RE: Epistemology

 I haven't read Alcof's essay but I'd agree with Mile's post that 
Foucault is concerned with the practices of truth. That he is concerned 
with a "history of truth" means precisely that he's not advancing a 
"general theory", but a genealogical investigation into the conditions of 
possibility for "truth" in a historical constellation (Foucault maintains 
the archealogical project throughout his work - the constitution of 
discursive objects, the possibilities fo their connections and 
organisations <see Spivak's "Outside in the Teachin Machine">). He then 
asks "What is the cost of telling the truth?". However, in his later work 
he doesn't always mark "truth" as oppressive but as a positive value in 
the living of a beautiful life - as with Neitszche discipline is part of 
an aesthetics of living.

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