The Order of Things

The Order of Things
source
Name	The Order of Things
Author	Michel Foucault
Original title	Les Mots et les Choses
Country	France
Language	French
Subject	Epistemology; History of ideas
Publisher	Gallimard
Published	1966
Media type	Print
Pages	452

The Order of Things is a 1966 book by Michel Foucault that examines the historical shifts in the underlying conditions of knowledge across different epochs. Foucault analyzes systems of thought that structure the human sciences and human self-understanding, tracing transformations from the Renaissance through the Classical age to the modern era. The work engages with figures and institutions across European intellectual history to argue that epistemes—historical a priori frameworks—govern what counts as truth in particular periods.

Introduction

Foucault opens by situating his study alongside the histories of René Descartes, John Locke, Immanuel Kant, Adam Smith, and Charles Darwin, yet he departs from conventional historiography exemplified by J. G. A. Pocock and Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel by seeking structures beneath individual thinkers. He uses archival methods reminiscent of Marc Bloch and Fernand Braudel while aligning with contemporaries such as Gilles Deleuze and reacting to scholars like Claude Lévi-Strauss and Émile Durkheim. The book proposes that changes in knowledge are not linear progressions attributed to figures like Francis Bacon or Isaac Newton alone but to broader epistemic ruptures involving institutions such as Royal Society, Collège de France, and University of Paris.

Historical Context and Origins

Foucault frames the origins in the late Renaissance, referencing artists and scholars including Leonardo da Vinci, Erasmus, William Shakespeare, and Michel de Montaigne, and administrative practices tied to courts like Habsburg Monarchy and Ottoman Empire. He traces the Classical episteme to the 17th and 18th centuries with attention to classificatory enterprises by Carl Linnaeus, Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, and Denis Diderot, tied to institutions such as Académie française and Royal Society of London. The modern episteme emerges alongside figures of the 19th century—Charles Darwin, Karl Marx, Sigmund Freud—and professionalizing institutions like the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales and national archives exemplified by Bibliothèque nationale de France. Foucault situates these shifts within events such as the French Revolution, the Industrial Revolution, and diplomatic rearrangements after the Congress of Vienna.

Key Concepts and Themes

Central is the notion of the episteme, a structure that Foucault contrasts with genealogical and teleological narratives associated with Friedrich Nietzsche and Martin Heidegger. He develops concepts of representation, language, and life by engaging thinkers such as Plato, Aristotle, Thomas Aquinas, and Augustine of Hippo. Foucault analyzes the role of taxonomies seen in the work of Georges Cuvier, Antonie van Leeuwenhoek, and Carolus Linnaeus and the emergence of disciplinary knowledge embodied by Claude Bernard, August Comte, and John Stuart Mill. He interrogates the formation of subjectivity in relation to medico-legal practices tied to André Brouillet and psychiatric developments involving Philippe Pinel and Jean-Martin Charcot. Language and representation are discussed via reference to Johann Gottfried Herder, Ferdinand de Saussure, and Wilhelm von Humboldt.

Reception and Influence

Upon publication, the book provoked debates among intellectuals including Raymond Aron, Louis Althusser, and Jacques Derrida, and influenced literary theorists like Roland Barthes and sociologists such as Pierre Bourdieu. It affected historiography in the wake of scholars like Peter Burke, Jerome R. Ravetz, and historians of science including Thomas Kuhn and Ian Hacking. The Order of Things played a role in shaping curricula at institutions including University of California, Berkeley, University of Oxford, and École Normale Supérieure, and it resonated with cultural movements connected to May 1968 protests and broader debates encompassing postmodernism and structuralism via figures like Jacques Lacan.

Critiques and Controversies

Critics ranged from positivists such as Karl Popper to Marxist historians including E. P. Thompson who challenged Foucault's dismissal of continuity and class analysis. Analytic philosophers like Willard Van Orman Quine and Bertrand Russell found fault with his epistemological claims, while historians like Aron and J. H. Hexter contested his use of sources and periodization. Debates with Michel de Certeau and exchanges in journals involving Tel Quel highlighted disagreements about method and literary interpretation. Feminist scholars such as Simone de Beauvoir and later Judith Butler critiqued aspects of subject formation, while legal theorists like H. L. A. Hart and Ronald Dworkin questioned implications for rights discourse.

Cultural and Interdisciplinary Applications

Foucault's framework informed studies across disciplines: literary criticism through T. S. Eliot scholars and Harold Bloom-influenced debates; art history engaging with Pablo Picasso and Marcel Duchamp; musicology discussing composers such as Ludwig van Beethoven and Igor Stravinsky; and anthropology intersecting with work by Margaret Mead and Bronisław Malinowski. Film theorists referencing Sergei Eisenstein, André Bazin, and Jean-Luc Godard employed Foucaultian vocabularies, while urbanists studying spaces like Paris and London used his ideas alongside planners influenced by Le Corbusier. The book shaped research in museum studies tied to institutions such as the Louvre and British Museum, museum cataloging practices of John Ruskin, and archival theory in national contexts like Archivio di Stato di Venezia.

Category:Books by Michel Foucault