Sunny's Reviews > The Order of Things: An Archaeology of the Human Sciences

i have to admit that i foudn this really really complicated in most parts but the parts that i managed to understand were very very impressive. i love books that glide my thinking into areas ive never ventured before and parts this does book does this. there are three big areas Foucault covers intermittently throughout the book: life, language and wealth/money/labour. the book talks about history, episteme, epistemology, time inter alia. there is a beautiful chapter right at the start which analyses a Velasquezs painting and no matter who i show that picture they dont seem to understand (neither did i) what the painting is trying to depict. the book also talks a great deal of the classic period juxtaposed against where were are today and the "end of man" or the last man as fukuyama calls it. there is also an amazing chapter on the art of speaking which is of course linked to language and how that differs from thought. ultimatly the book is based aroudn a thory of representation adn language is a prime example of the representation which we are subsumed within. on this foucault writes: if, fundamentally, the funciton of language, that is, to raise up a represenntation or to point it out, as though with a finger, then it is indication and not judgement." certainly worth a read overall but a bit too intellecctual for me.