Weightman (1989) - On not understanding Foucault

 Problema de vaguezas nas definições

Misturar biologia, linguística e economia apaga as diferenças deles.

Não concorda com as divisões históricas.

Sobre os epistemes e arqueologia

We immediately come up against a methodological problem. If, as he declared at the outset, the order of the épistémè was, or is, muet (silent or unspoken) in each of the three or four periods, how can its nature be divined? The épistémès of the past must have disappeared without leaving any direct trace, because, if they did not rise to the surface of any individual consciousness, no one could voice them. The épistémè of the present must be similarly inaccessible to direct examination; to attempt to define it must be like trying to jump away from one's shadow. Granting, for the sake of argument, that the épistémès actually existed, their nature can only be inferred by means of extrapolatory guesswork based on such documentary evidence as is available, according to normal historical procedures. By likening himself to an archaeologist, Foucault is implying that he is able to interrogate some mute object, as the archaeologist does, for instance, when he digs up an uninscribed pot and tries to set it in its cultural context with the help of his knowledge and imagination. Foucault, however, like any historian, is re-interpreting what has already been formulated in language. It is true that he tends to forage in the byways of history to unearth lesser-known texts, while often ignoring major texts to which other people would pay attention, but this does not make him any more of an "archaeologist 388-9

Arqueologia seria apenas uma metafora para a pratica historiografica de Foucault.

Nunca houve um momento que as palavras e as coisas fossem indistingueveis. Assim como nunca houve um uso completamente racional da linguagem.

A dominancia de um tipo de pensamento não exclui a existencia de outros.