Haase_UZ_x007E_DTh (2).pdf - South African Theological Seminary

‘reigning,’ that it is not the same thing as
‘commanding’ or “making the law,” let us
suppose that governing is not the same thing
as being a sovereign, a suzerain, being lord,
being judge, being a general, owner, master,
professor. Let us suppose that there is a
specificity to what it is to govern and we
must now find out a little what type of power
is covered by this notion
(Foucault, 2004:119).
Foucault did not want to be limited by absolutes. Things that confine, define, govern,
or restrict were offensive to him. “He analyses limits not as things needful and things to
be adhered to, but as things fanciful and things to be transgressed” (Ganssle and Hinkson,
in Carson, 2000:80). Foucault differentiates himself from Kant’s penchant for erecting
structures and universal truths. What Kant considered the means to rescue humanity (i.e.,
reason), Foucault viewed as chains that bind and limit. He simply could not abide any
‘absolutes;’ rather we “must turn away from all projects that claim to be global or
radical... to give up hope of ever acceding a point of view that could give us access to any
complete and definitive knowledge” (Foucault, in Carson, 2000:80). Foucault contended
that truth is not simply something that exists independently of the knower, so that
whoever discovers it is in possession of the truth. Rather, what one knows and believes
to be true is a product of one’s historical and cultural situation (Erickson, 2002:42).
Certainly, individual perspectives on any given event can differ greatly. No two
people witness a car crash, or criminal act, exactly alike. An African has a different
perspective on a given event than a German, and so forth. These biases affect us all, and
are a constant challenge. Richard Rorty called it the ‘mirror theory’ of reality, the
concept that ideas simply reflect reality, especially according to one’s experiences.
For Foucault, truth is also derived from the closed universe, not from any metaphysical
or supernatural source, such as ‘god.’ As Foucault puts it: “Truth isn’t outside power...
truth is a thing of this world: it is produced only by virtue of multiple forms of constraint”
(Foucault, 1984:72, in Carson, 2000:80). Foucault wants to free us from the constraints
of traditions and metanarratives, to free the subject for “the ongoing enterprise of
autonomous self-creation” (Ganssle and Hinkson, in Carson, 2000:81). Foucault does not
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University of Zululand, KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa