Michel Foucault's examination of the human sciences through his concept of the episteme provides profound insights into the frameworks that shape our understanding of knowledge and culture. The episteme, as Foucault describes it, is an underlying set of assumptions and structures that dictate what can be known within a particular era. By analyzing shifts in these epistemes, Foucault reveals how historical transformations have redefined humanity’s conception of knowledge, influencing the entire cultural landscape.

The Concept of Episteme

Central to Foucault’s analysis is the episteme, which comprises the fundamental assumptions, both explicit and implicit, that shape a culture’s "epistemological field"—the space within which all knowledge is organized. This notion is akin to anthropological studies of classification systems, exploring how cultures structure their experiences of the world. Foucault views his work as an "archaeology" of the human sciences, an analysis often reserved for studying "primitive" cultures but here applied to Western thought.

Foucault identifies two significant discontinuities in Western cultural epistemes: the first in the mid-seventeenth century, shifting from the Renaissance to "the Classical age," and the second at the beginning of the nineteenth century, marking "the modern age." These shifts, rather than representing a linear progression, signify changes in the fundamental ordering systems of knowledge.

The Classical Episteme: Order and Representation

The Order of Things, one of Foucault's seminal works, delves into the Classical age's episteme, characterized by meticulous measurement, comparison, and exhaustive ordering. Language during this period was not seen merely as a reflection of thought but as a linear sequence that represents the totality of mental images in a structured manner. The Port-Royal grammar, with its focus on conceiving, judging, and reasoning, exemplifies this approach to language.

In the Classical episteme, language, nature, and wealth were defined by representations: language as the representation of words, nature as the representation of beings, and wealth as the representation of needs. Yet, the individual who organized these representations had no designated place within this framework; humans served to clarify the world's order rather than being considered objects of knowledge themselves.

Diego Velazquez’s painting Las Meninas encapsulates these themes of representation. The painting illustrates the complexity of representation, showing how the artist, subject, and viewer are interconnected yet distinct. It embodies the paradox where the act of representing cannot be fully captured within the act itself.

Renaissance and Modern Epistemes

Before the Classical age, the Renaissance episteme was concerned with uncovering nature’s hidden secrets, where language was intrinsic to nature, not a separate system of signs. Words and things were viewed as a unified whole rather than distinct entities. This perspective shifted dramatically with the advent of the modern episteme at the end of the eighteenth century.

The modern episteme redefined language as an object of study in its own right, detached from the things it described and functioning as a system of formal elements. This marked a significant departure from previous epistemes, reflecting a broader shift in the understanding of knowledge where words and things were mediated separately.

Similitudes and the Structure of Knowledge

Resemblances, or similitudes, played a crucial role in structuring knowledge up until the late sixteenth century. Foucault identifies four types of similitudes: convenientia (spatial resemblances), aemulatio (interactions across distances without direct connection), analogy (combining convenientia and aemulatio), and sympathy (drawing entities together, counterbalanced by antipathy).

These resemblances formed a complex web of meanings, shaping the way in which Western culture understood the world. Each type of similitude contributed to an interconnected system, demonstrating the intricate nature of knowledge organization prior to the Classical and modern shifts.

The Modern Episteme and the Image of Man

The emergence of...