--- title: "Meaning & Key Takeaway of: It was a matter of showing by what…" description: "\"“It was a matter of showing by what conjunctions a whole set of practices-- from the moment they became coordinated with a regime of truth––was able to..." image: "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/f9a/michel-foucault-1134_time_it-was-a-matter-of-showing-by-what-conju_43023.jpg" --- # It was a matter of showing by what conjunctions a whole… ![“It was a matter of showing by what conjunctions a whole set of practices-- from the moment they became coordinated with a regime of truth––was able to make what does not exist (madness, disease, delinquency, sexuality), nonetheless become something, something however that continues not to exist…” quote by Michel Foucault](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/f9a/michel-foucault-1134_time_it-was-a-matter-of-showing-by-what-conju_43023.jpg) [Download](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/f9a/michel-foucault-1134_time_it-was-a-matter-of-showing-by-what-conju_43023.jpg) [Open image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/f9a/michel-foucault-1134_time_it-was-a-matter-of-showing-by-what-conju_43023.jpg) > ““It was a matter of showing by what conjunctions a whole set of practices-- from the moment they became coordinated with a regime of truth––was able to make what does not exist (madness, disease, delinquency, sexuality), nonetheless become something, something however that continues not to exist. That is to say, what I would like to show is not how an error––when I say that which does not exist becomes something, this does not mean showing how it is possible for an error to be constructed––or how an illusion could be born, but how a regime of truth and therefore not an error, makes something that does not exist able to become something. It is not an illusion because it is a set of practices, real practices, which establish it and thus imperiously marks it out in reality... The point of all these investigations concerning madness, disease, delinquency, sexuality, and what i am talking about now, is to show how the coupling of a set of practices and a regime of truth from an apparatus (dispotif) of knowledge-power that effectively marks out in reality that which does not exist and legitimately submits it to the division between true and false. In the things I am presently concerned with, the moment when that which does not exist is inscribed in reality, and when that which does not exist comes under a legitimate regime of the true and false, marks the birth of this dissymmetrical bipolarity of politics and the economy. Politics and the economy are not things that exist, or errors, or ideologies. They are things that do not exist and yet which are inscribed in reality and fall under a regime of truth dividing the truth and the false.”” [Michel Foucault](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/michel-foucault/) ## About This Quote This interpretation was drafted with AI assistance. It is one reading of the quote, not the author's own explanation. Foucault argues that social categories like madness or sexuality become real through institutional practices that label them as true or false, thereby granting them existence within power structures. **In simple terms:** Power creates reality by naming the non‑existent. Key Takeaway Truth regimes construct social facts. Themes Power/knowledge Social construction Institutional discourse Truth regimes Political economy Biopolitics Mood Analytical Critical Type Philosophical Theoretical When to use this quote - Clinical diagnosis - Legal classification - Sexual identity politics - Economic policy framing Key Concepts Dispositif Regime of truth Truth/falsity binary Practical Applications - Analyzing how policies legitimize certain groups - Designing interventions that challenge dominant truth regimes Questions to Reflect On - How do power structures decide which non‑existent entities become real? - What are the consequences of treating socially constructed categories as factual? A Different Perspective One could argue that some categories reflect underlying biological or material realities, not merely discursive constructions. ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ No ratings yet [Time](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/about/time/) [True and false](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/about/true-and-false/) [Truth](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/about/truth/) ## Related quotes > ['Truth' is to be understood as a system of ordered procedures for the production, regulation, distribution, circulation and operation of statements. 'Truth' is linked…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/michel-foucault/truth-is-to-be-understood-as-a-system-of-ordered-procedures-for-the/) [Michel Foucault](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/michel-foucault/) > [“An error does not become truth by reason of multiplied propagation, nor does truth become error because nobody sees it. Truth stands, even if…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/mahatma-gandhi/an-error-does-not-become-truth-by-reason-of-multiplied-propagation-2/) [Mahatma Gandhi](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/mahatma-gandhi/) > [“For, medicine being a compendium of the successive and contradictory mistakes of medical practitioners, when we summon the wisest of them to our aid,…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/marcel-proust/for-medicine-being-a-compendium-of-the-successive-and-contradictory/) [Marcel Proust](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/marcel-proust/) > [“To free a man from error is not to deprive him of anything but to give him something: for the knowledge that a thing…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/arthur-schopenhauer/to-free-a-man-from-error-is-not-to-deprive-him-of-anything-but-to/) [Arthur Schopenhauer](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/arthur-schopenhauer/) > [Knowledge being to be had only of visible and certain truth, error is not a fault of our knowledge, but a mistake of our…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/john-locke/knowledge-being-to-be-had-only-of-visible-and-certain-truth-error-is/) [John Locke](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/john-locke/) > [Neither with those nor with the others, with all I agree and dissent; in all part of truth and part of error must be…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/michael-servetus/neither-with-those-nor-with-the-others-with-all-i-agree-and-dissent/) [Michael Servetus](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/michael-servetus/) > [The world always makes the assumption that the exposure of an error is identical with the discovery of truth - that error and truth…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/anonymous/the-world-always-makes-the-assumption-that-the-exposure-of-an-error/) [Anonymous](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/anonymous/) > [It is a human tendency "to measure truth and error by our capacity."](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/michel-de-montaigne/it-is-a-human-tendency-to-measure-truth-and-error-by-our-capacity/) [Michel de Montaigne](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/michel-de-montaigne/) > [It is much easier to meet with error than to find truth; error is on the surface, and can be more easily met with;…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/johann-wolfgang-von-goethe/it-is-much-easier-to-meet-with-error-than-to-find-truth-error-is-on/) [Johann Wolfgang von Goethe](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/johann-wolfgang-von-goethe/) > [“An error does not become truth by reason of multiplied propagation, nor does the truth become error because nobody will see it. 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Brown](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/norman-o-brown/) ## More by Michel Foucault > [One should try to locate power at the extreme of its exercise, where it is always less legal in character.](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/michel-foucault/one-should-try-to-locate-power-at-the-extreme-of-its-exercise-where/) [Michel Foucault](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/michel-foucault/) > [The book is not simply the object that one holds in one's hands, and it cannot remain within the little parallelpiped that contains it:…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/michel-foucault/the-book-is-not-simply-the-object-that-one-holds-in-one-s-hands-and/) [Michel Foucault](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/michel-foucault/) > [“But a punishment like forced labour or even imprisonment – mere loss of liberty – has never functioned without a certain additional element of…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/michel-foucault/but-a-punishment-like-forced-labour-or-even-imprisonment-mere-loss-of/) [Michel Foucault](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/michel-foucault/) > [Death left its old tragic heaven and became the lyrical core of man: his invisible truth, his visible secret.](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/michel-foucault/death-left-its-old-tragic-heaven-and-became-the-lyrical-core-of-man/) [Michel Foucault](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/michel-foucault/) > [I'm no prophet. 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That is to say, what I would like to show is not how an error––when I say that which does not exist becomes something, this does not mean showing how it is possible for an error to be constructed––or how an illusion could be born, but how a regime of truth and therefore not an error, makes something that does not exist able to become something. It is not an illusion because it is a set of practices, real practices, which establish it and thus imperiously marks it out in reality... The point of all these investigations concerning madness, disease, delinquency, sexuality, and what i am talking about now, is to show how the coupling of a set of practices and a regime of truth from an apparatus (dispotif) of knowledge-power that effectively marks out in reality that which does not exist and legitimately submits it to the division between true and false. In the things I am presently concerned with, the moment when that which does not exist is inscribed in reality, and when that which does not exist comes under a legitimate regime of the true and false, marks the birth of this dissymmetrical bipolarity of politics and the economy. Politics and the economy are not things that exist, or errors, or ideologies. 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