Towards an Epistemology of Ruptures The Case of Heidegger and Foucault

By systematically uncovering and comprehensively examining the epistemological implications of Heidegger's history of being and Foucault's archaeology of discursive formations, Towards an Epistemology of Ruptures shows how Heidegger and Foucault significantly expand the notions of knowledge and thought. This is done by tracing their path-breaking responses to the question: What is the object of thought? The book shows how for both thinkers thought is not just the act by which the object is represented in an idea, and knowledge not just a state of the mind of the individual subject corresponding to the object. Each thinker, in his own way, argues that thought is a productive event in which the subject and the object gain their respective identity and knowledge is the opening up of a space in which the subject and object can encounter each other and in which true and false statements about an object become possible. They thereby lay the ground for a new conceptual framework for rethinking the very relationship between knowledge and its object.

Arun Iyer teaches Philosophy at Seattle University, USA.

Acknowledgements
Abbreviations of Frequently Cited Texts
Introduction
1. Heidegger's Reformulation of the Essence of Thought (I): From the Transcendental Power of the Imagination to the Ontological Power of Thought
2. Heidegger's Reformulation of the Essence of Thought (II): On the Relationship between Thought and Being
3. Heidegger's Reformulation of the Essence of Knowledge: From Husserl's Transcendental Idealism to Heidegger's Historical Ontology
4. Foucault's Reformulation of the Essence of Thought in The Order of Things
5. Foucault's Reformulation of the Essence of Knowledge: From Husserlian Phenomenology to Foucauldian Archaeology
Conclusion
Bibliography
Index