Existing accounts of Foucault’s archaeological methodology have not (a) contextualized the concept properly within the intellectual field of its emergence and (b) explained why it is called ‘archaeology’ and not simply ‘history’. Foucault contributed to the field of ‘history of systems of thought’ in France around 1960 by broadening its scope from the study of scientific and philosophical systems into systems of ‘knowledge’ in a wider sense. For Foucault, the term ‘archaeology’ provided a response to new methodological questions arising from this initiative. Archaeological methodology had already been developed into a distinct comparative approach for the study of linguistic and cultural systems, notably by Dumézil. Foucault redevised archaeological methodology for the post-Hegelian tradition of studying ‘problems’ prevalent in the history of systems of thought. The article thus furnishes the groundwork for a ‘sociological archaeology’ or ‘problem analysis’ that is not particularly dependent on Foucault as a social theorist of power.

福柯的考古学方法学的现有说明还没有（a）在其出现的知识领域内恰当地将其概念化，并且（b）解释了为什么将其称为“考古学”而不是简单的“历史学”。福柯通过将其范围从科学和哲学体系的研究扩展到更广泛的“知识”体系，在1960年左右为法国的“思想体系史”领域做出了贡献。对于福柯而言，“考古学”一词是对这一倡议提出的新方法论问题的回应。考古方法学已经发展成为一种独特的比较方法，用于研究语言和文化系统，特别是杜美济（Dumézil）。福柯重新提出了考古学方法，以适应黑格尔时代后研究思想体系史上普遍存在的“问题”的传统。因此，该文章为“社会学考古学”或“问题分析”奠定了基础，而后者并不特别依赖于福柯作为权力的社会理论家。