The Function of Statement

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    Foucaults statement

    The following is an excerpt from my groups Wave about the Foucault reading for this week.

    It primarily deals with Foucaults discussion of the statement.

    This time well be discussing the statement so something in order to read that concept

    would work. It is interesting that Foucault doesnt give examples of his work. He leaves it

    pretty conceptual. That is, until later when he reads closely things like madness, prisons, and

    sexuality in light of the foundations hes established.

    Maybe this will help, though: it is not in itself a unit, but a function (87). AND its a

    function that reveals [structures and possible unities] (87).

    I cant help but think of a statement in a normal way that I would about somethign

    making a statement, or something saying something. Like Avatar making a statement

    about war. I feel like thats a rather over-simplified understanding of it but because

    Foucault does his best to NOT give us a clear understanding, I feel like thats what I am left

    with.

    The University of Phoenix instructs of faculty to use Emoticons. Perhaps this pertains to the

    statement in an interesting way. Emoticon as statement.

    So we have symbols that make up statements that then create discursive formations.

    Wikipedia is a discursive formation.

    And as I take it, we cant have statements without symbols. Because statements have to have

    a level of materiality to existwhether its oral, written, etc.

    Although, as far as I can tell, Foucault doesnt give examples of visually rhetorical

    statements they are primarily linguistic for him.

    Statements exist in a complex web with other statements and absolutely cannot stand by

    themselves in order to be a statement; their existence depends on the existence of the other

    statements with which they relate. Although this connection to other statements is

    distinguished from context.

    Also, a statement cannot be defined by a proposition or an author, but can contain both. I am

    not sure at this point if it can contain just one or the other, but I think so. Sometimes the

    creator of a statement is an actor or even a reader So an author, in its broadest sense, is

    very likely always there in some sense.

    This is all just background to get my head about it. I think statements in Wikipedia definitely

    qualify because a. Its a level of materiality 2. There are other statements to create a web of

    meaning 3. There are authors and propositions but they dont alone define the statements 4.

    There are rules with which the statements in Wikipedia must operate, or actually Wikipediawill throw them out or write a note that the sources arent adequatewhat else

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    One thing I was confused about is in the Enunciative Function chapter, Foucault discusses

    how statements cant exist alonelike I mentioned previouslybut how did statements ever

    even begin? I mean in terms of Wikipedia, that concept isnt hard to digest. Also, in relation

    to Wikipediamultiple authors/ enunciators / what have you can repeat the same statement,

    just a different occurrence of enunciation. Its like, someone goes into Wikipedia, gets some

    information/ meaning /group of statements, and passes that information on to a friend or a

    reportsame statement, different enunciation.

    Also, since Foucault says a statement is deeper, structurallythough not always meaningfully

    than some sort of psychological function (such as a speaker acting on a rhetorical situation, I

    guess, or a certain motive), it would make sense that Wikipedia is a collection of statements.

    At the root of Wikipedia is something much deeper than a rhetorical situationsome sort of

    more unmoving meaning to things. Fact, I guess, for lack of a better term. Would statements

    be that term I am looking for?

    Wikipedia is a classic example of social construction, so yes it is a much deeper rhetorical

    situation. Maybe that is where the enunciation comes into the discussion.

    Also, I like on page 104 where he uses the term agreed code when discussing statements. I

    feel like Wikipedia, in all its socially-constructed glory, centers around this agreed code or

    what is truth. I think that agreed code is what Foucault means are statementsmeanings that

    follow establish rules, codes, ideologies, etc. of other units of discourse, and form a complex

    web of meaningbut meaning nonetheless. Or perhaps that statements exist in relation to this

    agreed code, both abiding by it and creating it. For a discourse to exist, those involved must

    be talking about the same thing, by placing themselves at the same level or at the same

    distance, by deploying the same conceptual field (126).

    [Though, for all the social-constructioniness of Foucault, I can understand how one would

    read him as a structuralist, with Foucault saying things like: "there are not, in such cases, the

    same number of statements as there are languages used, but a single group of statements in

    different linguistic forms" (104). I don't think Foucault was really trying to be structuralistic

    there, as there is context to that sentence, but I can see one viewing that extracted statement as

    a logical unfolding of Foucaultian thought.]

    Another quote I like: a statement is too bound up with what surrounds it and supports it to be

    as free as a pure form (it is more than a law of construction governing a group of elements), it

    is endowed with a certain modifiable heaviness, a weight relative to the field in which it is

    placed, a constancy that allows various users, a temporal permanence that does not have the

    intertia of a mere trace or mark, and which does not sleep on its own past (105).

    I feel like this quote has social construction of truth written all over it. (No pun intended).

    First of all, a statement cannot ever be merely relative even though it can change itself to

    become a new, more meaningful statement. Or newly meaningful statementanywaya

    statement has temporal permanence. Semi-permanence in that it belongs to a field, is caught

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    up with other statements that are the basis for its definition, etc.but its only temporal

    permanence. Such as his example for what the theory of the Earth being round meant before

    they actually discovered ithow that statement changed because the field changed. In terms

    of Wikipedia, just think of all the statements that will change and become new statements

    over time. Because as he also says on page 105 as well"men produce, manipluate use,

    transform, exchange, combine, decompose and recompose, and possibly destory. Its not

    something said once and for all. And if there was any Truth with a capital T behind a

    statement, it would be once and for all, and have that finality. Which is so great about

    Wikipediatheres no finality at all. We can go in there and change any entry we want right

    now. I feel like it embodies a collection of statements in Foucaults terms even better than an

    old school encyclopedia.

    The discussion of Wikipedia is an interesting example because it exists at this intersection of

    some important Foucaultian concepts. On one hand, Wikipedia is an opening up of discourse

    affording individual voice that counters hegemonic institutional knowledge. Wikipedia isnot the same as Encyclopedia Britanica. Yet, it is bound by institutional practices even

    discipline. Foucault could almost have been defining Wikipedia on page 130, saying, the

    archive defines a particular level: that of a practice that causes a multiplicity of statements to

    emerge [...]; between tradition and oblivion, it reveals the rules of a practice that enables

    statements both to survive and to undergo regular modification. It is the general system of the

    formation and transformation of statements.

    And let us not forget that the word archive is etymylogically connected to the word, archon,

    which means ruler. Thus, our archives have attained a kind of rule over our ways of thinking.

    See my project concerning this issue at http://theyellowrobot.com/foucault.html.

    Lastly, we may consider how the statement, while interstingly explored through the constructs

    of Wikipedia, may exist without meaning, context, or referent at all. Foucault writes, Nor is

    it [the statement] superposable to the relation that may exist between a sentence and its

    meaning (90). Foucaults example of AZERT shows that there can be a statement that exists

    aside from traditionally held conceptualizations of reality or intended thought. So, while

    Wikipedia includes many, many carefully and socially constructed statements, there may be

    statements out there that lack many of the aspects that are necessary for the language to be

    used in a distinctly encyclopedic manner.

    The question is just how bare bones can a statement be? I tried to look for a statement this

    morning at 5:30 a.m. in the water droplets on my shower curtain, but couldnt find one there.

    But maybe someone else could haveMaybe this will help, though: it is not in itself a unit,

    but a function (87). AND its a function that reveals [structures and possible unities] (87). I

    cant help but think of a statement in a normal way that I would about somethign

    making a statement, or something saying something. Like Avatar making a statement

    about war. I feel like thats a rather over-simplified understanding of it but because

    Foucault does his best to NOT give us a clear understanding, I feel like thats what I am left

    with.The University of Phoenix instructs of faculty to use Emoticons. Perhaps this pertains tothe statement in an interesting way. Emoticon as statement.:)So we have symbols that make

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    up statements that then create discursive formations. Wikipedia is a discursive formation.And

    as I take it, we cant have statements without symbols. Because statements have to have a

    level of materiality to existwhether its oral, written, etc. Although, as far as I can tell,

    Foucault doesnt give examples of visually rhetorical statements they are primarily

    linguistic for him.Statements exist in a complex web with other statements and absolutely

    cannot stand by themselves in order to be a statement; their existence depends on the

    existence of the other statements with which they relate. Although this connection to other

    statements is distinguished from context.Also, a statement cannot be defined by a

    proposition or an author, but can contain both. I am not sure at this point if it can contain just

    one or the other, but I think so. Sometimes the creator of a statement is an actor or even a

    reader So an author, in its broadest sense, is very likely always there in some sense.This

    is all just background to get my head about it. I think statements in Wikipedia definitely

    qualify because a. Its a level of materiality 2. There are other sta tements to create a web of

    meaning 3. There are authors and propositions but they dont alone define the statements 4.

    There are rules with which the statements in Wikipedia must operate, or actually Wikipedia

    will throw them out or write a note that the sources arent adequatewhat elseOne thing I

    was confused about is in the Enunciative Function chapter, Foucault discusses how statements

    cant exist alonelike I mentioned previouslybut how did statements ever even begin? I

    mean in terms of Wikipedia, that concept isnt hard to digest. Also, in relation to Wikipedia

    multiple authors/ enunciators / what have you can repeat the same statement, just a different

    occurrence of enunciation. Its like, someone goes into Wikipedia, gets some information/

    meaning /group of statements, and passes that information on to a friend or a reportsame

    statement, different enunciation.Also, since Foucault says a statement is deeper, structurally

    though not always meaningfullythan some sort of psychological function (such as a speakeracting on a rhetorical situation, I guess, or a certain motive), it would make sense that

    Wikipedia is a collection of statements. At the root of Wikipedia is something much deeper

    than a rhetorical situationsome sort of more unmoving meaning to things. Fact, I guess, for

    lack of a better term. Would statements be that term I am looking for? Wikipedia is a classic

    example of social construction, so yes it is a much deeper rhetorical situation. Maybe that is

    where the enunciation comes into the discussion. Also, I like on page 104 where he uses the

    term agreed code when discussing statements. I feel like Wikipedia, in all its socially-

    constructed glory, centers around this agreed code or what is truth. I think that agreed

    code is what Foucault means are statementsmeanings that follow establish rules, codes,

    ideologies, etc. of other units of discourse, and form a complex web of meaningbut meaning

    nonetheless. Or perhaps that statements exist in relation to this agreed code, both abiding by it

    and creating it. For a discourse to exist, those involved must be talking about the same

    thing, by placing themselves at the same level or at the same distance, by deploying the

    same conceptual field (126).[Though, for all the social-constructioniness of Foucault, I can

    understand how one would read him as a structuralist, with Foucault saying things like: "there

    are not, in such cases, the same number of statements as there are languages used, but a single

    group of statements in different linguistic forms" (104). I don't think Foucault was really

    trying to be structuralistic there, as there is context to that sentence, but I can see one viewing

    that extracted statement as a logical unfolding of Foucaultian thought.]Another quote I like: astatement is too bound up with what surrounds it and supports it to be as free as a pure form

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    (it is more than a law of construction governing a group of elements), it is endowed with a

    certain modifiable heaviness, a weight relative to the field in which it is placed, a constancy

    that allows various users, a temporal permanence that does not have the intertia of a mere

    trace or mark, and which does not sleep on its own past (105).I feel like this quote has social

    construction of truth written all over it. (No pun intended). First of all, a statement cannot ever

    be merely relative even though it can change itself to become a new, more meaningful

    statement. Or newly meaningful statementanywaya statement has temporal permanence.

    Semi-permanence in that it belongs to a field, is caught up with other statements that are the

    basis for its definition, etc.but its only temporal permanence. Such as his example for

    what the theory of the Earth being round meant before they actually discovered ithow that

    statement changed because the field changed. In terms of Wikipedia, just think of all the

    statements that will change and become new statements over time. Because as he also says on

    page 105 as well"men produce, manipluate use, transform, exchange, combine, decompose

    and recompose, and possibly destory. Its not something said once and for all. And if there

    was any Truth with a capital T behind a statement, it would be once and for all, and have that

    finality. Which is so great about Wikipediatheres no finality at all. We can go in there and

    change any entry we want right now. I feel like it embodies a collection of statements in

    Foucaults terms even better than an old school encyclopedia.The discussion of Wikipedia is

    an interesting example because it exists at this intersection of some important Foucaultian

    concepts. On one hand, Wikipedia is an opening up of discourse affording individual voice

    that counters hegemonic institutional knowledge. Wikipedia is not the same as Encyclopedia

    Britanica. Yet, it is bound by institutional practices even discipline. Foucault could almost

    have been defining Wikipedia on page 130, saying, the archive defines a particular level: that

    of a practice that causes a multiplicity of statements to emerge [...]; between tradition andoblivion, it reveals the rules of a practice that enables statements both to survive and to

    undergo regular modification. It is the general system of the formation and transformation of

    statements. And let us not forget that the word archive is etymylogically connected to the

    word, archon, which means ruler. Thus, our archives have attained a kind of rule over our

    ways of thinking. See my project concerning this issue at

    http://theyellowrobot.com/foucault.html.Lastly, we may consider how the statement, while

    interstingly explored through the constructs of Wikipedia, may exist without meaning,

    context, or referent at all. Foucault writes, Nor is it [the statement] superposable to the

    relation that may exist between a sentence and its meaning (90). Foucaults example of

    AZERT shows that there can be a statement that exists aside from traditionally held

    conceptualizations of reality or intended thought. So, while Wikipedia includes many, many

    carefully and socially constructed statements, there may be statements out there that lack

    many of the aspects that are necessary for the language to be used in a distinctly encyclopedic

    manner.The question is just how bare bones can a statement be? I tried to look for a statement

    this morning at 5:30 a.m. in the water droplets on my shower curtain, but couldnt find one

    there. But maybe someone else could have>

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    statement - The statement is the basic unit of discourse, and therefore the basic unit analyzed

    in the archeological method. The statement has, however, no stable unit; depending on the

    conditions in which it emerges and exists within a field of discourse, and depending on scope

    of the 'field of use' in which it is to be analyzed, anything from a scientific chart to a sentence

    to a novel can be a statement. This makes the statement difficult to define in and of itself, and

    Foucault ends up defining it not in terms of a stable unit (like the sentence), but in terms of a

    specific field of function and a corresponding level of the analysis of signs. The enunciative

    function defines the level at which the statement operates; at issue is how a set of signs

    emerges and functions in relation to a field of other statements. The level of analysis by which

    we can describe the statement lies between the analysis of grammar and propositional content

    on the one hand, and the fact of pure materiality on the other; the analysis of statements works

    at the level of the active life of language as it functions in a discourse. This in-between status

    of the statement, in which it is neither just content nor just material, gives statements the

    definitive quality of 'material repeatability' (see below

    Notes on: Foucault M (1974) The Archaeology of Knowledge, London: Tavistock

    PublicationsLtd

    [My] Critical Introduction

    This book represents a different level of analysis for Foucault, away from the usual analyses

    of institutions and institutional ideologies, or networks of power, to look at the notion of

    discourse as constitutive of academic disciplines. I found many ambiguities in the

    discussion of the term 'discourse':

    1. He seems to refer to different levels of organisation -- there are discourses, discursive

    formations, positivities, epistemes and so on. From what I can see, positivities and epistemes

    are discourses in principle, so to speak, which affect concrete discourses.

    2. This produces an ambiguity over whether everything is 'discourse'-- Foucault seems to

    affirm it in part 2 but denies it in part 4, perhaps because he is using different notions of

    discourse.

    3. There are some weird oscillations in the argument, including lots of denial of causality,

    essentialism, philosophical anthropology and so on (especially in part II), but there is a sense

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    in which these banned notions return: Foucault needs causality to explain the specifics of why

    one discourse triumphs and not another; he needs subjects to do the practices which constitute

    discourses. There are some strange discussions here too of his own motives, interests, desires

    and so on, raising the spectre of the old combination of theoretical and political motives for all

    this, together with a personal desire to innovate.

    I'm not at all sure that it is all that original. I was constantly reminded of work like Kuhn's

    (which is certainly far more readable).

    Foucault seems to ignore or deny the specific effectivity of universities and pedagogies. They

    are mentioned once or twice as being important in the development of discourses, but this is

    never pursued. As a result this seems to be far too much emphasis placed on the activities of

    linguists or political economists or whatever to somehow dominate public thought. Many of

    his actual examples seem located in some pre-University 'classical' era?

    There are some lovely implication for the emergence of things like 'the perspectives' in

    sociology, though. These must now be seen as a construct, the result of a [pedagogical?]

    discourse.They do imply some underlying unifying concept as well. They clearly need

    deconstruction and then reconstruction -- as discourses that claim to cross gaps, or show

    relations of difference and so on?

    Part one

    We need to contrast the usual history of the emergence of academic disciplines in terms of

    some smooth development, involving underlying causals, and trends with those histories of

    epistemological ruptures and discontinuities in the work of people like Bachelard and

    Canguilhem [which is whereAlthusser got his idea of an epistemological break in Marx].Their history is not a simple one of increasing rationality of concepts, but one of different

    uses, rules of use, and contexts. There are plural networks of pasts, histories, and teleologies,

    which can be traced especially in various figures of breaks from ideologies to sciences. The

    problem really is to explain the continuity of terms such as concepts or theories.

    There is one underlying problem in both sorts of history -- what is a document? Is it a trace of

    a past trend, of 'unities, totalities, series, relations' (page 7)? Or a prompt for some collectively

    unconscious memory? History can now be seen as a way to link documents rather than relying

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    on such a memory, as an 'intrinsic description of the monument', as archaeology. This means

    that:

    1. It is much more open to different notions of series and so on, and suggested relationshipsbetween series; it becomes a history of strata, events. In the history of thought, this leads to an

    individualisation of series rather than some overall totality.

    2. Discontinuity is much more important and should become central to a deliberate method

    to avoid reductionism. Discontinuity should emerge as a result of a proper investigation, as a

    general problem which history should illustrate. Once seen as an obstacle, it now becomes a

    problem to be solved, or a definite working concept.

    3. There is no total history, no general underlying themes, no eras. We should now pursue a

    search for series and their possible interrelationships, which can be displayed as 'tables', with

    no central principles.

    4. We need new methodologies to manage documents. Should we take representative

    samples, or whole corpora? What level of analysis should be pursued, should it be

    quantitative or qualitative? What groupings should be studied, and what relations exist

    between them -- causal ones, functional ones or linguistic ones?

    This sort of challenge to orthodox history dates from Marx, but we are still waiting for an

    explicit theorising of discontinuity, for example in linguistics. Instead, we have long been

    afraid of discontinuity, of the Other (page 12). We have wanted to preserve history as the last

    refuge for the 'sovereignty of consciousness' (page 12): it guarantees the project of the

    subject, its ability to grasp the past so as to avoid alienation in the future. Marxist decentring

    has been fought off, often by referring to matters such as 'values' or 'civilisation', which areassumed to be continuous. Nietzsche's notion of genealogy has also been resisted, by

    insisting that rationality is a central principle [rather than some arbitrary starting point

    developed according to rather petty interests, which is roughly Nietzsche's

    position].Approaches such as those in structural psychoanalysis, linguistics, or ethnology

    which attempt to decentre the subject have been resisted by developing a notion of history as

    the 'hard work of freedom', as a matter of dynamism opposed to the stasis of structures (and

    this includes the development of a humanised marxism, page 13). The last refuge of the

    subject can now only be found in new 'myths, kinship systems, language, sexuality or desire'

    (page 14).

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    The project in this book is to do history without such anthropology, and also to systematise

    Foucault's earlier work [specifically Madness... , Birth..., and The Order of Things]. This is

    allegedly pursued bottom-up, rather than by importing a method, using Foucault's own

    historical accounts [in these books] as a basis, although they are still too general (Madness)

    or too structural (Birth). Criticism from his colleagues has made him aware of this, and so

    there is still a need to be cautious. However, he is still against those critical approaches which

    seemed designed 'to reduce others to silence' (page 17). Foucault admits that his style can be

    vexing for a reader [especially when he indulges in strange imaginary dialogues with the

    reader, as below], and he enters a short digression on the pleasures of writing:

    'I am no doubt not the only one who writes in order to have no face. Do not ask who I am and

    do not ask me to remain the same: leave it to our bureaucrats and our police to see that ourpapers are in order. At least spare us their morality when we write' (page 17).

    Part 2

    It is necessary to do some negative analysis first, to deconstruct older categories, including

    'book', 'oeuvres', genres and any [philosophical] anthropological categories. We are trying to

    get a set of discursive 'effective statements',which are not just linguistic units but discursive

    ones. Effective statements constitute a large but finite field, which replaces the idea of

    structural possibilities. The issue here is not one of trying to establish linguistic rules, but

    rather asking 'How is it that one statement appeared rather than another' (page 27). This

    should lead to a concrete, specific and descriptive rather than an allegorical analysis of things

    like films, theories or thoughts: allegorical analysis always looks for some other meaning in

    what is said, some latent discourse. There is a need to stress discontinuities,even though we

    admit the possibility of a return to more conventional unities at the end -- at least we will have

    denaturalised these unities, however.There are good empirical reasons for choosing the field

    of the human sciences which can be seen as 'groups of discourses', but only as initialapproximations.

    What of the conventional disciplines? These are seemingly based on identical objects of

    inquiry, such as madness, but does this mean that there is some common space within which

    objects are constituted? Such a notion would help us begin to grasp divisions, and dispersions

    of objects. A similar argument might be developed about the linguistic styles of discourses --

    they seem to have common vocabularies and descriptive statements, as in medicine. However,

    there is something deeper to be investigated, a system which generates such statements andrules of deployment, so that we can investigate how these discourses produce different

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    concrete and heterogeneous statements. We can investigate for example 'ways they interlock

    or exclude' each other,how they 'transform', and the 'play of their location, arrangements and

    replacement' (page 34).The aim is not to devise a scheme to integrate different concepts,but

    rather to 'analyse the interplay of their appearances and dispersion' (page 35), and the same

    goes for various organising themes [as in sociological perspectives?]. Again, there is constant

    doubt about these themes, such as the way they are articulated in different concepts (page 36),

    or the way that concepts are shared in discourses based on different themes.

    Discourses are specific because they're always 'points of choice', in terms of the different

    possibilities to animate themes, develop strategies, or play different games (page 37). In this

    way, differences and dispositions should not be seen as a problem but as the raw materials of

    analysis: they cannot be reduced or managed, and they should not be ignored in favour of

    generalisations from 'small islands of coherence' (page38).

    We should attempt to uncover 'discursive formations'-- systems of dispersion, regularities in

    choices -- rather than operate with categories such as science or ideology. We need to

    investigate their rules of formation, their conditions of existence. This is a speculative venture

    and it could lead either to the rediscovery of the older genres, or a blank, indifferent space'

    (page 39).

    How do the objects of the various sciences emerge? [the example here is psychopathology].

    This often happens against the context of other objects found in other disciplines, and

    involves processes working on those objects, such as transformation, resemblance, difference,

    proximity, negation and soon. Various [usually institutional] 'authorities' are able to delimit

    this activity, using various existing 'grids of specification' (page42)-- which may involve

    familiar categories such as the soul versus the body, individual histories, whole existing fields

    of causality and so on.There are also various specific connections, such as that between the

    law and psychiatry [concretised in the prison system]. If relations between these concepts

    overlap then a discursive formation can emerge. These are then underpinned by

    'institutions,economic and social processes, behavioural patterns, systems of norms,

    techniques, types of classification, and modes of characterisation' (page 45). Certain' primary

    relations' between institutions on their own may or may not make discourses possible:

    usually, secondary or reflexive relations are necessary too as well as disscursive relations in

    their own right.

    All this takes place before any naming, classification or explanation, and it clearly operates as

    a practice rather than just a linguistic activity. These practical processes provide the unity of a

    discipline. How it happens is the point of analysis, rather than political criticisms of some ofthe consequences, such as labelling certain people as mad.

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    We need to rescue the complexity and density of discursive objects, rather than trying to

    recapture 'things', which apparently exist prior to discourse, to examine discursive rather than

    linguistic rules, to write a 'history of discursive objects' (page 48). Discourses are positive

    practices rather than just connections between words and things. Discursive objects have their

    own rules of ordering, as 'practices that systematically form the objects of which they speak'

    (page 49).

    The example of clinical discourse makes this point. It consists of a complex relation of

    descriptions, accounts, explanations and reasonings which are linked in various ways:

    1. By the status of the doctor as a person legally entitled to use clinical languages. This is

    itself a complex matter, relating to other statuses, obligations, systems of qualification and so

    on which make it quite specific.

    2. In institutional sites for the doctor where clinical discourse is applied -- the hospital, the

    laboratory, the library, or a documented field, all of which are regulated, constraining or

    enabling in different ways.

    3. In various positions occupied by subjects, who have to learn, use instruments, and occupy

    a place in information networks. These positions are complex and can change or shift in

    status, according to their location in hospitals, laboratories, or books in the library. We see the

    emergence of whole 'modalities of enunciation' of the clinical discourse (page 53).

    Overall, the practice of clinical discourse fixes the relations between these elements. Suchrelations cannot be reduced to logical successions of types of diagnosis, for example, or to

    some general consciousness which progresses, or to a story of how actual doctors shifted from

    traditional to clinical modes.Modalities of enunciation disperse the subject (there is no unified

    medical gaze as in Birth...). Discourses are not simply the expressions of some subjective

    synthesis, but are better seen as spaces, or networks of sites and statuses.

    General preconceptual discursive rules produce specific concepts in a discourse. These may

    be localised into specific fields, such as linguistics, or economics, but they are interconnected,either at some higher levels or via a certain 'concomitance [the relations between, say,

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    linguistics and cosmology are connected in that they are both general scientific ways of

    thinking]. These rules generates a variety of sometimes conflicting concepts, hence the

    appearance of dispersion, since they are not strictly logical [a large number of details are

    offered on pages 56-60]. There are some general types of rules:

    1. Forms of succession, governing how implications are pursued, how descriptions are

    progressively specified, how various statements are combined for example in rhetorical

    schemata, or hypothetico-deductive mechanisms.

    2. Forms of co-existence which include boundaries around statements in a discourse's 'field

    of presence', and which leave some outside. There are also fields of concomitance, including

    analogical confirmations, general principles or models, and disciplines which act as higher

    authorities, such as mathematics. Finally, there is a field of memory, which consists of

    traditions to which one expresses relations of 'filiation, genesis, transformation and

    continuity' (page 58).

    3. Procedures of intervention, which regulates rewriting, transcribing or translating

    (including translating qualitative into quantitative terms). These can assist in refining

    statements, delimiting them, according to the validity of transference from one field to

    another. They permit systematising propositions.

    Some of these rules are explicit, some rhetorical, some internal and some relational in terms

    of other texts, but together they constitute a system to generate concepts and statements and to

    explain their dispersion in various actual theories, as actual discourses.

    Strategies also focus discourses, and this can explain how different discourses can appear

    from within the same discursive formations. Strategies consist of 'themes and theories' (page

    64) [they seem to function rather as do 'research programmes' for Lakatos]. Strategies

    crystallise out from a number of possibilities:

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    1. As the effects of certain 'discursive constellations' which provide models, general theories

    and so on [very close to Kuhn's notion of a paradigm here]. New constellations provide new

    possibilities for discursive formations to become autonomous from their existing

    constellations.

    2. From various kinds of social authority. There are social functions exercised by a strategy,

    including pedagogic practice [but only, apparently for those grammarians discussed on page

    68]. Discourses are appropriated by various social groups in the familiar way, but also form

    connections to 'possible positions of desire': they may become 'a place for phantasmic

    representations, an element of symbolization, a form of the forbidden, an instrument of

    derived satisfaction (page 68), not only for poetic discourses but also those referring to

    wealth, language, nature, life, and madness.

    Together, all these possibilities explain the formation of individualised discourses clustered

    around strategies. There is the usual need to remember the specificity of the level of

    discourses -- these are not merely ideologies, or even expressions, but have their own effects,

    of transformation, and linking, or enunciation [they seem to transcend individual ideologies,

    which appear here as rather vulgar variants?]. Strategies are just one interwoven element, but

    an important one to remind us that discourses are never 'pure' (page 70).

    It is difficult to trace all the factors that produce these unities, but the point here is to make the

    case for the unity of dispersed and concrete discourses.This case relies on a two-level

    analysis, operating at the level of the system first and then moving to actual discourses

    [sociology and politics can be used to explain the latter as a crystallisation of the former]. The

    lower levels are also effective in choosing concepts, though:the discursive level should not be

    seen as dominated by determinant from outside, and a discursive formation acts merely as a

    link between discrete series of discourses. This view opposes the usual forms of analysis

    which are typically one sided. The pre- systematic and the pre-discursive are still important'Discourse and system produce each other -- and conjointly-- only at the cost of this immense

    reserve' (page 76). The pre-discursive level is itself still discursive, however, not some more

    primitive underlying 'life' or 'being' --'One remains within the dimension of discourse' (page

    76). [This whole section seems to me to be in deep trouble. I'm not sure if this is

    sophistication or evasion of a well-known problem. Discursive analysis looks abstract and

    idealist, and Foucault tries to avoid this by introducing a major role for some materialist 'pre-

    discursive' level, and for practice and specific history -- yet these factors cannot be grasped

    except as discourses too!].

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    Part 3

    Let us return to the issue of statements rather than concepts as some kind of basic unit of

    analysis. These focus our attention on enunciative characteristics' (page 81) rather than

    some logical or linguistic structure.This helps us to analyse 'what occurred by the very fact

    that the statement was made in specific circumstances' (page 83).[A lengthy debate ensues

    examining the claims of rival linguistic units such as speech acts, propositions or sentences --

    pages 82-84]. Statement should be seen as signs that make sense, as functions such as the

    enunciative function:

    1. Which is apparently not reducible to mere linguistic qualities, not just a matterof the

    relations between signifiers and signified, or proposition and referent. [There is a great dealof dense reasoning here, and swathes of typically philosophicalargument, often ultimately

    appealing to common sense. I may not have understood a word of it]. Social contexts are

    crucial. Enunciation does not just depend on meanings derived from linguistic rules or logical

    truths, but refer to much broader 'referentials', such as 'laws of possibility' (page 91). The

    relation between an enunciative statement and its referential is not logical or empirical either,

    but should be seen as an internal relation between the statement and its 'spaces of

    differentiation' (page 92) [I don't know what this means].

    2. It also has a special relation with its [human] subject : statements do not simply convey

    the privileged meanings of their author. For example there might be some special,

    anonymous, all-seeing subject uttering statements, as in the narrator of a [realist] novel. The

    subject becomes a function rather than a concrete individual, although sometimes this

    function is so specific that there can only be one [bearer], such as the author of a scientific

    innovation. Compare this level of specificity with the anonymous empty function of the

    addressee in the simple maths text (page 94).

    3. The relation of the statement to its domain is a necessary one, moving beyond the

    functions of isolated sentences. We should not just see this as a matter of some determining

    context, since this relation makes a context possible, by operating in fictional or scientific

    domains, for example (page 98).There is an 'associated field', provided by other elements,

    such as those provided in a conversation or a demonstration, a number of quite implicit

    references, a set of implications which follow, and a set of statements to which this one

    belongs (marking it as literature or science and so on).These statements emerge from whole

    metacontexts, or 'enuciative fields' (page 99) This field, and the enunciative function itself, is

    therefore prior to the formation of actual sentences or propositions, and thus also prior to

    structural or logical analysis.

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    4. Analysis must be material, since the form that a statement takes, whether written or

    spoken, for example, has a material effect and an historical location . Such statements are

    constitutive, and should not be seen simply as a variation from some imaginary pure sentence.

    They exhibit both specific and universal qualities, as can be seen from difficulties that arise in

    use, for example when a statement is repeated. Their material existence in institutions produce

    definite possibilities of reinscription and transcription, but also constraints (page 103)

    [Overall then, we seem to have some strong arguments to distinguish Foucault's formulation

    from his rivals and to maintain his peculiar definitions and so on. He claims that this will

    enable us to examine matters such as circulation, use, disappearance, recognition, andvarious tactical appropriations' of such statements (page 105). As an example of his

    appalling style,with which I have struggled manfully, try the following:

    'Should we say similarly that the statement refers to nothing of the proposition, to which it

    owe sits existence, has no referent? Rather the reverse. We should say not that the absence of

    a referent brings with it the absence of a correlate for the statement but that it is the correlate

    of the statement -- that to which it refers, not only what is said, but also what it speaks of, its

    "theme" -- which makes it possible to say whether or not the proposition has a referent: it

    alone decides this in a definitive way' (pages 89-90).

    Aren't you glad I'm here? You thought my stuff was bullshit?]

    So we need to examine operational fields rather than any kind of 'atom'.Foucault admits that

    his use of the term discourse has been ambiguous up to now, referring to a group of verbal

    performances, and acts of formulation,and a collection of statements. We can make use of

    these three definitions as stages to explain both continuity and dispersion, and we should end

    up with the final definition of discourse as 'the group of statements that belong to a single

    system of formation' (page 107), hence clinical discourses, economic discourses and so on.

    The point is that relations are always implied in a discourse, relations to objects, via the offer

    of a number of subject positions to other elements in a field, and to material institutions.This

    solves some problems but it is now not so easy to isolate statements which do not functionlike sentences.

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    Foucault is keen to deny that he wants to reveal hidden meanings behind discourses, and says

    he wants to perform an historical analysis of emergence. One way to begin this is to see

    discourses as polysemic where some possible meanings have been repressed but there are

    other analyses too, and this one operates at a secondary level (page 110). Repression of this

    kind still depends on enunciation in the first place -- first you have to describe the enunciative

    field itself, and only then can you go on to analyse the suspicious lack of alternatives found in

    concrete discourses. A preliminary investigation is required of statements before utterances

    are actually 'solidified'. Some description of an enunciative field is always implied in specific

    analyses of works and texts. Analysis of sentences is only possible after sentences have

    emerged in the domain of enunciation: sentences do not emerge directly from some 'primeval

    night of silence' (page 112), and they all contain residual elements from this domain. This

    transcendental level cannot itself be reduced to some simple source by materialist or humanist

    analysis.

    How does all this relate to the earlier work? Foucault undertook his archaeology in order to

    try and regularise his insights and proceed 'without flaw, without contradiction, without

    internal arbitrariness' (page 114) [ a typically scholastic agenda]. The point was only to

    establish a possibility, and not to found a full theory. The point was to see how statements

    were linked in a discourse, not sentences with linguistic rules, nor propositions with logical

    ones, nor formulations with psychological rules (page 115). So what were the rules are to

    describe various relations, like those between subject positions and domains? How were theyinstitutionalised and actually used?

    The search for rules led him to the notion of a discursive formation .There seemed to be 4

    aspects of such a formation -- the formation of objects, concepts, subject positions and

    strategic choices. These correspond to the 4 domains of the enunciative function outlined

    above. Together they provide a number of possibilities to explain both continuity and

    dispersions, at both the general and individual level.

    Another definition of discourse follows: 'a group of statements in so far as they belong to a

    discursive formation', and this is contrasted to some ideal form that mutates over time.

    Discursive practice now becomes a body of rules for the operation of the specific enunciative

    function (page 117).

    The result is a triumph for his analysis of 'concentric circles', going out to discourse and in to

    statements. There are clear dangers of tautology, though.

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    Discourses refer both to some totality, some 'great, uniform text' expressed in lots of specific

    ones (including institutions), and to open possibilities of plural meanings, since 'each

    discourse has the power to say... other than what it actually says' (page 118). The real interest

    lies in how particular enunciations arise:

    1. There is a law of rarity' (page 118), which yields a 'distribution of gaps, voids leads,

    absences are, limits, divisions' (page 119).This does not depend on some hidden process of

    repression, however, there is no depth mechanism: we are describing a process of localisation.

    Rare statements are reworked, duplicated, extended, translated, and commented upon, and

    then those products themselves generate new meanings. There is an inherent political strugglehere, since statements are seen as assets to be struggled over. This is in stark contrast to the

    idea that there is an infinite wealth of meaning available in cultural traditions, as in

    hermeneutics.

    2. There is systematic exteriority, in contrast to the usual view of interpretation which tries

    to move from external traces to internal meanings. This involves a view of the 'practical

    domain' as autonomous rather than as a trace, as a configuration of anonymous fields rather

    than as the acts of the subject. There is no cogito, no speaking subject, and no collective

    consciousness behind the 'totality of things said' (122).

    3. Accumulation of statements takes place not in a memory or in some primary collection of

    documents, both of which imply some notion of origin, but as the results of the history of how

    the statements were established, used, forgotten or destroyed, and how they have accumulated

    through specific forms and processes: subjective memory and the repression of it 'are merely

    unique figures' in this history (124)

    So we must avoid any simple notions of a return to origins, and deny any teleology.Instead,

    we must establish a 'positivity'.[Foucault flirts with this term here, saying he will accept he is

    a positivist if that means abandoning the transcendental level of analysis -- page 125].

    This is a descriptive task, focusing on concrete unities rather than underlying truths, operating

    somewhere between a science and an oeuvre. This leads to a necessary 'historical a priori'

    (127), as a 'condition of reality for statements' (128) [I think this means that we are going to

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    privilege history, albeit specific histories, when we try to explain the generation of

    statements]. Discourses can relate to this condition of reality in different ways, and we need to

    tell the story of 'points of contact, places of insertion, irruption or emergence, domains or

    occasions of operation' (128). These events are not just contingent connections. Systems of

    statements,in all their dispersion, produce archives, and these in turn produce regularities.

    Archives offer a 'law of what can be said' (129). They provide rules to group statements,

    systems to enable enunciation and preserve the differences between discourses which make

    them specific. Archives operate between some general system of language and the concrete

    corpus of actual works, and guide the practice that generates, forms and transforms

    statements. [We are talking about a kind of virtual archive here, not an actual collection of

    documents]. An archive can never be fully described, and it appears only in fragmentary form.

    It has a real effect, though, in limiting our activities and our analyses. The archive alludes to

    discontinuity and difference rather than underlying unity [because it is a mere collection of

    approaches?]. Thus difference is at the centre of reason, history, and ourselves. Archaeology

    is therefore the correct process to use, instead of some search for an origin. Archaeology is 'a

    description that questions the already-said at the level of its existence: of the enunciative

    function, of the discursive formation, and the general archive system to which it belongs.

    Archaeology describes discourses as practices specified in the elements of the archive' (131).

    Part 4

    What can archaeology actually offer [Foucault offers some delightfully modest self doubt on

    pages 135-7]. It needs to separate itself from the history of ideas. This is far too sloppy,

    concerning itself with 'shapeless works' and 'unrelated themes'. Archaeology tries to show

    how the disciplines emerge, how their boundaries are constituted, and how concepts diffuse. It

    is also interested in 'interdiscursive configurations' too, which are usually called

    epistemological generalities.

    Foucault admits that his own earlier work is limited. For example, he decided deliberately notto explore concepts such as zeitgeist [spirit of the age] or weltanschauung [collective world

    view], but admits that he did so on principle, rather than following an investigation. He denies

    that his concepts here are claiming some privilege, and insists that they represent only one

    possibility [so they are arbitrary?] (159). He asks his readers to undertake 'the test of

    analysis' [some naive pragmatism?].

    Archaeology is 'not a science, a rationality a mentality a culture' [with 'a' emphasised each

    time] (159). It offers a comparative analysis designed to show diversity [But why is diversity

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    so important?].'What archaeology wishes to uncover is primarily... the play of analogies and

    differences' (160), to show:

    1. Archaeological isomorphisms [things of similar shape] between different discursive

    elements at the level of rules.

    2. How these rules operate to produce different formations

    3. How different concepts are endowed with significance and shaped by archives,and occupy

    similar positions (161)

    4. How a single notion can cover two archaeologically distinct elements [to expose hidden

    contradictions?]

    5. How 'relations of subordination or complementarity... [are] established' (161) The issue

    is to find what makes these possible rather than how they have actually occurred [somestrange notion of practice without a subject?]

    6. How configurations of interpositivity' form, which is a fancy way of referring to the law

    of communication between discourses.

    Exploring relations between discourses and formations, and non-discursive domains [But

    isn't everything discourse?] leads to an interest in 'institutions, political events, economic

    practices and processes' (162). This should be descriptive rather than an attempt to interpret

    or describe causality: 'symbolic analysis', or 'causal analysis' of things like medical discourse

    offers merely a series of readings. Foucault wants something more fundamental, how

    political or economic factors 'take part in the conditions of emergence, insertion and

    functioning' of a discourse (163). How might they delimit objects? For example, political

    developments led to new issues for medicine, such as the need to control conscript armies.

    Another issue concerns how the status of the doctor emerged, and what functions were

    ascribed to medical discourses in the managements of various conflicts among the

    professionals.It is not a matter of how politics influences medical concepts or theoretical

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    structures, but more to do with how 'medical discourse as a practice... [was]...articulated on to

    practices that are external to it, and which are not themselves of a discursive order' (164).

    [OK,but this seems like a very abstract and scholastic project to me, despite all the emphasis

    on practice. The projec tof showing how politics influences medical concepts seems far more

    interesting and relevant!]

    Does archaeology freeze history? Foucault denies the relevance of simple chronologies,but

    not the effects of time. He does describe articulations over time, such as how things become

    operationalised in to statements, or how the mobility of discourses takes place, but these are

    not just driven by events: on thecontrary, the relation to events varies according to particular

    discourses at work (168).. There is a sense of succession or development,but this is not

    always chronological. Time is never a simple determinant, according to some 'original

    calendar', usually based on linear speech and the stream of consciousness. There is a need to

    undo simple histories and expose all the glosses which cover over differences. There are

    different types of differences anyway, such as primary ones, localised versus general,or

    transforming.

    Foucault wants to deny that transformations are authored or caused, both of which reduce

    specificity by deploying some single notion such as the'living force of change'.

    Transformations can be uneven, are seldom revolutionary and complete, and these

    continuities are also of interest [which denies the notion of a simple tradition]. The idea of an

    'active continuousness' (174) is used to deny a view of history as a series of eras or

    watersheds. Discourses vary in their reactions to temporality [which leads to an interesting

    aside on the epistemological break in marxism. Foucault says there are different notions of

    epistemological breaks as well, and different effects -- compare the one inaugurated when

    Marx broke with Ricardo to the one identified by Althusser between the early and late works

    of Marx].

    Archaeology seems to apply to Foucault's own limited examples, but what of any wider

    implications? What about natural science? Archaeology is not about specific disciplines as

    such, but about positivities, and discursive formations are not the same as established

    disciplines either. Discursive formations are larger and more general than individual

    disciplines, and can be shared between them, as is psychiatry and law in Madness...

    Discursive practices also preceded disciplines, and are manifested in other sites as well.

    However positivities sometimes do turn into sciences, and discursive practices sometimes do

    act as proto-disciplines.

    Positivities are not forms of knowledge nor just a collection of acceptable knowledges, but arethe effects of discursive rules. They are not necessarily sciences. Rules are not just prototypes

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    or some archaic stage of a discipline. They are best thought of as knowledge itself ['in

    general', one might think?], produced by a disciplinary practice, a space for subject positions,

    a field of co-ordination and subordination of statements in which concepts appear' (182), a

    set of relations of use and appropriation [Do you find any of these stylish but flatulent

    metaphors of any use?]. These practices, spaces, fields or sets can be independent of specific

    sciences, but not of discourse.

    It might be possible to see sciences as a selection from knowledge, operating with rather

    stricter criteria? Archaeology explores territories beyond scientific domains, such as those

    shared by literature and philosophy. So how does science emerge?

    1. It is a selection from knowledge, a local region in knowledge. Its boundaries vary as an

    effective discursive formations. The function of science is the important issue rather than the

    science/ideology issue [which Althusser had made central]. Turning to that [rather hastily I

    thought], science and ideology share features as discursive practices. Thereis no sharp

    distinction between them, but the level of discursive formation is decisive. Whether one uses

    causal explanations is irrelevant, and it is not just a matter of rigour. [Having disposed of

    that], the ideological role of science is established by looking at 'the system of formation of its

    objects, its types of enunciation, its concepts, its theoretical choices' (186). [So a great deal of

    wriggling must take place here. Both science and ideology are discourses, but we do not wantto let anyone say that therefore they are of equal value -- we have not yet got to post-

    modernism. So we assert some differences, and claim they are important. But this is really

    very near the end of the book, and we have not mentioned these crucial differences before but

    have stayed at a very general and abstract level indeed. By the time we have got to these

    crucial specific differences, we have done enough theorising, and there is time and space

    enough only to jot down a few remarks].

    2. Discursive forms emerge first as positivities [practices become autonomous andsystematised first?]. Then there is a stage on the 'threshold of epistemologisation', when

    norms are clarified and begin to function as a model. Then formal criteria and logical

    explicitness develop,on the 'threshold of scientificity'. Further definitions of axioms,

    propositions,and rules of transformation leave us on the threshold of 'formalisation' (187).The

    way these develop and interlock can vary: there are no neat periodisations,and stages 1 and 2

    can be mixed, for example. Mathematics seems to have crossed all the thresholds at once,

    which is why it is often taken as a model for the development of a discipline.

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    3. So distinct histories are possible. There can be a history of formalisation, and one of

    scientificity. [Bachelard and Canguilhem are much admired here]. Such histories are often

    situated within science itself, and thus tend to be saturated with terms like truth and error,

    rational and non rational. A history can stop at the stage of epistemologisation -- not all

    discursive formations lead to sciences.

    4. Analysing the dynamics within discursive formations and positivities leads to an analysis

    of the episteme itself, the relations that unite... the discursive practices that give rise to

    epistemological figures, sciences and... formalised systems' (191). These affect the different

    thresholds and the paths between them. An episteme is more than a form of knowledge or

    type of rationality, but is best seen as an 'indefinite field of relations', including relations with

    other fields. This varies over time. It gives the right to be a science, not as a one-off gift, but

    as an historical practice again.

    Is archaeology right to focus on this episteme? Other kindsof archaeology are possible: do we

    need, say, an archaeology of sexuality which would involve not only the science of sexuality,

    but also a field of possible enunciations in its own right? Should we not be oriented to ethical

    rather than epistemic issues? What about political knowledge? Foucault says that he is

    interested in the emergence of sciences in particular for several reasons -- because they are

    emerging strongly these days, because it is an important political task to criticise science, butprincipally because they demonstrate best the points about positivity.

    Conclusion

    This offers one of those dialogues, in which Foucault replies to some imaginary questions:

    Do we need, concepts rather than structuralist analysis? Surely concepts like langue and

    parole would deal with the issue of how specific discourses arise? Discourses seem to be very

    context bound: surely they express the relations between real successive events?

    Analysing discourses reveal their identity and diversity, and there are a number of ways to

    grasp them, as well as using structural and interpretative approaches. The intention here is to

    reveal [micropolitical] possibilities.

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    Surely we cannot do without teleology and subjectivity as unifying themes? Some discourses,

    such as structuralism,are already capable of generalising about other discourses. Surely

    current theoretical practice is immune from charges of historical specificity?

    Some sort of break from ideology into science seems to be promised here,with an implicit

    view that new forms of reason are transcendental. I aimed to analyse the past to exhibit

    irreducible discontinuity and dispersion,the impossibility of transcendentalism. Attempts to

    deny this application to the present stem from a desire to defend the consciousness of the

    subject,and there are elements of special pleading [a number of attacks against his

    Archaeology are summarised, page 204], and a hint that this debate is all about boundary

    maintenance.

    What legitimates Foucault's discourse? Is he offering a naively positivist description? Is it all

    subjective? 'Either [your discourse] does not reach us, or we claim it' (page 205). Is it history

    or philosophy?

    There is no attempt to find some hidden law in discourses. There is a genuine attempt to

    describe dispersion and decentring, to make differences, constitute new theoretical objects.

    This is neither history nor philosophy.

    It is not science either! The claims made are still in their infancy. The project tends to define

    what it is not, always postponing systematisation,always claiming to be a new research

    programme. Isn't it likely to die with its author?

    This project is a survey of concrete research rather than a scientific plan, although it is related

    to science [via the reconstruction of the sciences it analyses?] It is scientific in that it is

    interested in performance [politics?] rather than mere linguistic competence. Sciences areseen as possibilities within this overall archaeology, 'correlative spaces' (page 207), although

    we might find a general theory of productions eventually. The project aims to occupy a

    specific domain, which could be unstable: the problems could be better grasped by some other

    discipline; it could be a false start; it could die with the author.

    While arguing that all other discourses are constrained, are you not claiming a revolutionary

    freedom for yourself?

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    Positivities should not be seen as closed forms of determination. Instead they constitute a

    field, a set of rules, relations or supports. They describe pragmatics rather than logics.

    Discourses should be seen as practices rathert han just linguistic expressions. Discourses can

    change, but not only via subjects.Notions like evolution or essentialism deny the impact of

    political changes,and see discourses as transparent bearers of subjective meanings.This is a

    pleasurable view, and we like to think of ourselves as subjects.It is irritating to have to

    deconstruct instead. It is also nice to want to banish death via discourse (page 210) -- if there

    is no interior,is everything else indifferent? There is no real response to this except

    sympathy!