Foucault then suggested ways for surpassing this element

Foucault then suggested ways for surpassing this niclosamide of the modern positivities: “This arrangement maintained its firm grip on thought for a long while; and, Nietzsche, at the end of the nineteenth century, made it glow into brightness again for the last time by setting fire to it. […] It was Nietzsche, in any case, who burned for us, even before we were born, the intermingled promises of the dialectic and anthropology (Foucault, 1970, 263).” Amariglio (1988, 599) drew attention in his article to the fact that the French philosopher, when writing about the epistemes, not only described them, but went beyond that: “Foucault welcomes the passing of the modern episteme; he believes it is taking place currently through the decentering of a variety of discursive forms.” The archaeology is more than just a way of looking at the discourses and describing the positivities in knowledge, it is a critique. Amariglio (1988, 600) wrote about what he understands to be Foucault\'s purpose: “Foucault makes clear in the introduction to the English edition of The Order of Things and in The Archaeology of Knowledge, his is not an antiquarian project. Indeed, Foucault is interested in intervening actively in the present construction of knowledge, and his later works, especially Discipline and Punish and the several volumes of the History of Sexuality, are clearly attempts to locate, in the present, a way out of the humanism and essentialism of modern discourses.” Amariglio also stressed that Foucault could not identify any sign of surpassing the modern epistemic conditions in the economic thought, although some indications could be found in other discourses of knowledge (Amariglio, 1988, 599). One might consider that it was not by chance, that in the section that Foucault entitled “Ricardo” in The Order of Things and where he analysed Marx\'s political economy, Foucault went on to describe, more vehemently, the finalistic – teleological – characteristic of the modern episteme in the economic thought. In following Amariglio\'s suggestion, this could be seen as a step towards postmodernism, since Veblen is surpassing a fundamental epistemic condition of economic thought. Actually, when analysing postmodern moments in economics, Amariglio (1988, 600–2) located some postmodern conditions, such as “a strong antihumanism, a desire to decenter economic analysis, a rejection of the primacy of anthropocentric categories of analysis, a refusal of historicism, and a denial of epistemologies that rely on a subject/object distinction.” Amariglio even emphasised that the Marxist tradition that started with Foucault\'s professor Louis Althusser was an instance within this new configuration of thought. It has still to be emphasised that Foucault was completely silent when it comes to the characteristics of what can be regarded as postmodern economic thought. Moreover, if political economy, as it emerged, is only related to its own modern epistemic conditions, in a strict Foucauldian sense, it would be reasonable to infer that the economic thought in a postmodern episteme would be something completely different from what we call political economy today. Another important aspect to be considered is that, if archaeology is an ex post exploration, a postmodern economic knowledge could only be identified when its characteristics were at least reasonably solid. Hence, This article wants to stress that one of the most crucial and influential contribuctions of the Veblenian critique – particularly in what concerns the method and theory of economics – was the way he, inspired by what was going on in another science, introduced to economics a method that disowned teleology. And, he accomplished that by keeping the two first consequences above mentioned as aspects of his own system of political economy. He was not trying to criticise scarcity as the specific object of economics. Also, he preserved the organising principle of causal series to the study of economic phenomena, which places his system close to other approaches to political economy even today. His uniqueness was in surpassing a disciplinary boundary, while keeping the same conditions of possibility of knowledge set by the modern episteme.