Michel Foucault's bet. Epistemological innovations for its possible use in social theory

Abstract

The historical ontology of ourselves and the necessary possibility of an other-life, not only has a political dimension but also an epistemological one. This epistemological activity must show the coordinates and conditions of possibility in which the historical dispositions of the present and its possibilities emerge and are constituted. In this regard Foucault was always reluctant to elaborate a closed system, rather he devoted himself to a work in progress, to a laboratory of ideas offered without an apparent conclusion. Such is the purpose of this article: to follow some of the procedures used by the French author to formulate questions, establish problems, dissociate himself from the received heritage, link his questions with the present and unravel the conditions of possibility of a critical analysis from the perspective of the social sciences and historiography. Moreover, the aim is to problematize, to formulate objectives, methods and research procedures that go beyond what was initially suggested by Foucault himself. The article is articulated under three headings inspired by Foucauldian inquiries: a) the dispute for a plural epistemology, b) the search for contributory factors, not for unitary causal mechanisms, and finally c) the consideration of statements as events and therefore as historical rarity, which leads to the study of regimes of truth and discontinuity.