Michel Foucault's archaeology of knowledge and economic discourse

Abstract

The literature in economic methodology has witnessed an increase in the number of studies which, drawing upon the postmodern turn in social sciences, pay serious attention to the non-epistemologicaldiscursive elements of economic theorizing. This recent work on the "economic discourse" has thus added a new dimension to economic methodology by analyzing various discursive aspects of the construction of scientific meanings in economics. Taking a similar stance, this paper explores Michel Foucault's archaeological analysis of scientific discourses. It aims to show that his archaeological reading of the history of economic thought provides an articulate nonepistemological framework for the analysis of the discursive elements in the history of economics and contemporary economic theorizing.