If we treat Foucault as "postmodern", it's important to keep in mind that Foucault believed that it was necessary to be a Marxist to do any meaningful historical analysis. There is no substantive philosophical chasm between Foucault and Marx. Now Weber--
Miles
^^^^^^
CB: I can agree to the extent that Marx and Engels proclaimed that the ruling ideas ("truths") of any age are the ideas of its ruling classes. And in _Anti-Duhring_, Engels says that absolute truth is unknowable for us finite beings. Engels declares for the validity of relative truths and their advance, the dialectic of relative and absolute truth.
However, I think Lenin is correct to articulate that Marx and Engels held for the existence of objective reality, but maybe Foucault did, too. Does he ? Does Foucault declare on Lenin's position on this issue of the existence of objective reality ? A fundamental philosophical issue is materialism for Marx. Is Foucault a materialist in the Marxist sense, after his shift ? What is his position on practical-critical activity ?
On the other hand, in what I have read of Foucault, he himself seems to be differentiating himself from Marx philosophically. I can't buy the move from the "CP to Nietzche" as a step _toward_ Marx ( but then somebody will declare for a pluralist approach to Marx, or Marx as liberal : "There are many Marxes; even Marx wasn't a Marxist; down with Stalinist-Soviet dogma and rigidity", all kidding aside). Admire Nietzche, sure, but Marx-Nietszche eccleticism ? Uhhhhh...