Foucault I 85ff
Similarity/Descartes/DescartesVsSimilarity/Foucault: For Descartes, similarity is a confused mixture that needs to be analyzed in terms of identity/difference, measure, order.
>
Distictions, >
Identity, >
Reality.
Descartes does not reject comparisons. >
Comparisons.
Transitivity (a = c) is only possible through comparisons.
Any knowledge is made through comparisons.
There are only two forms of comparison: measure and order.
Units and multiplicities can be measured, i.e. continuous and discontinuous units can be measured. Order. ((s) works without reference to externalities): from inside out.
Measure ((s): works from outside to inside (division).
Order/Descartes: I recognize the order between A and B by looking at nothing else but the mutual endpoint. One can recognize the order of things "not in their entities in detail", but by discovering the simplest being, and after this the next one.
(1)
The comparison, on the other hand, requires with the help of the measure first a division, then the application of a common unity. >
Order, >
Unity.
Order: Comparison and measure here form the same thing: Progress without interruption. >
Measurements.
Thus series are created whose first point is an entity from which one can have a view independently of any other, and where the other point is created with growing differences.
The distinction between identity and difference dissolves similarity.
The absolute character that one assigns to what is simple does not concern the being of things, but only the way in which they can be recognized.
New: The comparison only has the role of revealing the order of the world.
Tradition: The game of similarity was once unlimited. It was always possible to discover new similarities.
New: Now a finite enumeration will become possible.
1. Descartes, PHilosophische Werke I. Regeln zur Leitung des Geistes, Leipzig 1906 [Philosophische Bibliothek 26a] S. 81
