The Order of Things: An Archaeology of the Human Sciences

Chapter 9: “Man and His Doubles” explores the dualities of the modern episteme. Foucault traces this duality back to a “hiatus” or suspension of connection between representation and knowledge in the 19th century. The connection was not done away with entirely, but placed in the unconscious—a new invention of the 19th century. The chapter is split into eight parts.

In part one (“The Return of Language”), Foucault explores how language became mysterious again, as it was in the 16th century. This is a “return” because Foucault classifies language as a dead thing in the Classical Age, due to its sanitized use in taxonomy and mathesis. The focus on the active subject made language an inherently transcendental and subjective thing in the 19th century. Foucault believes the return of language is best exemplified by the work of Friedrich Nietzsche, a German philosopher. Nietzsche’s nihilism and idea of the superhuman made language an act of pure projection of will. Foucault classifies Nietzsche as a philologist as a result.

In part two (“The Place of the King”), Foucault returns to Las Meninas and its missing king. For the Classical Age, the loss of the subject within the painting is not necessarily a loss. Humans were conceptualized as observers that are outside of nature and looking into it. By removing the sovereign from the painting yet painting from his point of view, Velázquez puts the viewer in the removed role of the sovereign human. The 19th century, however, made human nature an object dependent on nature—humans became just another part of nature to study, no different than any other animal.

In part three (“The Analytic of Finitude”), Foucault examines the repercussions of “The Place of the King.” Humans are now “enslaved sovereigns” (340) that are simultaneously part of nature and able to observe/know it. The 19th century focuses on the “analytic of finitude” when looking at humans and human knowledge. The analytic stresses the finite, limited, and bounded in lifespans, bodies, and brain capacity of humans as just another animal. The analytic of finitude defines the outer limits of knowledge regarding life, labor, and language previously discussed.

In part four (“The Empirical and the Transcendental”), Foucault explores the analytic of finitude through philosophy. Humans as both (limited) observers and objects to understand makes them into a “strange empirico-transcendental doublet” (347). This leads to the analysis of the previous “illusions” of history that humans as fallible creatures have fallen victim to (348). Human history becomes an arc towards progress in the 19th century’s episteme because of the self-reflexive study of humanity.

In part five (“The Cogito and the Unthought”), Foucault explores the “unthought,” which makes the study of humans possible in the 19th century. The idea that humans were fallible in their self-understanding meant that there had to be an unknown and closed-off section of true knowledge within people. This became the “unthought” or the unconscious, where the true desires and feelings of people were thought to lurk.

In part six (“The Retreat and Return of the Origin”), Foucault examines History’s relation with the concept of origins. Foucault compares the modern idea of an origin to the tip of a cone, which flares out to be much wider in the present day than the point of origin. Humans, which are now objects of the world and have their own history, are bound up in the History of the world, meaning that the origin of humans was no longer the origin of all of History. This was a profound break with the biblical basis for humanity that was the foundation for the Renaissance and Classical epistemes.

In part seven (“Discourse and Man’s Being”), Foucault compares the four concepts discussed so far to the quadrilateral of language. The analytic of finitude is now the proposition. The empirico-transcendental doublet is articulation. The unthought is designation. Finally, the point of human origin is derivation. Because the origin cannot be found, all knowledge of humans is kept in suspension and must constantly re-evaluate itself. This differs from previous epistemes where knowledge on humans was stable. Now, the idea of what it means to be a human is unstable.

In part eight (“The Anthropological Sleep”), Foucault examines anthropology, a 19th-century science. Anthropology, for Foucault, is an empirical synthesis of human nature. It is an attempt by an empirical object to understand itself. Foucault believes that anthropology, the study of humans, is the core of modern thought. Without the ability to conceptualize ourselves as objects of study, the 19th-century episteme would not have existed.