Ever tried reading a book that feels like it’s actively trying to kick you out? That is the vibe of The Order of Things by Michel Foucault. Most people buy it because the cover looks smart on a coffee table. They get ten pages in, hit a wall of French structuralist theory, and quietly slide it back onto the shelf. Honestly, I don't blame them. It’s dense. It’s weird. It starts with a long-winded analysis of a 17th-century painting by Diego Velázquez called Las Meninas.
But here is the thing: if you can actually get past the jargon, Foucault is saying something pretty radical about how your brain works. He’s not just talking about history. He’s talking about the "episteme"—the invisible grid that determines what counts as "truth" in any given era.
Think about it. We like to believe we’re smarter than people in the Middle Ages because we use the scientific method. Foucault argues it’s not that we’re smarter; it’s that the order of things has shifted. The very ground we stand on has moved.
The Renaissance and the Language of Resemblance
Back in the 16th century, the world was a book. Everything was a sign. If a plant looked like an eye, it was clearly meant to heal eyes. This wasn't "superstition" to them; it was the literal order of things. They saw a web of resemblances. Walnut shells look like tiny skulls, so walnuts must be good for the brain. It sounds goofy now, but for a Renaissance scholar, this was peak logic.
Foucault points out that in this era, there was no gap between words and things. A name was part of the object.
Then, everything broke.
By the time we hit the 17th and 18th centuries—what Foucault calls the "Classical" age—the world stopped being a giant puzzle of symbols. It became a grid. People like Carl Linnaeus started obsessively categorizing every plant and animal. They weren't looking for "meaning" or "signatures" from God anymore. They were looking for identity and difference. Can you measure it? Can you map it? If you can’t put it in a table, it doesn't exist. This shift changed everything from how we spent money to how we treated the "insane."
Why the Human Sciences are a Weird New Invention
Here is the part that usually blows people's minds: Foucault argues that "man" didn't really exist before the late 18th century.
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Wait. Obviously, humans existed. We’ve been walking around for a while. But "Man" as an object of scientific study? That’s a new invention.
Before the 1800s, you had "General Grammar" or "Natural History." You didn't have "Biology" or "Psychology" in the way we recognize them. We became the subject and the object of our own knowledge. We started looking at ourselves as biological machines, economic actors, and speaking subjects. Foucault famously compared the "invention of man" to a face drawn in the sand at the edge of the sea.
The tide is coming in.
He suspected that the order of things would shift again, and the concept of "the human" might just wash away. When you look at AI or post-humanism today, you realize the guy was actually onto something.
The Problem with Progress
We love a good "progress" narrative. We think knowledge is a straight line going up. Foucault says it’s more like a series of sudden, violent earthquakes. One day everyone agrees on how the world works, and the next, the entire foundation has cracked. These "epistemological breaks" are why you can't truly understand an 18th-century doctor by using 21st-century logic. They weren't "wrong"—they were operating in a different order of things entirely.
If you want to see this in action, look at how we talk about mental health.
- In the Renaissance, the "mad" were seen as having a different kind of wisdom.
- In the Classical age, they were locked up because they weren't "rational."
- In the Modern age, we turned them into patients to be cured.
None of these are "the objective truth." They are just different ways the grid has been laid over reality.
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Breaking Down the Episteme
The term "episteme" is the backbone of the book. It’s not just a "worldview." It’s the subconscious set of rules that allow certain ideas to even be thinkable.
Imagine you’re playing a video game. The episteme is the source code. You can move around, make choices, and "discover" things, but you can only do what the code allows. You can’t jump if there’s no jump button. Foucault is trying to show us the code. He wants us to see that our "common sense" is actually a very specific, historical product.
The Las Meninas Opening
I mentioned the painting earlier. Foucault spends the first chapter of The Order of Things talking about this Velázquez masterpiece. Why? Because the painting is a meta-commentary on looking.
In the painting, the artist is looking at us. We are looking at him. But the actual subjects—the King and Queen—are only visible in a tiny mirror in the background. It represents the shift in how we represent reality. The "subject" is missing, or hidden, or reflected. It’s a brilliant, if frustratingly long, metaphor for the disappearance of the observer in the Classical age.
Applying Foucault to the 2020s
You might think, "Cool history lesson, but I have a job and a mortgage."
Well, look at Big Data. Look at how algorithms "order" our world today. We are currently living through another shift in the order of things. We are moving away from the "Modern" episteme where the individual human was the center of everything. Now, we are data points. We are patterns of consumption.
When an AI predicts what you’re going to buy before you even know you want it, that is a new way of ordering reality. The "Human" that Foucault saw emerging in the 1800s is being replaced by something else. Maybe it’s a digital profile. Maybe it’s a genetic sequence.
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Why It Matters
Understanding the order of things helps you stay sane. It reminds you that the "certainties" of today—the way we rank people, the way we value productivity, the way we define "success"—aren't eternal truths. They are just the current version of the grid.
It gives you a weird kind of freedom. If the rules of "truth" change every couple hundred years, you don't have to take the current rules so personally.
Actionable Steps for the Curious
If you’re actually going to try and read this beast of a book, don't do it alone. Here is how to actually survive Foucault:
1. Skip the Preface (For Now)
Foucault's prefaces are notoriously dense. Start with Chapter 2 or find a summary of the Las Meninas analysis. Get the "vibe" of his argument before you drown in his vocabulary.
2. Focus on the "Transitions"
The most interesting parts are where he describes one era ending and another beginning. Pay attention to how he describes the move from "Resemblance" to "Representation." That’s where the gold is.
3. Use Secondary Sources
There is no shame in this. Read Gary Gutting’s Foucault: A Very Short Introduction. It’s like having a translator for a very brilliant, very grumpy Frenchman.
4. Look for the "Grid" in Your Own Life
Start asking yourself: Why do I categorize this thing this way? Is it because it’s "naturally" like that, or because my culture’s order of things tells me it is?
5. Observe Your Own Data Self
Next time you see a hyper-targeted ad, don't just think "creepy." Think: "This is the new episteme. I am being ordered by a logic that doesn't care about my 'self,' only my probability."
Foucault didn't write this book to be easy. He wrote it to be a toolkit. It’s a way to see the bars of the cage we didn't even know we were in. You don't have to agree with every word to realize that the way we organize our world is a lot more fragile—and a lot more fascinating—than we ever imagined.