Abstract

In this article, I wish to suggest that the relationship of social work and social policy to “Truth” is of crucial importance for sound professional practice, and I attempt to substantiate this claim by analyzing and highlighting the very harmful consequences of ignoring, dismissing or distorting this relationship. I will show that these very definite and deleterious consequences inevitably arise as soon as Foucauldian postmodernists attempt to cut the link between professional practice in social work and social policy, and the ongoing quest for the “Truth” of our humanity. I then suggest that if Foucault, taken as representative of contemporary postmodernism, is the “problem,” then the solution lies in the work of a theorist such as Bosanquet, taken as representative of traditional social philosophy and political theory. I conclude with an investigation into the role of what I call “ethico-political consciousness” in both the civic and professional pursuit of Truth in social life.