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The Order of Things, an Archaeology of the Human Sciences by Michel FoucaultReview by: John Hartwell MooreScience & Society, Vol. 35, No. 4 (Winter, 1971), pp. 490-494Published by: Guilford PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/40401605 .

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BOOK REVIEWSThe Order fThings, nArchaeologyftheHumanSciences,yMichelFoucault.NewYork:Pantheon ooks RandomHouse),1970. 10.00.Pp. xxiv,387.To understandhe ignificancefthis ontributiono thehistoryfphi-losophy,t is first ecessaryo strip waytheheavy ayers fparochialpretension hich ncumberM. Foucault'svolumefrombeginningoend.The mostgeneral ncumbrances the llusion hat hewritingsfa fewprominent estern uropean ntellectualsan be accuratelye-scribed s "thehistoryfthought"p.50)-as if slamic nd ndie cholar-shipwere nimportant,nd as ifunwrittenhilosophiesad nohistory.Even moreparochials M. Foucault's nsistencen findingrench n-tecedentsorBritishdeas,forexample: Adam Smithdid not,there-fore,nventabour s an economiconcept,ince t can be foundnCan-tillon, uesnay,ndCondillac . ." (p.222)Another istractiono be overcomes Foucault's ecurringersonifi-cation nd reificationf abstractions,hich s serious s a literaryf-fectation utdisastrouss a metaphysicalosition.n this tyle fdis-course, isembodiedhilosophicdeas are seen to be flittingboutEu-rope, nfluencingcholarly enand tryingo make ense f themselvesand each other. or example,n speaking f the breakdownfClassi-cal thoughtt the end of the 18thcentury,e says:"How is it thatthoughtetachestself rom hesquares t inhabited efore-in eneralgrammar,atural istory,ealth- ndallowswhat ess han wenty earsbefore ad beenposited nd affirmedn the uminous paceofunder-standingotoppledown ntoerror,ntotherealm ffantasy,ntonon-knowledge?. . Onlythoughteapprehendingtself t the root of itsownhistoryouldprovide foundation,ntirelyree fdoubt, orwhatthesolitaryruth f thiseventwas in itself (pp. 217-18).Foucault'sstyleor is it his philosophy?)lso allowshimto speakof living en-turies,s in thefollowingassage: Histories f deasorofthesciences. . . credit heseventeenthentury,nd especiallyheeighteenth,itha newcuriosity:hecuriosityhatcausedthem,fnot to discoverhe

490

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BOOK REVIEWS 491sciences flife, t least togivethem hithertonsuspectedcopeandprecision"p. 125).ButFoucault's randiose erspectivelso gives he book tsgreatestsuccess.His abstractivebilities ave enabledhimto distinguishhreegreatperiodsn recent uropean cholarshipnd to characterizehemveryncisivelyccordingo their ominantntellectualmodes.Usingwhathe callsan "archaeological" ethod, oucault laims ohavedetectedtwogreat iscontinuitiesn theepistemef Westernul-ture:thefirstnauguratesheClassical ge (roughly alf-wayhroughtheseventeenthentury)nd thesecond, t thebeginningf thenine-teenthentury, arks hebeginningf the modern ge" (p. xxii).He characterizesreexistingenaissancehoughtn terms f fourexplicit nd prominentsimilitudes"convenientia,emulatio,nalogy,andsympathies)hich ermeatedhewritingsfParacelsus, orta, rol-lius and others.He characterizesenaissancehoughts beingpreoc-cupiedwith searchfor"signatures,"ubtleovert xpressionsf theunderlyingnity fnaturalphenomena,ncludingman. He thencon-trasts enaissancehoughtwiththeClassicismwhich ucceededt, asfollows: ... in theClassical ge,tomakeuseofsignss not, s it wasin precedingenturies,oattemptorediscovereneath hem heprimi-tive ext fa discourseustained,ndretained,orever;t is an attempttodiscoverhe rbitraryanguage hatwillauthorizehedeploymentfnaturewithints pace, hefinal ermsf tsanalysisnd the awsof tscomposition"p. 62).Within heClassicalperiod, oucault onfinesisattentiono threesetsofproblemsddressedyCondillac,Bestutt e Tracy,Port-Royal,Linnaeus, ournefort,cipion eGrammont,elon,Cantillon,ndoth-ers.Theseare1) the tudy f anguage, ) theanalysisfwealthbeforeit became political conomy"),nd3) natural istorybeforetbecamebiology).He assertshatthe Classical pproach o eachof these hreeproto-disciplinesasessentiallyhe ame nd he elaborateshis pinioninthe wohundred ageswhich ompriseheheart fthebook.At easttwoof his generalizationsboutClassicalthoughtre worth uotinghere:"All wealth s coinable;and it is by thatmeansthat t entersinto circulation-n the sameway thatany naturalbeingwas char-acterizable,ndcouldtherebyindtsplace n a taxonomy;hat ny n-dividualwasnameable nd couldfind tsplace in an articulatedan-gague;that ny representationassignifiablend couldfind tsplace,in order obe known,n a systemf dentitiesnd differences"p. 175).and elsewhere: ... we know all there s to be knownabout Classicalknowledge f we understand hat it is rationalistic, hat,since Galileo

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492 SCIENCE AND SOCIETYand Descartes, t has accorded an absoluteprivilege o Mechanism, hatit presupposes generalordering f nature,thatit acceptsthe possibil-ityof an analysis ufficientlyadical to discover lements r origins, utthat t alreadyhas a presentiment,eyondand despiteall theseconceptsofunderstanding,f themovement f life,of thedensity fhistory,ndof disorder, o difficulto master, n nature" (p. 303).When Foucault comes to characterize he modernperiod,however,and to contrast t with the Classical period,he focuseson the mostim-portant ssue in the book: the necessity orthe inventionof an anthro-pology. t is thisthesiswhich has drawnso much attention o Foucaultin America,beginning n 1966 when this book was firstpublished inFrenchas Les mots et les choses.

By "anthropology/' oucault does not mean the academic disciplineby thatname,but ratherphilosophicreflection n "man's veryessence(his finitude, is relationwithtime,the imminence f death)" (p. 225),particularly s these questions have arisen within philology,politicaleconomy, nd biology.He sees a philosophical mperative peratingatthe Classical-Modernmarginbecause "It is probably mpossibleto giveempiricalcontents rancendental alue, or to displace them in the di-rectionof a constituentubjectivity, ithoutgivingrise,at least silently,to an anthropology.." (p. 248). Foucault challengesas myththe as-sertion hat thestudyofman is "the oldestinvestigationince Socrates"and instead maintains that anthropology is probablyno more than akind of rift n the orderof things."Foucault predicts, nd seems to hope for, hedemiseof anthropologi-cal speculationand the reestablishment f Discourse as a central con-cern,based on "a pure theory f language" (p. 38). Beforewritingoffanthropologys merely temporaryolutionto a philosophicdilemma,however,t is certainlywise to examine Foucault'smethodology, hich,according o himand despite ll appearances, s "noi structuralnalysis."Whatever abel one chooses to apply to Foucault's work, t is clearthat, ike otherstructuralistsnd particularlyike Claude Levi-Strauss,Foucault uses a verydistinctivemethodology.He proceeds initiallybyextracting rom largebodyof data thoseelementswhichserveto sup-port a particularcharacterizationf that data. Justas Levi-Strauss e-lectssomemyths nd ignoresothers n establishing symbolic tructureformythic hemes, oucault quotes and paraphrasesonly a fewwritersfromeach of his periods,and emphasizes only certain aspects of thework of each author. There are no methodological afeguards gainstbiasingthe sample (such as, in thiscase, an exhaustive tudyof all theworksof one author or all thewritings f a particulardecade) and so,

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BOOK REVIEWS 493unlessweare as familiar ith hebreadthf dataas theparticulartruc-turalist,emust ccept isword hat body fdata canbecharacterizedin a particular ay.The nextmethodologicaltepof structuralisms to find n unsus-pected nomalyn the ntersticesfthedata as characterized.or Fou-cault, heanomalys anthropology,heexistencef which s takenforgranted; orLevi-Strauss,t is thingsike the direction f Asdiwal'smythicravelsr anaperturenBoror ut rrangement.ypically,truc-turalistshen xplain he nomalysa symptomf ome ultural ilemmawhichwasunknown o the creatorsf theanomaly. he taskof thestructuralist,hen,s toexplain ndetail henature fthedilemmandtoshowhowthe pparentnomalys infact necessaryart f thetotalstructure.But t is the haracterizationtself hich reateshe nomaly,o thatthefunctionalxplanationf theanomalys merelyhereassertionfrealor natural tructuren a foundationhatwascanted r arbitraryfromts nception.he transcendental-empiricalilemmaertainlyxistsin Foucault'smind, nd forhim, nthropologicalssertionsndeed endto"displaceempiricalontents]n thedirectionf a constituentubjec-tivity."ut whether whole enerationfWesternntellectualsimilarlyfelt hepresencef thisdilemma,nd whetherhey, oweverubcon-sciously,imilarlyostulatedn anthropologyo solve hedilemma-hatis quiteanotheruestion.It is perfectlyossible o relate hehistoryfFrenchntellectualismwithoutharacterizingheperiods s Foucaultdoesand thereforeith-outfinding transcendental-empiricalilemmawhichmustbe resolvedby inventingnthropology.ne approachwouldbe to examinetheconnectionsetween renchphilosophynd thegeneral ocio-culturalmilieu.EvenFoucault dmits hat hePhysiocratsere ssociated iththe andowners hiletheutilitariansepresented erchantsnd entre-preneurs.uthe specificallyschewsuchan approach, alling t "theprovincefa doxology":Butthoughmembershipfa socialgroup analways xplainwhy uch ndsuch personhose nesystemfthoughtratherhan nother,heconditionsnabling hat ystemo be thoughtnever esidesn the xistencefthegroup" p. 200)And sowe arebackto suchquestionss the"autonomyfthought"andhypothesizedlawsofthedevelopmentfthought."amconvinced,aftereadinghis ook, hatFoucault elieves hat thoughtxists,"hathebelieveshought peratesuperorganicallynd supermaterially.ithhim, t is not usta matterfstyle utofepistemology.yowncon-victionsre quitedifferentrom his,however,nd I am sure thata

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494 SCIENCE AND SOCIETYcompetentdoxology"ouldeffectivelylluminatemany fthequestionsraised yMichelFoucault.New YorkUniversityWashingtonquare,New York

JOHN HARTWELL MOORE

TheCrisis fRussian opulism,yRichardWortman. ewYork:Cam-bridge niversityress Americanranch),1967. 6.50.Pp. xii,211.The Familyn SovietRussia,byH. KentGeiger. ambridge: arvardUniversityress, 968. 11.95.Pp. xii,381.The Great riendship:ovietHistoriansn theNon-Russian ational-ities, yLowellTillett.ChapelHill: UniversityfNorthCarolinaPress, 969. 12.50.Pp. x,468.The RootsofRussianCommunism,yDavid Lane. New York:Humani-tiesPress, 969. 11.50.Pp. xv,240.The FirstCongressfthe Toilersof the Far East.London:Hammer-smith ooks, 970. 5s.Pp.242.Despitetheir aunted laims o objectivitynd freedomrom oliticalpressure, ostAmerican istoriansoea careful oliticaline.Threeofthevolumes nder onsideration,ublishedntheU.S.,have ome chol-arlymerit,ut their official"onclusionsften ontradictheir ontent.RichardWortman'she Crisis fRussian opulisms a worthytudy fthreenon-politicalarodniks-he reformer-agronomistngeFgartndthe novelists spenskiind Zlatovratskii.The choiceof thisunlikelythreesomemacks f wrarmed-overraduatechoolpapers.)His analysisissensitivendsubtle, ut lsosubjectivendsociologicallyimplistic.efollows issubjects' sychologicaleregrinations,hich un thegamutofpopulistttitudes,howingowthey ried oreconcile heir opesforRussia's uture ith heirwarenessfRussia'spresentthe 1860s-70s)Theirsympathyor hepeasantsnd their ttemptsograpplewith heimportancef theobshchinaventuallyed to guiltfeelings there-pentantnobleman-ngeFgart) disillusionmentUspenskii)or reac-tionaryomanticismZlatovratskii)For thosewhoenjoyreliving heagonizingntrospectionsftheRussian ntelligentsiahisbook s recom-mended.t is alsoa valuable ntidote o thepopular iews fPopulismas a nihilistic-anarchistcovementf terrorists.or myown part,wishthat omeonewouldtry o develop typologyf narodnichestvo.Forstarters,necouldconsult hecategoriesf socialismutlinedn the

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