Governing Life. Towards a Non-economical Notion of Truth

Abstract

The aim of the present article is to shed light on the biopolitical problematic by highlighting the role of truth in the government of life. In order to do this, we will begin by emphasizing the way in which within the framework of neoliberal governmentality life is governed as a form of life. Then, against some interpretations that focus on the discontinuities in Foucault’s work, we will attempt to explain how, even though Foucault will no longer explicitly address the matter of liberalism and neoliberalism, the problem of truth inspired by these reflections will structure and define his following lectures on a manifestation of the truth in the form of subjectivity (alethurgy). This will give place to a thorough analysis on the “useless” character of truth as the condition for the elucidation of a manifestation in the form of subjectivity of a truth that is no longer the truth of power.