
7501
|
Why couldn't a person's life become a work of art?
[Foucault]
|
22235
|
Feelings are not unchanging, but have a history (especially if they are noble)
[Foucault]
|
8991
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Foucault can't accept that power is sometimes decent and benign
[Foucault, by Scruton]
|
15045
|
The big issue since the eighteenth century has been: what is Reason? Its effect, limits and dangers?
[Foucault]
|
15037
|
Why does knowledge appear in sudden bursts, and not in a smooth continuous development?
[Foucault]
|
15038
|
Structuralism systematically abstracted the event from sciences, and even from history
[Foucault]
|
15039
|
History lacks 'meaning', but it can be analysed in terms of its struggles
[Foucault]
|
15040
|
Marxists denounced power as class domination, but never analysed its mechanics
[Foucault]
|
15041
|
Power doesn't just repress, but entices us with pleasure, artefacts, knowledge and discourse
[Foucault]
|
15043
|
Every society has a politics of truth, concerning its values, functions, prestige and mechanisms
[Foucault]
|
15042
|
Truth doesn't arise from solitary freedom, but from societies with constraints
[Foucault]
|
15044
|
'Truth' is the procedures for controlling which statements are acceptable
[Foucault]
|
22236
|
The big question of the Renaissance was how to govern everything, from the state to children
[Foucault]
|
21116
|
Power is used to create identities and ways of life for other people
[Foucault, by Shorten]
|
21945
|
Foucault originally felt that liberating reason had become an instrument of domination
[Foucault, by Gutting]
|
21939
|
The author function of any text is a plurality of selves
[Foucault, by Gutting]
|
21942
|
Foucault challenges knowledge in psychology and sociology, not in the basic sciences
[Foucault, by Gutting]
|
21941
|
Unlike Marxists, Foucault explains thought internally, without deference to conscious ideas
[Foucault, by Gutting]
|
21940
|
Nature is not the basis of rights, but the willingness to risk death in asserting them
[Foucault]
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