ConatusPrinciple reviewed The Order of Things by Michel Foucault
None
5 stars
Classic Foucault. His historical analysis is deep and unsettling.
Paperback, 416 pages
English language
Published March 29, 1994
The Order of Things
The Order of Things: An Archaeology of the Human Sciences (Les mots et les choses: Une archéologie des sciences humaines, 1966) by Michel Foucault, proposes that every historical period has underlying epistemic assumptions, ways of thinking, which determined what is truth and what is acceptable discourse about a subject, by delineating the origins of biology, economics, and linguistics. The introduction to the origins of the human sciences begins with detailed, forensic analyses and discussion of the complex networks of sightlines, hidden-ness, and representation that exist in the group painting Las Meninas (The Ladies-in-waiting, 1656) by Diego Velázquez. Foucault's application of the analyses shows the structural parallels in the similar developments in perception that occurred in researchers’ ways of seeing the subject in the human sciences.
The Order of Things: An Archaeology of the Human Sciences (Les mots et les choses: Une archéologie des sciences humaines, 1966) by Michel Foucault, proposes that every historical period has underlying epistemic assumptions, ways of thinking, which determined what is truth and what is acceptable discourse about a subject, by delineating the origins of biology, economics, and linguistics. The introduction to the origins of the human sciences begins with detailed, forensic analyses and discussion of the complex networks of sightlines, hidden-ness, and representation that exist in the group painting Las Meninas (The Ladies-in-waiting, 1656) by Diego Velázquez. Foucault's application of the analyses shows the structural parallels in the similar developments in perception that occurred in researchers’ ways of seeing the subject in the human sciences.
simulo reviewed The Order of Things by Michel Foucault
None
3 stars
This book is fascinating – and a demanding read. There are many fascinating ideas, many poetic sentences and many fine-crafted connections. But there is also vague language with much "somehow" and the constant feeling that many assertions are a link to what one read 50 pages earlier and on going back one notes that, indeed, it somehow is, but not fully. Its structuralism gives me motivation to trace the structures, but also shuts off the possibility to take it as a bunch of unusual ideas and read it as some sort of spaced out text and see what happens in my mind (like with "A Thousand Plateaus")
This book is fascinating – and a demanding read. There are many fascinating ideas, many poetic sentences and many fine-crafted connections. But there is also vague language with much "somehow" and the constant feeling that many assertions are a link to what one read 50 pages earlier and on going back one notes that, indeed, it somehow is, but not fully. Its structuralism gives me motivation to trace the structures, but also shuts off the possibility to take it as a bunch of unusual ideas and read it as some sort of spaced out text and see what happens in my mind (like with "A Thousand Plateaus")
