The Archaeology of Knowledge & The Discourse on Language (Paperback)

by Michel Foucault (Author) "The use of concepts of discontinuity, rupture, threshold, limit, series, and transformation present all historical analysis not only with questions of procedure, but with theoretical..." (more)
Key Phrases: enunciative analysis, enunciative field, enunciative regularities, General Grammar (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Review
A necessary guide to Foucaults often difficult ideas ... and to his overall historical ambition, which is to define the soil out of which contemporary events in a given period grow. - Times Literary Supplement

He is a brilliant writer. - Maurice Cranston

Next to Sartres - Search for a Method and in direct opposition to it, Foucaults work is the most noteworthy effort at a theory of history in the last 50 years.

Next to Sartre's Search for a Method and in direct opposition to it, Foucault's work is the most noteworthy effort at a theory of history in the last 50 years.
–Library Journal --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Description
"Next to Sartre's Search for a Method and in direct opposition to it, Foucault's work is the most noteworthy effort at a theory of history in the last 50 years." -- Library Journal --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 256 pages
• Publisher: Pantheon (September 12, 1982)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0394711068
• ISBN-13: 978-0394711065
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.5 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #49,876 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

80 of 102 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Fascinating failure, March 15, 2000

By A Customer

Let's be childish enough to use coarse categories: "Discipline&Punish" is Foucault's most beautiful book. "The Order of Things" is the most brilliant (that's why it made him a star). Let's also say "The History of Sexuality" is his most exciting book. Then "The Archaeology of Knowledge" is the most fascinating: it is Foucault's attempt to write a theory of what he is doing. And it is a brilliant failure: this is the only time that we see Foucault, the master of brilliant formulation, completely naked. It is endearing to watch how he is trying to write a piece of philosophical theory, while all his other books demonstrate how unnecessary such theory is.

This is no light reading and the English translation is barely comprehensible. I bet that there is a serious mistranslation on any given page. With good translations at hand, some notorious readers (Foucault lovers and Foucault enemies alike) might actually have understood what the words "discourse" and "dispositif" mean. Countless articles and books would not have been written. That's why a good German translation would have been even more desirable (the one in print is as miserable as the English one, same bet)...

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Obtuse but important, February 23, 2006

By	Rachel Bussan "R. Bussan" (Iowa City, IA USA) - See all my reviews

Foucault is not a light read - you will spend several hours just trying to interpret this text. His wording is unusual and complicated, and sentences can run on for almost a paragraph. Sometimes you'll just want to tear your hair out.

Nonetheless, this book is important. The theories Foucault presents in this book, while nearly impossible to cite correcly, do reappear in many modern texts, especially ones about modern literature or the academy. My suggestion is you read it with the assistence of others, preferably including someone with more academic experience (i.e. a professor.)

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Another (difficult) chapter in Foucault's oeuvre, October 4, 2003

By	Giovanni Mantilla (Bogota, Colombia) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

"Archaeology Of Knowledge" finds Foucault at his barest, trying to build up his own theory. Like others have said, it is fascinating to see how much he tries to encompass and how extremely difficult his own enterprise is. Foucault spends many pages trying to explain to us what he means by "discoursive formation", "object formation", "formation of concepts", etc., and the place where his own theory stands vis-à-vis a so-called "history of ideas". You can learn lots from this book, because, like myself, sometimes you get lost in Foucault's magistral writing, his fabulous way of weaving history and thus cannot clearly follow his own particular method of research. If you want to see some of his (earlier, almost stricly discourse-oriented) key concepts clarified, reading this book will prove very fruitful. As always, you're left with a lot of questions and with a distinctive feeling of "now what?". But then again, that's what's so utterly beautiful and engaging about Foucault... he forces you to think for yourself and provides you of the right tools to do it.
I read the spanish translation of this book so I can't comment on the english one, but the contents of this book are priceless.