For me, the most important feature of the prefaces is F.'s gesturing towards
his subject matter.
It is to discover (which first requires the 'risk' of assuming its
existence) the system of the history of non-formal knowledge. He (the text)
is quite clear that he (it) is attempting to delineate the systems of
regularities which govern the formation and operation of discursive
practices. These sets of discursive practices, unities, are what constitute
periodicities - i.e. ages, periods, epistemes.
Make no mistake - at this point (in this book) F. is an avowed systematiser.
He is attempting to locate the regularities that direct or (in)form
specific, different discourses. He is reducing the many to a one.This is a
lot of sympathy here with Deleuze and Guattari's 'abstract machine'; one
might even say there is a regularity governing them both.
The system of regularity governing a discourse is invisible. We see what we
see indubitably and naturally. The ordering principles which are prior to
our vision (in fact, any form of cognition), and which make our world
coherent, are not disclosed along with the cognition itself. Hence F,'s
striking question at xix: "What is this coherence - which, as is immediately
apparant (sic), is neither determined by an a priori and necessary
concatenation, nor is imposed on us by immediately perceptible contents?"
(The former intended to show the inadequacy of any strictly Kantian account;
and the second the failure of all purely phenomenological accounts).
I stop here.
Brendan
------------------
his subject matter.
It is to discover (which first requires the 'risk' of assuming its
existence) the system of the history of non-formal knowledge. He (the text)
is quite clear that he (it) is attempting to delineate the systems of
regularities which govern the formation and operation of discursive
practices. These sets of discursive practices, unities, are what constitute
periodicities - i.e. ages, periods, epistemes.
Make no mistake - at this point (in this book) F. is an avowed systematiser.
He is attempting to locate the regularities that direct or (in)form
specific, different discourses. He is reducing the many to a one.This is a
lot of sympathy here with Deleuze and Guattari's 'abstract machine'; one
might even say there is a regularity governing them both.
The system of regularity governing a discourse is invisible. We see what we
see indubitably and naturally. The ordering principles which are prior to
our vision (in fact, any form of cognition), and which make our world
coherent, are not disclosed along with the cognition itself. Hence F,'s
striking question at xix: "What is this coherence - which, as is immediately
apparant (sic), is neither determined by an a priori and necessary
concatenation, nor is imposed on us by immediately perceptible contents?"
(The former intended to show the inadequacy of any strictly Kantian account;
and the second the failure of all purely phenomenological accounts).
I stop here.
Brendan
------------------