Edward Said vs Michel Foucault: The Divergence of Perspectives on Knowledge , Truth and Power
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Despite Edward Said’s acknowledgement of the strong impact of Michel Foucault’s works on his
major study of Orientalism, Said quickly distanced himself from a Foucauldian perspective in his later
writings. The aim of this article is to exhibit the divergence of Said from Foucault. I firstly show their
convergent trajectories in Orientalism and then examine their divergent positions and dispositions in Said’s
writings. In particular, while Said had a tendency to reject the existence of truth and knowledge outside
discourse and power dynamics in Orientalism, he moves toward an anti-Foucauldian perspective in order to
defend universal values such as justice, freedom and equality because of the pacifying impact of Foucauldian
understanding of power, knowledge and truth in the resistance against the oppressors in his later writings. He
manifests himself as a dedicated intellectual to the defense of universal values against power in opposition to
moral and epistemological relativism rejecting the existence of universal values, expressed strongly in the
writings of Foucault.