Foucault’s Statement in Context: opacity of discourse versus conceptual determination

The significance of negativity as a way for conceptual determination in Hegelian dialectics is well-known. Authors such as Gilles Deleuze have underlined, on the other hand, how this notion of (dialectical) negativity is incompatible with a Nietzschean perspective of interplay of forces and affirmation of difference. There is here a real distension (rather than a distinction) — a fissure enabling one to think what connects and inevitably dissociates rationalistic and deconstructive philosophical perspectives on language. In this fissure it is constituted, for instance, the space of dispersion of the so-called Foucaultian statements (énoncés), the focus of his archeology. This essay addresses the context in which the Foucaultian notion of énoncé emerges. It does so by criticizing first the dialectical notion of negativity. It then considers some semiological notions used by post-structuralist authors, such as plethora of signs and floating signifier. In a third moment, examples are taken from a literary work, Vitor Ramil’s Pequod, in order to illustrate more concretely our discussion.