Michel Foucault, answered from the texts and cited to the page.
Archaeology is a discourse about discourses — but one that refuses two temptations that have governed nearly all such enterprises before it.1 The first temptation is to look beneath discourses for a hidden law, a concealed origin waiting to be freed. The second is to erect, from its own starting-point, a general theory of which all particular discourses would be concrete instances.
Archaeology does neither. Its task is to make differences: to constitute them as objects, to analyse them, to define their concept.2 Not recollection, not the recovery of an original truth — diagnosis.2 What this means in practice is that archaeology takes discursive formations as its domain — not the sciences as such, but the broader field of knowledge within which sciences are epistemologized.3
The distinction matters. Archaeology is not confined to scientific discourse; it describes the very different domain of knowledge, and the orientation toward the épistèmé has been only a preferential point of attack, not an obligatory one.3 What it tries to establish are rules of formation: the conditions under which statements are realized, the modes of succession and coexistence of concepts, the positions of the subject that statements involve — all of this outside any reference to a psychological or constituent subjectivity.4
In its relations to other disciplines, archaeology occupies a specific but unstable position. It touches psychoanalysis when it maps the positions of the subject in statements; it touches epistemology when it traces rules of concept-formation; it touches the analysis of social formations when it studies the conditions of appropriation of discourses.4
These are correlative spaces, not foundations. And if a general theory of productions ever becomes possible, archaeology — as the analysis of rules proper to different discursive practices — will find in that theory what might be called its enveloping framework.5 I will not pretend the status of this enterprise is settled. Whether archaeology constitutes an individualizable discipline or merely names a set of problems coherent for the moment, I am in no position to decide — and probably it is not up to me to decide.6
It may turn out to be nothing more than an instrument: one that articulates the analysis of social formations and epistemological descriptions more precisely than before, or that situates the intersection between a general theory of production and a generative analysis of statements.6 I accept that possibility. I accept, too, that my discourse may disappear with the figure that has borne it so far.6
It is a discourse about discourses: but it is not trying to find in them a hidden law, a concealed origin that it only remains to free; nor is it trying to establish by itself, taking itself as a starting-point, the general theory of which they would be the concrete models.The Archaeology of Knowledge, pp. 213–214
its task is to make differences: to constitute them as objects, to analyse them, and to define their concept... it is continually making differentiations, it is a diagnosis.The Archaeology of Knowledge, pp. 213–214
What archaeology tries to describe is not the specific structure of science, but the very different domain of knowledge... The orientation towards the episteme has been the only one to be explored so far... But that was no more than a preferential point of attack; it is not, for archaeology, an obligatory domain.The Archaeology of Knowledge, p. 203
in seeking to define, outside all reference to a psychological or constituent subjectivity, the different positions of the subject that may be involved in statements, archaeology touches on a question that is being posed today by psychoanalysis; in trying to reveal the rules of formation of concepts, the modes of succession, connexion, and coexistence of statements, it touches on the problem of epistemological structures; in studying the formation of objects, the fields in which they emerge and are specified... it touches on the analysis of social formations.The Archaeology of Knowledge, p. 215
in so far as it is possible to constitute a general theory of productions, archaeology, as the analysis of the rules proper to the different discursive practices, will find what might be called its enveloping theory.The Archaeology of Knowledge, pp. 215–216
Whether this conjuncture is giving rise to an individualizable discipline... or whether it is giving rise to a set of problems whose present coherence does not mean that it will not be taken up later elsewhere... I am in no position at the moment to decide. And, to tell you the truth, it is probably not up to me to decide. I accept that my discourse may disappear with the figure that has borne it so far.The Archaeology of Knowledge, pp. 215–216