xv This passage quotes a ‘certain Chinese encyclopedia’ in which
it is written that ‘animals are divided into: (a) belonging to the Emperor, (b) embalmed, (c) tame, (d) sucking pigs,
(e) sirens, (f) fabulous, (g) stray dogs, (h) included in the present classification, (i) frenzied, (j) innumerable, (k) drawn
with a very fine camelhair brush, (l) et cetera, (m) having just broken the water pitcher, (n) that from a long way
off look like flies’ [JLJ - careful distinctions which had escaped me - I must be just plain ignorant]
p.40 The function proper to knowledge is not seeing or
demonstrating; it is interpreting... There is more work in interpreting interpretations than in interpreting
things
p.58-59 What is a sign...? ...Classical thought defines it according to
three variables. First, the certainty of the relation: a sign may be so constant that one can be sure of its accuracy... but
it may also be simply probable... Second, the type of relation: a sign may belong to the whole that it denotes (in the sense
that a healthy appearance is part of the health it denotes) or be separate from it... Third, the origin of
the relation: A sign may be natural... or conventional... These three variables replace resemblance in defining the sign's
efficacity in the domains of empirical knowledge.
1. The sign, since it is always either certain or probable, should find
its area of being within knowledge.
p.59 the whole domain of the sign is divided between the certain
and the probable: that is to say, there can no longer be an unknown sign, a mute mark. This is not because men are
in possession of all the possible signs, but because there can be no sign until there exists a known possibility
of substitution between two known elements.
p.59 it is within knowledge itself that the sign
is to perform its signifying function; it is from knowledge that it will borrow its certainty or its probability.
p.60 The connection of ideas does not imply the
relation of cause and effect, but only of a mark or sign with the thing signified.
The fire which I see is not the cause of the pain I suffer upon my approaching it, but the mark that forewarns me
of it.
p.60 For the sign to be, in effect, what it is, it must
be presented as an object of knowledge at the same time as that which it signifies.
p.60-61 if one element of a perception is to become a sign for it, it is
not enough merely for that element to be part of the perception; it must be differentiated qua element and be distinguished
from the total impression with which it is confusedly linked; consequently, that total impression itself must have been divided
up, and attention must have been directed towards one of the intermingled regions composing it, in order to isolate one of
them. The constitution of the sign is thus inseparable from analysis. Indeed, it is the result of
it, since without analysis the sign could not become apparent... Because the mind analyses, the sign
appears. Because the mind has signs at its disposal, analysis never ceases.
p.61 The sign in classical thought does not erase
distances or abolish time: on the contrary, it enables one to unfold them and to traverse them step by step. It is
the sign that enables things to become distinct
p.63 the task of knowledge...
its job now is to fabricate a language, and to fabricate it well - so that, as an instrument of analysis
and combination, it will really be the language of calculation. [JLJ - Foucault here implies that knowledge creates
a language of analytics, which might be useful for calculation, or for other purposes. We know, so that we might analyze,
so that we might act on the signs we uncover.]
p.65 the sign is the representativity
of the representation in so far as it is representable.
p.66 any analysis of signs is at the same time, and without need for
further inquiry, the decipherment of what they are trying to say. Inversely, the discovery of what is signified is
nothing more than a reflection upon the signs that indicate it.
p.66 There will therefore be no theory of signs separate and differing
from an analysis of meaning... meaning cannot be anything more than the totality of the signs arranged in their progression
p.191 The one analyses value in terms of the exchange of objects of need - of useful objects; the
other in terms of the formation and origin of objects whose exchange will later define their value
p.198 this equality of relation makes it possible to say, for example,
that four measures of corn and five bundles of wood have an equal exchangeable value. But this equality does
not mean that one exchanges utility for utility in identical portions: one exchanges inequalities, which
means that on both sides - and despite the fact that each element traded has an intrinsic utility - more
value is acquired than was originally possessed.
p.329 Economics was conceived on the basis of barter, because of his property
and the other's property were equivalent; since they were offering satisfaction for almost identical desires, they were, in
sum, 'alike'.
