The Archaeology of Knowledge (New York: Pantheon Books, 1972)

Michel Foucault (trans. A. M. Sheridan Smith)

In The Archaeology of Knowledge, Michel Foucault attempts to delineate a model of historical analysis based on methods employed in his first three books, Madness and Civilization, The Birth of the Clinic, and The Order of Things. The first half of the book, outlined here, is devoted largely to a discussion of the new phenomena of interest in Foucault’s historical research: discursive formations. (Note: All italicized material within direct quotations is in the original text, unless otherwise noted. Also, a [sic] should be understood in all instances of gendered language appearing in direct quotations.)

Discursive formation: "A discursive formation [. . .] presents the principle of articulation between a series of discursive events and other series of events, transformations, mutations, and processes" (74). Related concepts include system of relations, network, web, rules, governing principle, system constituted by discourses/statements, and group of statements.

Statement: "[T]he modality of existence proper to [a] group of signs" (107). "A statement belongs to a discursive formation as a sentence belongs to a text, and a proposition to a deductive whole" (116).

Discourse: "constituted by a group of sequences of signs, in so far as they are statements, that is, in so far as they can be assigned particular modalities of existence" (107).

Archive: "a particular level: that of a practice that causes a multiplicity of statements to emerge as so many regular events, as so many things to be dealt with and manipulated. [. . .] It is the general system of the formation and transformation of statements" (130).

Archaeology: describes the search for the archive. "Archaeology describes discourses as practices specified in the element of the archive" (131).

In the introduction of The Archaeology of Knowledge, Foucault prepares readers for the explication of his unique approach to history by first describing long-standing traditional methods of historical research. According to Foucault, "historians have preferred to turn their attention to long periods, as if, beneath the shifts and changes of political events, they were trying to reveal the stable, almost indestructible system of checks and balances, the irreversible processes, the constant readjustments, the underlying tendencies that gather force, and are then suddenly reversed after centuries of continuity" (3). That is, traditional historians have been concerned with continuity, unity, linearity, and causal connections characteristic of a particular grouping of events, such as a century.

In contrast, the new history seeks "the phenomena of rupture, of discontinuity" (4). Speaking specifically of the history of thought, Foucault asserts that "the problem is no longer one of tradition, of tracing a line, but one of division, of limits; it is no longer one of lasting foundations, but one of transformations that serve as new foundations, the rebuilding of foundations" (5). He identifies a host of questions of interest that emerge with this perspective, such as, "By what criteria is one to isolate the unities with which one is dealing?" and "What is a concept? What is a text?" (5)

Of central interest to Foucault is the relationship of the historian to the document. He notes that historians have always questioned documents, but now "history has altered its position in relation to the document" (6). Foucault explains: "The document, then, is no longer for history an inert material through which it tries to reconstitute what men have done or said, the events of which only the trace remains; history is now trying to define within the documentary material itself unities, totalities, series, relations" (7).

Foucault argues that the new history seeks to turn documents into monuments, in contrast with traditional history, which made monuments into documents. This, he says, has four consequences:

1. The constitution of series becomes a central challenge for the historian.
2. The notion of discontinuity becomes a focus of historical analysis.
3. The aim of describing a total history is replaced with that of describing a general history. Foucault explains, "A total description draws all phenomena around a single centre—a principle, a meaning, a spirit, a world-view, and overall shape; a general history, on the contrary, would deploy the space of a dispersion" (10).
4. Methodological problems emerge. In identifying these problems, Foucault notes a similarity to structuralism, but he contends that the problems do not "authorize us to speak of a structuralism of history" (11).

Foucault shifts gears a bit at this point and takes up the matter of the relationship between continuous ( i.e., traditional) history and human consciousness. According to Foucault, continuous history provides for the "sovereignty of consciousness," asserting that such history is "the indispensable correlative of the founding function of the subject" (12). Foucault observes that continuous history has opposed a number of attempts to decenter the subject, including the projects of Marxist analysis, Nietzchean genealogy, and psychoanalysis.

Near the end of the introduction, Foucault leaves his musings on the subject and addresses the aims of the project at hand, which, as noted previously, emerged from his first three historical works. Foucault briefly describes the tasks of those works, then observes that they "were outlined in a rather disordered way, and their general articulation was never clearly defined. It is time they were given greater coherence—or, at least, that an attempt was made to do so" (15). In describing his aims, Foucault again distances himself from structural analysis as well as the use of categories employed in traditional, totalizing analyses (e.g., world-views). Foucault concludes with observations about the "cautious, stumbling manner" of his work (17), a characteristic reflective of his attempts to better understand his emerging theory of history.

Foucault begins this chapter by establishing theoretical problems (rather than procedural issues) as his focus. "But there is a negative work to be carried out first," states Foucault, noting that traditional concepts associated with continuity—permanence, influence, resemblance, repetition, development, and evolution—must be jettisoned (21). Foucault also calls for the rejection of familiar groupings or categories, such as "literature" and "philosophy." The unities particularly in need of suspension, according to Foucault, are the book and the oeuvre(collection of texts). Foucault explains: "The frontiers of a book are never clear-cut: beyond the title, the first lines, and the last full stop, beyond its internal configuration and its autonomous form, it is caught up in a system of references to other books, other texts, other sentences: it is a node within a network" (23). Finally, Foucault cautions against the acceptance of certain themes, namely those that seek unseen origins and see discourse as a manifestation of a silent "already-said" (25).

Summing up, Foucault asserts: "These pre-existing forms of continuity, all these syntheses that are accepted without question, must remain in suspense. They must not be rejected definitively of course, but the tranquility with which they are accepted must be disturbed; we must show that they do not come about of themselves, but are always the result of a construction the rules of which must be known, and the justifications of which must be scrutinized" (25).

Having identified the negative work of historical analysis, Foucault articulates what the scholar must do in the wake of interrogating accepted continuities. Says Foucault, "One is led therefore to the project of a pure description of discursive events as the horizon for the search for the unities that form within it" (27). Differentiating this analysis from linguistic analysis, Foucault states, "The question posed by language analysis of some discursive factor or other is always: according to what rules has a particular statement been made, and consequently according to what rules could other similar statements be made? The description of the events of discourse poses quite a different question: how is it that one particular statement appeared rather than another?" (27)

Near the end of chapter 1 (28-29), Foucault discusses the advantages of interrogating accepted unities, even if that means those unities are once again accepted after interrogation. One advantage is that emphasis is placed on the temporality of events, on examining discourse as it occurs in time, not as the manifestation of some silent discourse. Another advantage: the approach allows one to see relationships and unities obscured by traditional forms of analysis.

Before closing, Foucault acknowledges that he must utilize some divisions, namely, those regarded as the "sciences of man," for his analysis to proceed. He makes two points with regard to this choice: "that the analysis of discursive events is in no way limited to such a field; and that the division of this field itself cannot be regarded either as definitive or absolutely valid; it is no more than an initial approximation that must allow relations to appear that may erase the limits of this initial outline" (30).

Foucault begins his discussion of discursive formations with four hypotheses about the relationships between statements that form a given grouping or category (e.g., medicine):

1. First hypothesis: "statements different in form, and dispersed in time, form a group if they refer to one and the same object" (32).
2. Second hypothesis: statements similar in "form and type of connection" (33) form a group. By this Foucault means that statements similar in style, or manner of expression, form a group.
3. Third hypothesis: statements may be grouped based on the stable concepts involved (e.g., the concepts of subject and predicate in grammar).
4. Fourth hypothesis: statements may be grouped by themes (e.g., an evolution theme observable in particular science discourses).

Foucault considers each hypothesis in turn, suggesting how it might be plausible to create groupings based on the unities mentioned. Ultimately, however, he rejects them all, replacing them with new hypotheses related to his particular project of analyzing the dispersion and discontinuity of statements. Rather than analyze statements based on their object or theme, Foucault proposes to analyze the space in between. "Hence the idea of describing these dispersions themselves; of discovering whether, between these elements [. . .] one cannot discern a regularity: an order in their successive appearance, correlations in their simultaneity, assignable positions in a common space, a reciprocal functioning, linked and hierarchized transformations" (37).

The system of dispersion Foucault describes is what he calls a discursive formation. Foucault explains that the term discursive formation is more adequate to the task of analysis than similar terms such as "science" or "theory." Noting that discursive formations can be divided, Foucault states: "The conditions to which the elements of this division (objects, mode of statement, concepts, thematic choices) are subjected we shall call the rules of formation. The rules of formation are conditions of existence (but also of coexistence, maintenance, modification, and disappearance) in a given discursive division" (38).

Such is the testable model that Foucault sets forth. He acknowledges that analysis of this sort is not without risks, that there is no guarantee of a particular end. He posits that there is a real danger of erasing certainty and arriving at "uncharted land and unforeseeable conclusion" (39). Acknowledging the foundation-shaking potential of his method, Foucault asks, "Is there not a danger that everything that has so far protected the historian in his daily journey and accompanied him until nightfall [. . .] may disappear, leaving for analysis a blank, indifferent space, lacking in both interiority and promise?" (39)

Foucault begins fleshing out his model by examining various ways in which rules of formation might be analyzed, starting with the formation of objects. To facilitate his discussion, Foucault identifies a particular example—the discourse of nineteenth-century psychopathology—as well as objects associated with that discourse (e.g., hypnosis, nervous system lesions, criminality). Foucault observes that in this discourse, "a variety of objects were named, circumscribed, analysed, then rectified, re-defined, challenged, erased. Is it possible to lay down the rule to which their appearance was subject?" (40-41).

Foucault proceeds to outline clearly the steps one must take in analyzing the formation of objects.

1. First, one must identify the surfaces of the emergence of objects. At what point did objects emerge as anomalies? In the case of objects of psychopathology, Foucault suggests that the surfaces were likely located in the family, as well as religious, work, and social communities. Art, sexuality, and penalty constituted new surfaces for emergence. Foucault explains: "In these fields of initial differentiation, in the distances, the discontinuities, and the threshold that appear within it, psychiatric discourse finds a way of limiting its domain, of defining what it is talking about, of giving it the status of an object—and therefore of making it manifest, nameable, and describable" (41).
2. One must also identify and describe the "authorities of delimitation" (41). Examples include the fields of medicine and law as well as religious authority.
3. Finally, one must analyze "grids of specification" (42); that is, the systems by which objects are divided, compared, classified, and so on.

Foucault acknowledges that his description of this process remains inadequate for two reasons. First, objects do not make themselves available to discourse as if previously formed. Second, the relationship between the "planes of differentiation" in which objects appear (outlined above) is unclear. To address these issues, Foucault returns to the example of psychopathology, after which he concludes: "If, in a particular period in the history of our society, the delinquent was psychologized and patholologized, if criminal behaviour could give rise to a whole series of objects of knowledge, this was because a group of particular relations was adopted for use in psychiatric discourse" (43). In short, objects are formed by discourse.

Foucault notes several implications of this view, including the fact that the conditions under which objects appear are "many and imposing" (44), and the relations between discourses are complex, occurring between a variety of institutions, norms, and processes, and occupying different categories. In the remainder of the chapter, Foucault emphasizes that what is important is not the objects of analysis themselves, but rather the rules that constitute them as such.

Readers are left to infer the definition of enunciative modalties from the list of forms with which Foucault opens this chapter (e.g., qualitative descriptions, statistical accounts, analogies). "What is it that links them together?" Foucault asks. As in the previous chapter, Foucault outlines the process whereby a law of formation can be described.

1. One must ask who is speaking. Who has the right to speak, and who is qualified to do so?
2. One must also describe the institutional sites from which discourse emerges and "derives its legitimate source and point of application" (51). In the case of nineteenth-century medicine, sites include the hospital, the laboratory, and the library.
3. One must examine subject positions made possible by discourse. Examples from medicine include the questioning subject, the listening subject, the seeing subject, and the observing subject.

Foucault stresses the importance of understanding groups of relations. He explains, "If, in clinical discourse, the doctor is in turn the sovereign, direct questioner, the observing eye, the touching finger, the organ that deciphers signs, the point at which previously formulated descriptions are interrogated, the laboratory technician, it is because a whole group of relations is involved" (53).

In keeping with the idea of complex relations, Foucault concludes his chapter with a comment about the complexity of subjectivity as constituted by discourse. He states that "discourse is not the majestically unfolding manifestation of a thinking, knowing, speaking subject, but, on the contrary, a totality, in which the dispersion of the subject and his discontinuity with himself may be deployed. It is a space of exteriority in which a network of sites is deployed. [. . .] [I]t is neither by recourse to a transcendental subject nor by recourse to a psychological subjectivity that the regulation of its enunciations should be defined" (55).

In describing the analysis of concepts, Foucault asks, "Could a law not be found that would account for the successive or simultaneous emergence of disparate concepts?" (56) Finding such a law involves a description of the organization of statements within which particular concepts appear. The descriptive process must take the following features of organization into account:

1. Forms of succession; types of dependence, schemata. As an example, Foucault notes that seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Natural History "was a set of rules for arranging statements in a series, an obligatory set of schemata of dependence, of order, and of successions, in which the recurrent elements that may have value as concepts were distributed" (57).
2. Forms of coexistence; field of presence ("statements formulated elsewhere and taken up in a discourse" [57]); field of concomitance (statements differing with respect to objects and types, but relevant to the statements being studied); field of memory ("statements that are no longer accepted or discussed [58]).
3. Procedures of intervention. Examples of such procedures include rewriting, methods of transcribing, modes of translating, and ways in which statements are delimited.

Acknowledging that the elements for description are diverse, Foucault points out that what unites them in a discursive formation is the relationship of the elements. The schemata he proposes "make it possible to describe–not the laws of the internal construction of concepts, not their progressive and individual genesis in the mind of man–but their anonymous dispersion through texts, books, and ouvres" (60). Foucault suggests that this sort of analysis is thus preconceptual, which he illustrates with examples from his book The Order of Things. Foucault then stresses the importance of relating the preconceptual level "neither to a horizon of ideality nor to an empirical genesis of abstraction" (62).

Foucault equates the term "strategies" with "themes and theories," noting that the central problem for analysis is determining their distribution in history. Foucault admits that this line of analysis is difficult to detail at this point, then notes that he will take up the issue of theoretical choices more fully in later work. He does provide a few guidelines, however.

1. One must look for points of diffraction, which involve points of incompatibility (objects, enunciative modalities, or concepts that cannot appear in the same series of statements) that later become points of equivalence. They eventually become "link points of systematization," forming "discursive sub-groups" (66).
2. One must study "the economy of the discursive constellation," meaning those discourses that are contemporaneous with that under study, and the relationships that exist between them. According to Foucault: "This whole group of relations forms a principle of determination that permits or excludes, within a given discourse, a certain number of statements" (67).
3. Other sources of authority must be observed as well, including relationships with non-discursive practices, rules of appropriation, and positions of desire.

As in the previous three chapters, Foucault concludes with comments about what not to associate with an analysis and description of strategies. In a succinct summary of these negative statements, Foucault advises that "just as one must not relate the formation of objects either to words or to things, nor that of statements either to the pure form of knowledge or to the psychological subject, nor that of concepts either to the structure of ideality or to the succession of ideas, one must not relate the formation of theoretical choices either to a fundamental project or to the secondary play of opinions" (70).

In the final chapter of section II, Foucault presents a series of rhetorical questions about his proposed method of analysis—its aims, its ends, and its effectiveness. Although he states that he will answer all of the questions at some point, he singles out one set for his final remarks: "on the question of the discursive formations that I have tried to define, ca one really speak of unities? Is the re-division that I am proposing capable of individualizing wholes? And what is the nature of the unity thus discovered or constructed?" (71)

In answer to this question, Foucault reiterates that if unity is to be found, it will be found in the system of rules governing discursive formations. He then calls attention to the complex ways in which elements within a discursive formation are related. Near the end of the chapter, Foucault summarizes what he means (at least at this point in the text) by discursive formations. According to Foucault, a discursive formation "presents the principle of articulation between a series of discursive events and other series of events, transformations, mutations, and processes" (74).

Addressing the time and space of analysis, Foucault observes, "What are being analysed here

are certainly not the terminal states of discourse; they are in the preterminal regularities in relation to which the ultimate state, far from constituting the birth-place of a system, is defined by its variants" (76). And in conducting that analysis, "One remains within the dimension of discourse" (76).

Having devoted considerable space to the description of discursive formations, Foucault describes a key constitutive element of such formations: the statement. Foucault notes that the groups he describes in part II—objects, enunciative modalities, concepts, and strategies, are, in fact, groups of statements. Thus, he devotes the first chapter of part III to a definition of the statement.

As in his chapter on discursive formations, Foucault sets forth a number of hypotheses about what statements are, then shows through examples how each is inadequate. He observes: "At first sight, the statement appears as an ultimate, undecomposable element [. . .]. The atom of discourse" (80). What, then, are its characteristics? In typical fashion, Foucault reveals what statements are not: 1) statements are not logical propositions; 2) statements are not sentences; and 3) statements are not speech acts.

According to Foucault, statements may at times take the form of propositions, sentences, or speech acts, but they are not one in the same as those forms. He observes that "one finds statements lacking in legitimate propositional structure; one finds statements where one cannot recognize a sentence; one finds more statements than one can isolate speech acts" (84).

Foucault then explores the notion of statements as signs—either juxtaposed or existing singly. To test this idea, Foucault considers the letters of the alphabet and the lead characters used for printing, concluding that that the collection of the latter is a tool rather than a statement. In the case of the alphabet, Foucault points out that a keyboard is not a statement, but a series of letters appearing in a typing manual would be.

Foucault comes closest to a definition of the statement near the end of the chapter, where he suggests: "The statement is not therefore a structure [. . .]; it is a function of existence that properly belongs to signs and on the basis of which one may then decide, through analysis or intuition, whether or not they ‘make sense’, according to what rule they follow one another or are juxtaposed, of what they are the sign, and what sort of act is carried out by their formulation (oral or written)" (87).

Foucault here addresses the function of the statement, and in so doing attempts to describe more clearly the statement’s "special mode of existence" (88). He begins with a look at the relationship between statements and signs, asking what it is that turns a group of signs into a statement. According to Foucault, "A series of signs will become a statement on condition that it possesses ‘something else’ [. . .], a specific relation that concerns itself—and not its cause, or its elements" (89).

Foucault then explores what this relationship might be, primarily by noting what it is not. Foucault contends that the relationships between proposition and referent and sentence and meaning are not adequate models for the statement and what it designates. He then posits that the correlate of a statement is not an object or a particular relation but rather "is a group of domains in which such objects may appear and to which such relations may be assigned" (91). Becoming more specific, Foucault states: ‘The referential of the statement forms the place, the condition, the field of emergence, the authority to differentiate between individuals and objects, states of things and relations that are brought into play by the statement itself" (91).

Foucault next examines the relationship between the statement and subject. While at first it might seem that the subject is the author of whatever signs are produced, Foucault explains that the matter is more complex. He asserts that the subject of a statement is "a particular, vacant place that may in fact be filled by different individuals" (95); the potential for assigning the subject is one of the defining features of the statement.

Identifying a third important feature of the enunciative function, Foucault notes its relationship with an "associated domain" (96). After examining once again the proposition and the sentence, Foucault concludes: "It is not enough to say a sentence, it is not even enough to say it in a particular relation to a field of objects or in a particular relation to a subject, for a statement to exist: it must be related to a whole adjacent field. [. . .] A statement always has borders peopled by other statements" (97). Important to note here is that the domain Foucault is talking about is not synonymous with "context."

The fourth and final feature Foucault addresses is a statement’s materiality. Foucault posits that materiality "is constitutive of the statement itself: a statement must have a substance, a support, a place, and a date. And when these requisites change, it too changes identity" (101). Foucault explains that statements may also retain their identity through different enunciations, and this he calls the rule of repeatable materiality, a rule that is "of the order of the institution rather than of spatio-temporal location" (103). Through its materiality, a "statement circulates, is used, disappears, allows or prevents the realization of a desire, serves or resists various interests, participates in challenge and struggle, and becomes a theme of appropriation or rivalry" (105).

Foucault returns to the task he identified at the outset of part III, that of defining the statement. He briefly rehearses his exploration of the idea, then identifies two questions that he intends to address in chapter 3: 1) what is involved in describing statements, and 2) what implications does this have for the analysis of discursive formations?

He begins by outlining three steps in the description of statements, the first of which is to establish the vocabulary. In this section, Foucault defines (once again, but in an attempt to be more precise) such terms as formulation, statement, discourse, and discursive formation. The term discourse is worth mentioning here, as it is one term Foucault never really addresses before this point. Here, he defines discourse as "the group of statements that belong to a single system of formation" (107). Regarding the analysis of such formations and the statements within them, Foucault writes that "it is another way of attacking verbal performances, of dissociating their complexity, of isolating terms that are entangled in its web, and of locating the various regularities that they obey" (108).

Elaborating on the analysis of statements, Foucault reiterates an earlier point about analysis remaining at the level of discourse itself. "[I]t is a description of things said, precisely as they were said. The analysis of statements, then, is a historical analysis, but one that avoids all interpretations" (109).

Foucault asserts that statements are quasi-invisible, likening statements to "those familiar transparencies, which, although they conceal nothing in their density, are nevertheless not entirely clear" (111). He continues, "But if one wishes to describe the enunciative level, one must consider that existence itself; question language, not in the direction to which it refers, but in the dimension that gives it" (111).

In the second half of chapter 3, Foucault addresses the question of the relationship of statement descriptions to the analysis of discursive formations. In response, Foucault addresses the issue of theory development, stating explicitly: ""I am not developing here a theory" (114). Instead, he has attempted to outline a model. He believes that if he has not produced a model, he has at least been able to "‘loop the loop’, and show that the analysis of discursive formations really is centered on a description of the statement and its specificity" (114).

In the final pages of the chapter (115-117), Foucault offers a useful summary of all of his thinking in the previous chapters, re-describing key elements and their relationships with and within discursive formations. Although much of the information is familiar, Foucault adds one more definition, that of "discursive practice," which he defines as "a body of anonymous, historical rules, always determined in the time and space that have defined a given period, and for a given social, economic, geographical, or linguistic area, the conditions of operation of the enunciative function" (117).

After taking stock of his model of analysis in chapter 3, Foucault uses the last two short chapters of part III of his book to identify and discuss several additional elements relevant to the analysis of discursive formations. In chapter 4, Foucault notes that the analysis considers what he calls "rarity," meaning the search for a single signifier that unifies a host of discourses. Foucault reminds readers that "few things, in all, can be said" (119); such is the rarity of statements.

A second feature of the analysis of discursive formations is an emphasis on the exteriority of statements. Foucault’s discussion here is reminiscent of earlier comments about the interior focus (i.e., concern with subjectivity) of traditional history. Foucault asserts that he is interested in seeing events as they occur in time and space, and he reaffirms his position that the enunciative domain is "an anonymous field whose configuration defines the possible position of speaking subjects" (122).

The third feature Foucault mentions is that of accumulation, or the preservation of statements. He addresses several presuppositions related to the notion of accumulation, revealing the various ways by which one might look at the succession and recurrence of statements.

In the final chapter of part III, Foucault defines what he means by "historical a priori," which, as one might expect, is not akin to the definition of the formal a priori. According to Foucault, the a priori "is not a condition of validity for judgements, but a condition of reality for statements" (127). Foucault notes the historical nature of the a priori of which he speaks, stating that "it does not constitute, above events, and in an unmoving heaven, an atemporal structure; it is defined as the group of rules that characterize a discursive practice" (127). (Like so many of Foucault’s terms, this definition of a priori does not readily distinguish it from other key terms, such as discursive formation.)

Foucault then addresses the notion of the archive, which is not a library, but rather "the law of what can be said, the system that governs the appearance of statements as unique events" (129). He states that the archive determines how statements are grouped (presumably, into discursive formations). In his concluding statement, Foucault weaves together the major elements of his model with the notion of archaeology, noting: "The never completed, never wholly achieved uncovering of the archive forms the general horizon to which the description of discursive formations, the analysis of positivities, the mapping of the enunciative field belong. The right of words—which is not that of the philologists–authorizes, therefore, the use of the term archaeology to describe all these searches" (131).

Foucault begins by noting that the "law of coherence is a heuristic rule, a procedural obligation, almost a moral constraint on research" (149). By following a variation of Occham’s razor (do not multiply contradictions uselessly), historians seek the coherence of a chronology, the internal coherence of a text, and the "form and development of an individual oeuvre" (149). This chapter discusses and describes the uses and functions that contradictions play within, without, and between discursive formations and practices, and how the archaeological method might begin to explore them.

"The history of ideas recognizes…two levels of contradiction: that of appearances, which is resolved in the profound unity of discourse; and that of foundations, which gives rise to discourse itself" (151). "For archaeological analysis, contradictions are neither appearances to overcome, nor secret principles to be uncovered" (151). "By taking contradictions as objects to be described, archaeological analysis does not try to discover in their place a common form or theme, it tries to determine the extent and form of the gap that separates them" (152). Comparatively, "the history of ideas attempts to melt contradictions…, [while] archaeology describes the different spaces of dissension" (152). "For the great game of contradiction…it substitutes the analysis of different types of contradiction, different levels of accordance with which it can be mapped, different functions that it can exercise" (153).

Types of Contradictions:

Derived: contradictions found at the level of propositions—emerging from the same discursive formation. Foucault calls these terminus ad quem.

Extrinsic: contradictions beyond discursive formations "reflect[ing] the opposition between discursive formation" (153). Foucault calls these terminus a quo.

Intrinsic: Foucault notes that these are the relevant contradictions for archaeological analysis. They are contradictions "deployed in the discursive formation itself…, originating at one point in the system of formations" (153). Though not initially distinguishable from derived contradictions, these differ as "two ways of forming statements, both characterized by certain objects, certain positions of subjectivity, certain concepts, and certain strategic choices" (153).

Levels of Contradictions: (example: contradictions between systematic Natural History and methodical Natural History):

Inadequation of objects: describing general appearance v. variables; describing totalities v. parts; focusing on the whole process v. a particular stage therein.

Divergence of enunciative modalities: systematic = application of "rigorous perceptual and linguistic code" and fixed scalse; methodical = codes are free, scales shift (154).

Incompatibility of concepts: one is arbitrary the other includes a "real definition" (154).

Exclusion of theoretical options: one is fixed while the other admits of possibilities.

Functions of Contradictions:

Additional development of enunciative field: These open up "sequences of argumentation, experimentation, verification, and various inferences; they make possible the determination of new objects, they arouse new enunciative modalities" (154).

Reorganization of the discursive field: "they pose the question of the possible translation of one group of statements into another " (155). They expose "objects of another level, concepts that have another structure and another field of application, enunciations of another type, without, however, altering the rules of formation" (155).

Critique: "They put into operation the existence of the ‘acceptability’ of the discursive practice; they define the point of its effective impossibility and its historical reflection" (155).

The goal of archaeology, then, is to highlight contradictions (in all their types, levels, and functions) and to "map, in a particular discursive practice, the point at which they are constituted, to define the form that they assume, the relations that they have with each other, and the domain that they govern" (155-6). Contradictions and irregularities are not to be smoothed out, but must be exposed and explored in order to determine the relations and interrelations of objects, concepts, and enunciative modalities (formations), and the describe the overlap and distinctions between different discursive formations and different discursive practices.

Chapter 4: The Comparative Facts

Still working to define and find a unique place for archaeology, in this chapter Foucault attempts to answer the question: "What is the relation between archaeology and the analysis of the sciences?" In other words, what is the relation between knowledge, discourse, disciplines, and science?

Positiviites, Disciplines, Sciences:

"Archaeology does not describe disciplines" (178). A description of positivities, defined as the unity of a discourse throughout time (cf. 126), seems to delimit the boundaries of a discpline and thus of a science. However, because positivities extend beyond the individual texts, it also extends beyond the particular disciplines that may have been historically codified. Discursive practices are present between disciplines, between fields of knowledge and they operate within and between non-discursive formations. Therefore, Foucault can claim that "discursive formations can be identified…neither as sciences, nor as scarcely scientific disciplines, nor as distinct prefigurations of the sciences to come, nor as forms that exclude any scientificity from the outset" (181).

Knowledge (savoir):

For a distinction between savoir and connaissance, see the footnote on p. 15.

"Positivities do not characterize forms of knowledge" (181). Instead, "to analyze positivities is to show in accordance with which rules a discursive practice may form groups of objects, enunciations, concepts, or theoretical choices" (181). These rules of formation and elements formed "are that on the basis of which coherent (or incoherent) propositions are built up, more or less exact descriptions developed, verifications carried out, theories developed" (182).

Definition of Knowledge:

Knowledge is the group of discursively formed elements that are needed for the creation of a science but do not necessarily lead to one. "Knowledge is that of which one can speak in a discursive practice, and which is specified by that fact" (182)—It is the "domain of objects," the space of discourse, "the field of coordination and subordination," and defined by possibilities of use (182-3).

Foucault distinguishes between scientific domains and archaeological territories:

The former includes propositions based upon a systematicity, upon certain laws of construction.

The latter includes fictions, reflexions, narrative accounts, and other literary and philosophical texts. Thus in this realm there are overlapping rules of formations.

The relationships and interplay of knowledge and ideology occurs where archaeology attempts to describe "positively how a science function in the element of knowledge" (185). "The hold of ideology over scientific discourse and the ideological functioning of the sciences are not articulated at the level of their ideal structure…they are articulated where science is articulated upon knowledge" (185). Foucault’s method, then, asks how discursive practices function amidst other practices.

He then offers us four principles:

1. "Ideology is not exlcusive of scientificity" (186).
2. Contradictions, ruptures, "lacunae" may indicate ideologies
3. Ideology cannot be ironed out or eliminated through "rigour" and revision
4. To "tackle the ideological functioning of a science" one must "treat it as one practice among others" (186).

Foucault next describes the emergence of discursive practices (these should be read in their entirety p. 186-7). These thresholds of emergence seem to indicate an evolutionary or maturation pattern. However, Foucault recognizes that their emergence does not necessarily occur chronologically—progress is not necessarily successive. The four thresholds are: threshold of positivity, threshold of epistemologization, threshold of scientificity, threshold of formalization. His examples of psychopathology and mathematics identify two discursive formations that did not follow these emergences in a regular or homogenous way.

The thresholds open up the possibility of three forms/levels of historical analysis:

1. Level of formalization: The analysis here is recurrential—where the history "never ceases to recount about itself in the process of its own development" (189). His example here is mathematics.
2. Level of scientificity: The analysis here is epistemological—and it "questions itself as to the way in which it was crossed on the basis of various epistemological figures Its purpose is to discover...how a concept…was purified, and accorded the status and function of a scientific concept" (190).
3. Level of epeistemologization: The analysis here is archaeological history—and it seems that it is at this level that Foucault’s work begins. This type "takes as its point of attack the threshold of epistemologization—the point of cleavage between discursive formations" (190). At this level and through this method one is trying to determine how a discursive practice has created or made way for scientific knowledge. We are to analyze the establishment and formalizations of a science through its discursive formations: this method "sets out…to outline the history of the sciences on the basis of a description of discursive practices" (191).

Episteme:

The analysis of the episteme: "The analysis of discursive formations, of positivities, and knowledge in their relations with epistemological figures and with the sciences…to distinguish it from other possible forms of the history of the sciences" (191). "By episteme, we mean, in fact, the total set of relations that unite, at a given period, the discursive practices that give rise to epistemological figures, sciences, and possibly formalized systems….The episteme is…the totality of relations that can be discovered, for a given period, between the sciences when one analyses them at the level of discursive regularities" (191).

Its field is inexhaustible and indefinite and it is constantly shifting and moving.

Its description points out momentary limitations and boundaries.

And most importantly, the analysis of the episteme "is a questioning that accepts the fact of science only in order to ask the question what it is for that science to be a science" (192).

Foucault here discusses other archaeologies that might expand on and move beyond the analysis of the episteme as merely a history of a science. He discusses sexuality (which one might compare with what he actually does in his three volumes on the subject), painting, and political knowledge. Foucault thus shows that his analysis is not aimed only at sciences, but "what archaeology tries to describe is not the specific structure of science, but the very different domain of knowledge" (195). He ends with a statement that the above analysis is not complete, it focuses only on the episteme, and so there may be other, equally fruitful, directions for archaeology to explore. In the future there may be other domains.

Lecture given December 2, 1970

Fixation of Territory: "I am supposing that in every society the production of discourse is at once controlled, selected, organized, and redistributed according to a certain number of procedures, whose role is to avert its powers and its dangers, to cope with chance events, to evade its ponderous, awesome materiality" (216). Society, then, imposes rules on discourse—these are external, internal, and subject oriented

External Rules:

Objects of discourse, rituals and surrounding circumstances, the exclusive right to speak of a particular discourse (authorial? who has this right?). Two modern danger areas are politics and sexuality.

Speech seems harmless, but the prohibitions surrounding it reveal links with desire and power.

Rules Concerning the Role of the Subject:
Rituals: Who could say what, when they could say it, and what kinds of actions could accompany those statements.

Fellowships of Discourse: Similar to disciplines, this notion places within a fixed community the function of preserving and reproducing discourse through ritual.

Doctrine: The flipside (nearly) of fellowships of discourse. Here is the function of spreading the word, of diffusion. "Doctrine links individuals to certain types of utterance while consequently barring them from all others. Doctrine effects a dual subjection, that of speaking subjects to discourse, and that of discourse to the group" (226).

Social Appropriation: This occurs primarily through education—the discourse is diffused, but with less of the subjection of doctrine.

Foucault discusses the way discourse itself has been historically ignored. This "elision" is brought back to the sophistry/philosophy debates, wherein the Sophists were defeated and discourse was summarily ignored. Because of this, discourse itself, through limitations and exclusions, has little room for discussion—the following themes help to reinforce and perpetuate this "ancient elision" of the reality of discourse (227).

Founding Subject (writing): By locating meaning in the subject, discourse itself is given little emphasis—it is merely the conduit from thought to speech.

Originating Experience (reading): This is in opposition to the founding subject, but playing an analogous role. Discourse becomes here a discrete, single, and truthful reading. It is grounded in the possibility of an experience that that make thought and speech possible.

Universal Mediation (exchanging): The discourse that is universal, and which subsumes particular discursive practices, continues to elide the reality of discourse by making them universal (this seems to be the fish-in-water problem).

Finally, "This exchange, this writing, this reading never involve anything but signs. Discourse thus nullifies itself, in reality, in placing itself at the disposal of the signifier" (228).

Logophobia:

This problem of discourse (its elision) and the refusal of a philosophy to explore it, the "fear of these events, of this mass of spoken things, of everything that could be possibly be violent, discontinuous, querulous, disordered even and perilous in it, of the incessant, disorderly buzzing of discourse" he terms logophobia (229). To get around this fear he offers us three decisions: "To question our will to truth; to restore to discourse its character as an event; to abolish the sovereignty of the signifier" (230).

Implications (as principles):

Reversal: We must recognize the negative in the positive attempts to locate an origin of discourse.

Discontinuity: The flow of discourse (of that which is said or that which is unsaid) must be seen as discontinuous—we are not to search for a continuous movement of discourse.

Specificity: "We must conceive of discourse as a violence that we do to things"—"it is in this practice that the events of discourse find the principle of their regularity" (229).

Exteriority: We are to focus on discourse on its face (even if that face is illegible). Searching for hidden meanings is not the goal.

Two Types of Analyses:

The following methods are different only in their "point of attack, perspective and delimitation" (233). They are descriptions meant "to alternate, support and complete each other" (234).

Critical: This method brings the reversal principle into play. Here he aims to "distinguish the forms of exclusion, limitation and appropriation…[to show] how they are formed, in answer to which needs, how they are modified and displaced, which constraints they have effectively exercised, to what extent they have been worked on" (231). This method studies "the processes of rarefaction, consolidation and unification in discourse" (233).
Geneological: This method brings the other three principles above into play: "how series of discourse are formed, through, in spite of, or with the aid of these systems of constraint: what were the specific norms of each, and what were their conditions of appearance, growth and variation" (231-2). This method "studies [the] formation [of discourses], at once scattered, discontinuous and regular" (233).

Final Challenge:

"The theoretical significance of Foucault’s work goes well beyond the intrinsic interest of the texts he examines. His description of discursive formations illuminates new objects for historical investigation and identifies new levels at which sociological inquiry and explanation can operate. [. . .] In spite of what appear to some others as the oddities of his style, the weaknesses of his scholarship, or the underdevelopment of his sociological claims, Foucault has outlined a preeminently empirical program of historical inquiry, with theoretical ramifications that sociologists have only begun to explore" (906).

"It is clear that, at a minimum, AK [The Archaeology of Knowledge] is important as an explicit formulation of the approach to history of thought that Foucault developed in FD [Folie et Déraison], BC [The Birth of the Clinic], and OT [The Order of Things]. As we have seen, its methodology does not entirely accord with the practice of the preceding case studies; but it is a reconstruction faithful to the central features of that practice. Beyond this, although AK’s methodology is primarily oriented toward the description of discursive formations, the book does point—with many unclarities and hesitations—towards Foucault’s later efforts to come to terms with nondiscursive causal factors in the history of thought" (260).

"The Archaeology of Knowledge, which strikes me as [Foucault’s] least successful of book, does seem to be trying to sketch a ‘successor subject’ to epistemology. As far as I can see, however, Foucault never quite decides what that subject is. Thus he says he wants a ‘general theory of discontinuity,’ yet that very phrasing is prima facie self-contradictory" (43).

"As far as I can see, all he has to offer are brilliant redescriptions of the past, supplemented by helpful hints on how to avoid being trapped by old historiographical assumptions. These hints consist largely in saying: do not look for progress or meaning in history; do not see the history of a given activity, of any segment of culture, as the development of rationality or of freedom; do not use any philosophical vocabulary to characterize the essence of such activity or the goal it serves; do not assume that the way this activity is presently conducted gives any clue to the goals it served in the past. Such purely negative maxims neither spring from a theory nor constitute a method" (47).

Prepared by Kristine Bruss and Greg Schneider

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Last revised:  15 November 2003.