Foucault - The Order Of Things

T he Order of Things
‘The Order of Things sold out within a month after it first
appeared – or so goes the advertising legend. The work numbers among those outward signs of culture the trained eye
should find on prominent display in every private library. Have
you read it? One’s social and intellectual standing depends on
the response . . . Foucault is brilliant (a little too brilliant). Hiswriting sparkles with incisive formulations. He is amusing.
Stimulating. Dazzling. His erudition confounds us; his skill
compels assent; his art seduces.’
Michel de Certeau
‘Foucault’s most important work.’
Hayden V. White
‘One is left with a sense of real and original force.’
George Steiner
‘The Order of Things s tudies the ways in which people accept
the taxonomies of an epoch withoutquestioning their arbitrariness . . . Even scholars who are in a position to scold Foucault
. . . admit his brilliant ingenuity and scholarly resource.’
Frank Kermode
‘In The Order of Things, Foucault investigates the modern
forms of knowledge (or epistemes) that establish for the
sciences their unsurpassable horizons of basic concepts.’
Jürgen Habermas

Velasquez: Las Meninas, reproducedby courtesy of the Museo del Prado.

Michel

Foucault
The Order of Things
An archaeology of the human sciences

London and New York

Les mots et les choses first published 1966
by Editions Gallimard, Paris
English edition first published in the United Kingdom 1970
by Tavistock Publications
First published by Routledge 1989
First published in Routledge Classics 2002
by Routledge11 New Fetter Lane, London EC4P 4EE
29 West 35th Street, New York, NY 10001
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group
This edition published in the Taylor and Francis e-Library, 2005.
“To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge’s
collection of thousands of eBooks please go to www.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk.”
© 1966 Editions Gallimard
English translation© 1970 Tavistock/Routledge
Foreword to the English edition © 1970 Michel Foucault
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted
or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic,
mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter
invented, including photocopying and recording, or in
any information storage or retrieval system, without
permission in writing from thepublishers.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN 0-203-99664-X Master e-book ISBN

ISBN 0–415–26736–6 (hbk)
ISBN 0–415–26737–4 (pbk)

C ONTENTS

Publisher’s Note
Foreword to the English Edition
Preface

viii
ix
xvi

PART I
1
2

Las Meninas
The Prose of the World
I The Four Similitudes
IISignatures
III The Limits of the World
IV The Writing of Things
V The Being of Language

3
19
19
28
33
38
46

3

Representing
I Don Quixote
II Order
III The Representation of the Sign
IV Duplicated Representation
V The Imagination of Resemblance
VI Mathesis and ‘Taxinomia’

51
51
55
64
70
74
79

vi

contents

4

Speaking
I Criticism and Commentary
II GeneralGrammar
III The Theory of the Verb
IV Articulation
V Designation
VI Derivation
VII The Quadrilateral of Language

86
86
90
101
106
114
121
127

5

Classifying
I What the Historians Say
II Natural History
III Structure
IV Character
V Continuity and Catastrophe
VI Monsters and Fossils
VII The Discourse of Nature

136
136
139
144
150
158
164
171

6

ExchangingI The Analysis of Wealth
II Money and Prices
III Mercantilism
IV The Pledge and the Price
V The Creation of Value
VI Utility
VII General Table
VIII Desire and Representation

180
180
183
189
196
206
213
218
226

PART II
7

The Limits of Representation
I The Age of History
II The Measure of Labour
III The Organic Structure of Beings
IV Word Inflection
V Ideology and...