ABSTRACT
Truth itself forms part of the history of discourse and is like an effect internal to a discourse or a practice. Michel Foucault's claim isn't just that truth is about this world but that it itself is an occurrence within this world, and thus cannot escape the "profusion of entangled events" that make up history. Instead of seeking ideal de jure truth or epistemological practice, Foucault uncompromisingly insists on empirically analyzing the de facto. Foucault reconceives power as productive rather than repressive and knowledge as an effect of empirical events that always includes power-effects. Foucault's epistemology more consistently applies the rejection of noumena and the God's-eye view than Hilary Putnam, who is a philosopher still seeks the good and right epistemological processes. Although Putnam is right to see that ideals like human flourishing play an important role in the ways humans pursue knowledge, his pragmatic attempt to base epistemological criteria on them treats this concept much too casually.
