Summary

Michel Foucault's "The Order of Things" embarks on an ambitious project to excavate the archaeological strata of Western thought, revealing the underlying systems of knowledge that have shaped our understanding of the world. Foucault challenges conventional notions of intellectual history, arguing that each epoch possesses a unique "episteme"—an unconscious framework of thought that governs what can be known and how it can be known.

The book begins with an analysis of "Las Meninas" by Velázquez, using the painting as a metaphor for the complex interplay of gazes and representations that define the Classical episteme. Foucault then delves into the Renaissance period, exploring how resemblance and similitude were central to knowledge, influencing interpretation, symbolism, and representation. He examines the four similitudes of convenientia, aemulatio, analogy, and sympathy, illustrating how they structured the world's perceived order.

Transitioning into the Classical Age, Foucault argues that resemblance lost its epistemic authority, replaced by an emphasis on order, measurement, and analysis. He discusses the rise of "mathesis" as a universal science of order and measurement, influencing the development of general grammar, natural history, and the analysis of wealth. Foucault examines how language, once seen as intertwined with the world, became a tool for representing thought, leading to the development of taxonomy and the concept of the "tableau" as a means of organizing knowledge.

Foucault identifies a significant rupture in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, marking the beginning of the modern age. This shift involves the decline of the theory of representation and the emergence of "man" as both the subject and object of knowledge. He explores how the human sciences—biology, economics, and philology—arose from this new configuration, each with its own specific object and method. The analysis of labor, life and language became central to the 19th-century thought.

The book investigates the limits of representation, tracing the emergence of the modern episteme. Foucault explores how language, no longer a transparent medium, becomes an object of study in itself, leading to the birth of literature. He examines the role of the unthought, the unconscious, and the interplay of forces in shaping human knowledge. The work culminates with a reflection on the end of man, questioning the future of thought and the possibility of a new episteme beyond the confines of our current understanding.