Knowledge/Power/Resistance

Francis Bacon’s famous metaphor that knowledge is power has been the intellectual springboard for many scholars to offer misleading observations about the inordinate authority and power of knowledge. Among the important implications that Bacon derives from his metaphor is the assertion that individuals provided with experimental skills and practical knowledge are those most entitled to hold executive office, rather than the aristocracy of blood. In this essay, we critically analyze Michel Foucault’s ambivalent version of the closeness of knowledge, power and authority.