Between words and things, is there an essential correspondence, or can there be things that take place in a space other than that of words? Under what order have the human sciences thought about things since the Renaissance? Was representation the foundation of that order? What role did names, discourse, language, play in that architecture? The publication of this work in 1966 consecrates its author as one of the most original intellectuals of his time. Here Foucault addresses these questions and concludes that between these two very distant regions – words and things – there is a break, a void, a confused domain, and that it is by the nature of this disagreement that the supposedly permanent certainties and truths are changing throughout history.

Words and things is an archaeology of the contemporary, since the human sciences are characterized here fundamentally as practices and institutions, and knowledge, as the result of a system of rules that are proper to each epoch and not to the progress of reason. This book was born from a text by Borges. From the laughter that shakes, when reading it, everything familiar to the thought – to ours: to the one that has our age and our geography. That text quotes "a certain Chinese encyclopedia" where it is written that "the animals are divided into a] belonging to the Emperor, b] embalmed, c] trained, d] piglets, e] mermaids, f] fabulous, g] loose dogs, h] included in this classification, i] that shake like madmen, j] innumerable, k] drawn with a very fine brush of camel hair, l] etc. m] that have just broken the vase, n] that from afar look like flies." In the astonishment of this taxonomy, what is suddenly seen, what, by means of the apologue, is shown to us as the exotic charm of another thought, is the limit of ours: the naked impossibility of thinking this." MICHEL FOUCAULT