Cynical Theories

Foucault called a dominant set of ideas and values an episteme because it shapes how we identify and interact with knowledge.

Thus, sociopolitical power is the ultimate determiner of what is true in Foucault’s analysis, not correspondence with reality.

Foucault, a statement reveals not just information but also the rules and conditions of a discourse.

the way we establish truth in our current culture.

postmodern approaches to knowledge inflate a small, almost banal kernel of truth—that we are limited in our ability to know and must express knowledge through language, concepts and categories—to insist that all claims to truth are value-laden constructs of culture.

Postmodernism is defined by a radical skepticism about the accessibility of objective truth.

Postmodern thinkers approached the rejection of modernism and Enlightenment thought, especially with regard to universal truths, objective knowledge, and individuality,

postmodern turn brought about an important shift away from the modernist dichotomy between the objective universal and the subjective individual and toward local narratives

relativism that accepts that different descriptions of reality cannot be measured against one another in any final—that is, objective—way.

For postmodernism, by contrast, reality is ultimately the product of our socialization and lived experiences, as constructed by systems of language.