THE ORDER OF THINGS

When one defines order as a sorting of priorities it becomes beautifully clear as to what Foucault is doing here. With virtuoso showmanship he weaves an intensely complex history of thought. He dips into literature art economics and even biology in The Order of Things/ possibly one of the most significant yet most overlooked works of the twentieth century. Eclipsed by his later work on power and discourse nonetheless it was The Order of Things/ that established Foucaults reputation as an intellectual giant. Pirouetting around the outer edge of language Foucault unsettles the surface of literary writing. In describing the limitations of our usual taxonomies he opens the door onto a whole new system of thought one ripe with what he calls exotic charm. Intellectual pyrotechnics from the master of critical thinking this book is crucial reading for those who wish to gain insight into that odd beast called Postmodernism and a must for any fan of Foucault.Publishers Note Forward to the English Edition PrefacePart I:1.Las Meninas2.The Prose of the World: I The Four Similitudes II Signatures III The Limits of the World IV the Writing of Things V The Being of Language 3.Representing: I Don Quixote II Order III The Representation of the Sign IV Duplicated Representation V The Imagination of Resemblance VI Mathesis and Taxinoma4. Speaking: I Criticism and Commentary II General Grammar III The Theory of the Verb IV Articulation V Designation VI Derivation VII The Quadrilateral Language5. Classifying: I What the Historians say II Natural History III Structure IV Character V Continuity and Catastrophe VI Monsters and Fossils VII The Discourse of Nature6. Exchanging: I The Analysis of wealth II Money and Prices III Mercantilism IV The Pledge and the Price V The Creation of Value VI Utility VII General Table VIII Desire and RepresentationPart 27. The Limits of Representation: I The Age of History II The Measure of Labour III The Organic Structure of Beings IV Word Inflection V Ideology and Criticism VI Objective Synthesis8. Labour life Language: I The New Empiricities II Ricardo III Cuvier IV Bopp V Language Became Object9. Man and His Doubles: I The return of Language II The Place of the King III The Analytic of Finitude IV The Empirical and the Transcendental V The Cogito and the Unthought VI The Retreat and the Return of the Origin VII Discourse and Mans Being VIII The Anthropological Sleep10. The Human Sciences: I The Three Faces of Knowledge II The Form of the Human Sciences III The Three Models IV History V Psychoanalysis and Ethnology VI In ConclusionSTRONGMichel Foucault (192684)./STRONG Celebrated French thinker and activist who challenged peoples assumptions about care of the mentally ill gay rights prisons the police and welfare.