Political Science · Political Theory
UGC NET December 2019 Political Science
Passage
Post-modernist thinkers hold the view that there cannot be objective knowledge of social issues. For the post-modernist, knowledge is not simply a cognitive factor; knowledge is also normative and political. Power and knowledge are mutually supportive and they directly imply one another. The post-modernists are critical of classical liberals as well as contemporary positivists who believed in objectivity and the superiority of science. Through deconstruction, the post-modernists want to look at every accepted or settled idea with new lenses.
Which one of the following statements is incorrect according to Post-Modernist thinkers?
APost-moderns challenged the notion that knowledge is eternal
BKnowledge is linked to power ✓ Correct
CKnowledge leads to progress of the world
DNo knowledge is impartial
Correct answer: (B) Knowledge is linked to power — By the answer key the statement said to be incorrect according to postmodernists is option 2, knowledge is linked to power.
Explanation
★By the answer key the statement said to be incorrect according to postmodernists is option 2, knowledge is linked to power.
★This keying is hard to defend, because linking knowledge to power is in fact a central postmodern claim, associated above all with Michel Foucault.
★The statement postmodernists actually reject is option 3, that knowledge leads to the progress of the world, which is a modernist and Enlightenment belief.
★Postmodernists do challenge the notion that knowledge is eternal, as option 1 says, and they do hold that no knowledge is impartial, as option 4 says.
★The book's own explanation stresses that postmodernists critique the idea that scientific knowledge inherently leads to progress, which points to option 3, not option 2.
★So the keyed answer is option 2, but on the reasoning the defensible answer is option 3.
★Spotting cue: postmodernists affirm the knowledge-power link and reject the knowledge-as-progress claim, which is the real odd one out.
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