EDWARD SAID VS MICHEL FOUCAULT: THE DIVERGENCE OF PERSPECTIVES ON KNOWLEDGE

Edward Said'in temel çalışması olan Oryantalizm'in yazımında Foucault'cu bir perspektifin güçlü bir etkisi olmasına rağmen Said'in sonraki yazılarında Foucault'nun güçlü bir etkisi görülmemektedir. Bu makaledeki amacım Said'in Foucault'nun etkisinden ayrılıp tam zıddı bir istikamete yönelişini sergilemektir. Bu nedenle öncelikle Oryantalizm'de Foucault'nun etkisini gösterip sonrasında Said'in ayrıştığı noktaları ele alacağım. Kısaca, Said Oryantalizm'de Foucault'nun yazılarında da çok belirgin olan hakikat, bilgi, söylem ve iktidar arasında bağımlı bir ilişkinin olduğunu ve bu nedenle iktidardan bağımsız bir hakikat ve bilginin olmadığını iddia ederken, sonraki yazılarında ise Foucault'cu bir yaklaşımın iktidara karşı hakikat, adalet ve eşitlik gibi evrensel değerleri savunmak için uygun olmadığını düşünerek kendini evrensel değerleri savunmaya adamış bir entelektüel olarak göstermektedir.

Edward Said vs Michel Foucault: Bilgi, Hakikat ve İktidar Üzerine Farklı Perspektifler

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.

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