The discursive formation as a vital concept within Foucault's archaeology

Abstract

 This article attempts to shed light on one of the basic concepts in Foucault's thought, and we specifically mean the concept of the discursive formation; The reason for our interest in this concept is due to two issues: the first of which is related to the importance that Foucault gives to this concept, through which, this thinker sought to re-read the history of thought in a different way, a way that is free from the illusion of continuity and homogeneity that characterizes history, and from the myth of the sovereignty of the self that has dominated the philosophical thought for a long time. As for the second issue, it is related to the absence of this concept in the Arabic studies that focused on Foucault's thought, an almost complete absence. Based on this, we will try to put this concept in its theoretical context, and we will work on identifying the correlations between the discursive formation and other concepts such as: the history, the discourse, the event. Then we will move on to studying the elements that make up the discursive formation, namely the objects, the enunciative modalities, the concepts and the theoretical choices.