Michael Foucault i strukturalizm

ENM. Foucault, reputed to be one of the most eminent representatives of structuralism, defined and repeatedly dissociated himself from any relations between all his works and structuralism at the later period of his activities. Some researches in M. Foucault’s works have also struck him out of the ranks of structuralism. This article attempts to show the functioning of methodological principles and philosophical problems of structuralism in M. Foucault’s works of the „archaeological’’ period with reference mainly to his well-known work The Order of Things. An Archaeology’ of the Human Sciences. After the outline of the structuralism program was postulated, it w as indicated that the „archaeological” fields or epistemes formulated by M. Foucault were synchronous structures which corresponded to the essence of structuralist understanding of structure. It was argued that attaching the priority to relations rather than to the elements of epistemes: excluding semiotic type of relations; giving preference to the research in internal state and functioning of epistemes, i.e., synchrony, rather than to the research in their development or evolution, i.e., diachrony; raising and treatment of problems of language and subject; the principled opposition to the philosophy of subjectivity: the positivistic confidence in metaphysics as well global philosophical synthesizes and generalizations; the tendency toward inability of philosophy to be a united discipline linked M. Foucault’s works of the „archaeological” period with structuralism. Keywords: structuralism, system, rationalism, language, subject, episteme, man, discursive, archaeological.