The Social Construction of Truth

Am I trying to construct a theory of truth or what?  Foucault thinks that truth is power.  He is very post-modern.  That term is used too much indeed, but it does have a proper use.  Jean-Francois Lyotard calls post-modernism incredulity towards meta-narratives.  This is how I understand the term, and what I think is the proper use of the term.  Is what Foucault thinks a theory of truth?  I do find affinity with what he says.  To him, truth is power in that what is "true" is determined by a "system" put in place--e.g. scientific investigation.  Science determines what is true and what is false for a large domain of our lives.  Science is a meta-narrative:  a framework for evaluating statements.  Post-modernism, then, is skeptical of the "scientific method."  In my understanding, post-modernism, tries not to offer a new "truth"--i.e. it is not skeptical of the scientific method because the method gives false results but because the method has no primacy over any other method (or meta-narrative), but science tries to put itself over all other meta-narratives and relegates them to the Other.  I am just reviewing old stuff here.  If post-modernism were to offer a new "truth" then somehow it would be incoherent, because that new truth would also be some form of a framework claiming absolute status.

Being as I am, I must stress that I do not wish to offer a theory of truth, because of that which has been outlined above.  I am not modern, and I cannot therefore offer a theory of truth claiming to be better than other theories.  This is why I need not criticise old theories of truth directly, i.e., for theoretical reasons, rather I criticise them for other reasons.  Reasons less well-defined, perhaps than theoretical reasons.  It is not the case that I claim that there is something out there (i.e. "truth") which the old theories model inadequately, and I am trying to offer an alternative.  No.  That is not what I wish to do.

The pursuit of truth, i.e. the hero of truth is also some sort of meta-narrative:  it legitimizes the pursuit of truth.  My criterion of a meta-narrative is anything which legitimizes something.  Perhaps this is too broad.  Do not take it as a definition, for, if that was my definition than even my very writing and thinking about such things would be incoherent to my purposes, i.e. my incredulity towards meta-narratives, i.e., my post-modernism.  I should not even call it a criterion for that too has the ring of a definition.

I find myself even more confused now that I have finished writing the above thoughts.  For it does seem that my ideas have the ring of trying to legitimize something.  But perhaps not.

It seems that whenever we ask the question, What is truth?, we end up indirectly asking the question, What statements are legitimate?, i.e. deserve our attention?, are useful?  (These are all forms of legitimation:  utility, deserving of attention, for example.)

So what attitude is proper when approaching this question if we are to avoid incoherence?  Or are we to give up the notion of incoherence altogether?  For that seems to be some sort of overarching theme which has the purpose of providing some legitimacy to what some person is saying:  coherence, a.k.a., the law of non-contradiction.  This is a hard line of thought.  I shall finish it here, and think upon it later.