Wittgenstein and Foucault Application of analytical methodologies to the historical epistemology of Foucault Matteo Vagelli ‘A good simile rejreshes the intellect”! L.Wittgenstein, Culture and Value, 1929 The target of this presentation, in its limits, is to attempt @ comparison between two of the most influential philosopher of the XIX century, normally ascribed to very different (when not considered irreconcilable) cultural horizons Ludwig Wittgenstein and Michel Foucault. Putting these two names close together is uncommon, since each is placed strictly into different ‘philosophical containers’: the first one into the analytical and the second one into the political philosophy. This traditional historical placement not only prevents the possibility of a fair confrontation but may also lead to a misinterpretation of their works. We could start from many points in trying to make these two thoughts overlap, many points of departure to notice the similarity between some statements of the first and some of the second, but instead of taking such a general and extemal point of view we should rather try to start from something more specific.” In a series of five conferences titled “La vérité et les formes juridiques”, held in 1973 in Rio de Janeiro, Foucault makes an explicit reference to the Anglo-American analytic philosophy. In my opinion, Wittgenstein was the philosopher Foucault had in 1L. Wittgenstein", Cultre and Value, The University of Chicago Press, 1980, p. 1: “Bin gutes Gleichnis eaftischt den V erstend” ? t's also hard and maybe wrong to compare “contents” of the two, piece by piece, ‘theory’ by ‘theory’ definition by definition, book by book, asitwere, since Wittgenstein is such e non systematic philosopher. We cannot compare two philosophical doctrines. We should rather compere them from an snalogicel point of view, from a formal or methodological point of view. We can compare two philosophical approaches,mind, Foucault surely knew the work of Wittgenstein and did not ignore the relevance it had on the philosophy of the XX century, not only on the philosophy of language. This reference may nevertheless appear very general and vague in a way: this unexpected comparison could be interpreted as superficial and just transient, The reference in question occurs right at the beginning of the first conference, while Foucault is declaring his axes of research together with the methodology he wants to put in use for those Le moment serait alors ver de considérer ces feits de discous non plus simplement sous lew aspect linguistique, mais, d’una cettaine fagon et ici je m’inspire des recherches séalisées par les Anglo- Americans -, comme jeu, games, jeu stratégiques d'action et réaction, de question et de résponse, de domination et d’esquive, ainsi que de lutte? Foucault introduces the theme of the conferences as a methodological one, with the status of “hypotheses de travail, d’hypothéses en vue d’un travail future”, but presenting it as the point of intersection among 3 or 4 existing researches. His final target is the redefinition of the theory of the subject (third axe of research), through the historical revaluation of the social practices (rst axe) and the analysis of discourses in terms of strategy (second axe). Only the second axe, the one in which the reference to the Anglo-American philosophy occur, is considered properly methodological Ici encore il existe, il me semble, dans une tradition récente mais dija acceptée das les universités européenes, una tendance @ traiter le discourse comme un ensemble de faits linguistiques lies entre eure par des régles syntexiques de construction* 2M Foucault. “La vérité et les formes juridiques”, 1974, Dits et écrits II, Gallimard, Paris, 1994, p. 538 * idemIn this short passage we can find the resumption of a polemic against the analytical philosophy previously developed in the Archeologie du savoir. In the chapter called “Définir I’énoncé”, Foucault strongly criticizes the traditional approach of the analytical philosophy, seen as only interested to the mere linguistic features of language. He finds this approach as opposed to the one he wants to put in use in his archaeology, which focuses on the statement and not on the proposition. A discourse is a historically contingent set of statements and a statement is the “atome du discours”, its minimal unit, and it detaches itself either from the proposition of the logicians, from the phrase of the grammarian and from the ‘speech act’ of the so called “analysts”. According to Foucault what characterizes a proposition is a definite intemal structure, with determined truth-values and restricted possibilities of correct application. Therefore we can get different statements out of the very same propositional structure and, vice versa, multiple propositions out of each statement’ Ifa speech act’ is to be intended, as Foucault does, as the single and material operation effectuated with the emergence of the linguistic expression itself (an order, a promise, a deal and so on), then the speech act cannot coincide with the statement, but it’s a sort of juxtaposition of multiple statements® est, dans son mode d’étre singvlier (ni tout a fet Linguistique, ni exlusivement materiel), indispensable pow qu’an puisse dire s'il ya ounen phrase, proposition, acte de langage” ‘The statement is the presupposition, the “function d’existence” of propositions, phrases and ‘speech acts’, which makes possible to recognize whether in some linguistic signs wwe can find those linguistic unities or not. So how can we find the right placement for "The given exemple for the first kind is: “Nobody heard’” and“It's true thet nobody heerd”; for the second kind: “The actual king of France is bald”. "A pray is made by many different statements, but it remains the very same ‘speech act”. 7M Foucault, L'archéologie dtu savoir, Gallimard, Paris, 1969, p114 3