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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.
| 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] |
| 15042 | Truth doesn't arise from solitary freedom, but from societies with constraints [Foucault] |
| 15043 | Every society has a politics of truth, concerning its values, functions, prestige and mechanisms [Foucault] |
| 15044 | 'Truth' is the procedures for controlling which statements are acceptable [Foucault] |