Epistemé (foucault, m.) (outlaw, l.)-e

E1.
"... the epistemological field - the epistemé - constituted by the 'network of analogies' that were 'common to a whole series of Żrepresentations or Ż products dispersed throughout the natural history, economics, and philosphy' in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. ( L105;xi-xii) If Foucault is correct, the epistemé was part of what he terms the 'positive unconscious' of knowledge that eludes awarness but still informs philosophical discourse. This 'positive unconscious' provides what Foucault identifies as the rules of formation by which the proper objects of study in a discipline are defined, concepts formed and employed in discourse, and theories built and strategies devised which set the themes and theories which guide the processes of inquiry and discourse; and the rules of discourse which determine who speaks and with what authority. ( L105;xiv; L106;28) Especially relevant is Foucault's examination of the table of classification and associated strategies ordering the epistemological fields - and provideing the very form of order - during periods when European encouters with Africa and Africans took the forms that have subsequently been termed 'racist.'" ( L89;10)