The Order of Things, An Archeology of the Human Sciences
Interpreting the experiences and activities related with human beings, is the study of human sciences. It enlightens us regarding our knowledge of existence. The author of this book, Michel Foucault, a French philosopher, writes about the very epistemological and archeological knowledge regarding the existence. As Foucault mentions in the preface this book rises from the very thought regarding the distinction between the ‘same’ and the ‘other’. We as humans have enabled our thoughts to put entities in this world into lists, and group them according to similarities and differences. We can always find a ground on which we can juxtapose entities. It is interesting to note how Foucault addresses the point of making connections between absurd and unusual entities by just using the literal meanings of words. Using the example of Borges’ passage he intrigues our knowledge of how we create relationships between entities not just by proximity but by the ground on which proximity is possible.
To further the discussion of relationships, Foucault addresses the area of representation, resemblance and similitude. He terms representation as a form of repetition. He explains how resemblance constructs our knowledge. We have used symbols, to make possible the knowledge of things, used interpretation to claim existence. Foucault explains the determination of the knowledge of resemblance by the four ways of its articulation: convenientia, where resemblance is based on the proximity of two entities, aemulatio, where one exists just like the other but as a projection or a reflection, analogy, a superimposition of both convenientia and aemulatio, as it is a subtle resemblance of relations, and sympathies, as a way to transform and alter but in the direction of identity.
In the classifying part of the book Foucault explains that we see and observe what is around us to make believe of the existence of entities. And because we observe and accept the existence, it is but normal that, we seek to understand the more complex realm of living beings. He believes that history and historians gave us the curiosity to think about life and its scope. History is complex but it allows our existence to emerge. It places identities and differences in succession and is based on the empirical.
This book is an interesting read, that triggers in the mind of the reader an intriguing thought about existence and usual taxonomies. The above written text is just a small part of the whole book; the book, through which Foucault aims to unearth the origin of the science related with the existence of humans along with the different ways of representing, classifying, imagining, deriving, relating and a lot more. Relating the book to the time of the seventeenth century, Foucault has reached back to shine light on the historic knowledge systems, that have linked the entities on this world together to coexist and have paved the way to the modern sciences.
The Order of Things, An Archeology of the Human Sciences, F.Michel, Vintage Books Edition, USA, 1994.