Dear Iara and colleagues,
I've read both Les Mots et les Choses and L'Archéologie du Savoir, but this links between "episteme", "discoursive formation", "historical a priori" and the "archive" stills as a big problem.
At my studies, I've prefered to get out of this discussion, cause for me it was enough to know that Foucault develloped the archaeological method in an almost structuralist way (like Dreyfus & Rabinow said in their famous book), and all those conceptualization was a form to escape from an essencialist definition of discourse. I'm really interested in his works after 1970, so MC and AS are importants to me as historical references of Foucault's genealogy development.
As well, I suggest you a book that will surely help about this questions: "L'ontologie manquée de Michel Foucault", of Béatrice Han (I hope that exists an English traduction). Her first two chapters are very very good and can give you a nice contribution. Han tries to show that all those misterious concepts were created to help Foucault to escape from the "transcendental", but the effect is a great misunderstanding and a lack of philosophical and onthological support. If you want, I can send some copies by mail.
Fraternally, João
> Iara and Machiel,
>
> I'll try to justify my point of view.
> As before, it's an essay not a conclusive thought.
>
> (A) First,
> "il (l'a priori) se d?finit comme l'ensemble de r?gles qui
> caract?risent une pratique discursive: or ces r?gles ne s'imposent
> pas de l'ext?rieur aux ?l?ments qu'elles mettent en relation; elles
> sont engag?es dans cela m?me qu'elles relient..."
> AK, chap. III, sc. 5, p.168
> It was in this sense I ment the historical a priori is internal to discourse.
>
> (B) Second,
> "L'archive, c'est d'abord la loi de ce que peut ?tre dit... c'est
> aussi ce qui fait que toutes ces choses dites ne s'amassent pas
> ind?finiment dans une multitude amorphe..."
> AK, chap. III, sc. 5, p.170
> It seems to me that the archive implicates the principles of rarefaction
> and accumulationof statements described in section 4, p.155 and p.161
> respectively. And, as I understand it, the archive seems to be related to this
> "manque"...
> "... un manque, qui au lieu d'?tre int?rieur serait corr?latif ? ce
> champ (?nonciatif) et aurait un r?le dans la d?termination de son
> existence m?me... des exclusions, des limites ou des lacunes..."
> AK,chap. III, sc. 3, p.145
> And also the archive seems to be related to non-discursive domains:
> "L'arch?ologie fait aussi apara?tre des rapports entre les formations
> discursives et des domaines non discursifs (institutions, ?v?nements
> politiques, pratiques et processus ?conomiques)."
> AK, chap. IV, sc. 4, p.212
> It was in this sense I ment the archive is exterior to discourse.
> But I'm not sure we can agglomerate all this figures in the archive...
>
> For the examples (AK, p.205-6):
> "Les mots et les choses" is basicaly a work on the historical a priori.
> Comparaison between discursives formations.
> "L'histoire de la folie" perhaps illustrates what is these extra-discursives
> relations of a discursive formation.
>
> Leon Farhi Neto
>
>
> Iara Onate {PG} escreveu:
>
> Dear Leon and Marcio,
> I am studying The Order of Things and The Archaeology of Knowledge and, as you
> can imagine, have many doubts. I did find very clarifying your messages about
> the historical a priori and the archive.Leon said that the historical a priori
> is internal to a group of discursive formations, while the archive is
> external. Could you perhaps give examples of each of them in The Order of
> Things? And how would you understand when Foucault says that archaeology
> describes discourses as practices specified in the element of archive?
> Foucault does indeed say that: archive comprises a set of relations that are
> peculiar to the discursive level, so it seems to me this would mean it is
> internal. He even stated that archive are not institutions, for example. I
> could not find it in AK (I will keep trying), but I have a note that Foucault
> states that the archive is a historical a priori. Could you please help me?
> Thank you very much in advance for it.
> Best,
> Iara
>
>
>
>
I've read both Les Mots et les Choses and L'Archéologie du Savoir, but this links between "episteme", "discoursive formation", "historical a priori" and the "archive" stills as a big problem.
At my studies, I've prefered to get out of this discussion, cause for me it was enough to know that Foucault develloped the archaeological method in an almost structuralist way (like Dreyfus & Rabinow said in their famous book), and all those conceptualization was a form to escape from an essencialist definition of discourse. I'm really interested in his works after 1970, so MC and AS are importants to me as historical references of Foucault's genealogy development.
As well, I suggest you a book that will surely help about this questions: "L'ontologie manquée de Michel Foucault", of Béatrice Han (I hope that exists an English traduction). Her first two chapters are very very good and can give you a nice contribution. Han tries to show that all those misterious concepts were created to help Foucault to escape from the "transcendental", but the effect is a great misunderstanding and a lack of philosophical and onthological support. If you want, I can send some copies by mail.
Fraternally, João
> Iara and Machiel,
>
> I'll try to justify my point of view.
> As before, it's an essay not a conclusive thought.
>
> (A) First,
> "il (l'a priori) se d?finit comme l'ensemble de r?gles qui
> caract?risent une pratique discursive: or ces r?gles ne s'imposent
> pas de l'ext?rieur aux ?l?ments qu'elles mettent en relation; elles
> sont engag?es dans cela m?me qu'elles relient..."
> AK, chap. III, sc. 5, p.168
> It was in this sense I ment the historical a priori is internal to discourse.
>
> (B) Second,
> "L'archive, c'est d'abord la loi de ce que peut ?tre dit... c'est
> aussi ce qui fait que toutes ces choses dites ne s'amassent pas
> ind?finiment dans une multitude amorphe..."
> AK, chap. III, sc. 5, p.170
> It seems to me that the archive implicates the principles of rarefaction
> and accumulationof statements described in section 4, p.155 and p.161
> respectively. And, as I understand it, the archive seems to be related to this
> "manque"...
> "... un manque, qui au lieu d'?tre int?rieur serait corr?latif ? ce
> champ (?nonciatif) et aurait un r?le dans la d?termination de son
> existence m?me... des exclusions, des limites ou des lacunes..."
> AK,chap. III, sc. 3, p.145
> And also the archive seems to be related to non-discursive domains:
> "L'arch?ologie fait aussi apara?tre des rapports entre les formations
> discursives et des domaines non discursifs (institutions, ?v?nements
> politiques, pratiques et processus ?conomiques)."
> AK, chap. IV, sc. 4, p.212
> It was in this sense I ment the archive is exterior to discourse.
> But I'm not sure we can agglomerate all this figures in the archive...
>
> For the examples (AK, p.205-6):
> "Les mots et les choses" is basicaly a work on the historical a priori.
> Comparaison between discursives formations.
> "L'histoire de la folie" perhaps illustrates what is these extra-discursives
> relations of a discursive formation.
>
> Leon Farhi Neto
>
>
> Iara Onate {PG} escreveu:
>
> Dear Leon and Marcio,
> I am studying The Order of Things and The Archaeology of Knowledge and, as you
> can imagine, have many doubts. I did find very clarifying your messages about
> the historical a priori and the archive.Leon said that the historical a priori
> is internal to a group of discursive formations, while the archive is
> external. Could you perhaps give examples of each of them in The Order of
> Things? And how would you understand when Foucault says that archaeology
> describes discourses as practices specified in the element of archive?
> Foucault does indeed say that: archive comprises a set of relations that are
> peculiar to the discursive level, so it seems to me this would mean it is
> internal. He even stated that archive are not institutions, for example. I
> could not find it in AK (I will keep trying), but I have a note that Foucault
> states that the archive is a historical a priori. Could you please help me?
> Thank you very much in advance for it.
> Best,
> Iara
>
>
>
>