Foucault: Philosophy in an Hour

A particular episteme is bound to give rise to a particular form of knowledge. Foucault called the latter a discourse, by which he meant the accumulation of concepts, practices, statements, and beliefs that were produced by a particular episteme.

The set of assumptions, prejudices, and mind-sets that structured and limited the thought of any particular age was referred to by Foucault as an episteme.

When he talks of ‘archaeology’ he means the unearthing of the hidden structure of knowledge that pertains to a particular historical period.

The emergence of any knowledge system is always linked with a shift in power.

In all this process Foucault saw a mirror of authoritarian bourgeois society.

Indicatively, Foucault noted, Descartes’s thoroughgoing doubt did not go so far as to question his own sanity.

Descartes famously used reason to doubt everything, so that he could arrive at some bedrock of truth.

The wise fool was an ironic reflection of the folly of society.

Must we not hate ourselves if we are to love ourselves…. I am your labyrinth.

Wittgenstein had insisted there was no longer any such thing as philosophy – just philosophising. Most major philosophical questions were the result of linguistic errors. Untangle the mistake, and the question simply disappeared. And any remaining questions were simply unanswerable (or, more correctly, unaskable).