aug 9, 1966 - The Order of Things - Michel Foucault
Description:
Foucault endeavours to excavate the origins of the human sciences, which have their root in "life, labour, and language", that is: biology, economics, and linguistics. The book opens with an extended discussion of Diego Velázquez's painting Las Meninas and its complex arrangement of sightlines, hiddenness, and appearance. Then it develops its central claim: that all periods of history have possessed certain underlying epistemological assumptions that determined what was acceptable as, for example, scientific discourse.
Foucault develops the notion of episteme, and argues that these conditions of discourse have changed over time, from one period's episteme to another. Foucault demonstrates parallels in the development of three fields: linguistics, biology, and economics.
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Major Works of Western Theology and Philosophy
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