The composition of history: A critical point of view of michel foucault's archaeology

Abstract

In "The Composition of History: a Critical Point of View of Michel Foucault's Archaeology" Javier Gálvez discusses a very specific aspect within the work of Foucault: the role of the philosophies of history in the composition of historical discourse. The philosophies of history of pre-revolutionary Europe were able to show a discursive continuity that does not tally with the discontinuities that are sought in Foucault’s archaeological and genealogical project. The question that is asked following the analyses of these discourses does not fully escape from the analyses of the knowledge-power apparatuses: how is it possible that the practical-political nature of the philosophy of history discourses has remained effectively silenced in political practice? After elucidating a barely bounded concept of “history” in Foucault from the discontinuities of the epistemological fields of “Order” and “History,” the indecision of this rupture in philosophical-historical discourse will be shown, taking Turgot and Vico as examples.