Abstract

This paper examines Foucault’s attempt to displace the constitutive role of the subject of knowledge and to replace it with the concrete practices that constitute subjects. The prevalent tendency to transform discourse analysis into a new form of epistemology, here exemplified through the works of Paul Veyne, is criticized. It is suggested that Veyne’s reading of Foucault is subject to an illusion similar to what Kant once called “transcendental illusion,” and gives rise to a new form of metaphysics which repeats the problematic that Foucault originally aimed to overcome.