Governmentality without Truth: An Essay on the Role of Foucauldian Thinking in a Post- Truth Society

Marek Czyżewski

doi:10.18778/1733-8077.17.1.4

Authors

Marek Czyżewski University of Lodz, Poland https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9544-1420

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.18778/1733-8077.17.1.4

Keywords:

Knowledge/Power, Governmentality, Sociology, Truth, Post-Truth

Abstract

Considering the issue of power in Foucault will always lead to comments on the issue of knowledge and vice versa. What I suggest in this paper, however, is to look into both topics presented in the work by Foucault separately, at least to a certain extent. I believe that the evolution of these two threads in his works allows us to evaluate their suitability differently as far as their relevance to contemporary culture is concerned. Foucault’s approach to the issue of power and its evolution towards so-called governmentality is evidence of how accurately he sensed the direction of changes to the Zeitgeist of Western civilizations, a fact which cannot be said about the evolution of Foucault’s approach to the issue of knowledge, leaning towards the question of truth and truth-telling. The aim of this paper is to substantiate the outlined and differentiated evaluation of Foucault’s oeuvre while, at the same time, highlighting the predominant features of contemporary culture. Special attention will be paid to the role of sociology in governmentality.

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Author Biography

Marek Czyżewski, University of Lodz, Poland

Marek Czyżewski is a Professor at the Institute of Sociology and Head of the Department of Research on Social Communication, University of Lodz, Poland. His main interests include: discourse analysis; public and mass communication; public opinion and democracy; hate speech; “governmentality”; intercultural and international communication; social theory (especially interpretive approaches, sociology of knowledge, and Foucault). Editor-in-chief of “Przegląd Socjologiczny”; editor of the series Biblioteka Dyskursu Publicznego.

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