The Renaissance as case study
By using the cultural explosion of the Renaissance as an allegorical demonstration of the Order of Things, Foucault shows that his theory has merit, because the Renaissance is shown to be a kind of unfurling flower that grows from changes in the shared assumptions of their times. This is a valuable portrait of human culture in general, if one accepts Foucault's broader argument that there is a universal mechanism to culture formation.
The motif of growth and change
Clearly, Foucault sees things from a broader point of view. Instead of only addressing the present, he analyzes the past first, drawing conclusions about time and change over time, and then he views the present moment for its growth and change. He analyzes the change and growth of language over time, and he analyzes the ideas of evolution for their shared perspective of change over time.
The balance of individual and culture
By reminding the reader that humans are animals, he shows how strange the concept of "mankind" really is. What is implied by personhood is not necessarily clear, and humans often accept reality the way it is without analyzing what could be gleaned. So, Foucault views "mankind" as a kind of fertile creature who could be infinite, except that one's understanding of self is so vigorously shaped by culture.
Paradigm and motif
This work mentions paradigm in relationship to order. Although paradism is literally an orderly matrix through which one perceives the world, the true Order is shown to be more than paradigm. In fact, Foucault views paradigm itself as a kind of post-hoc status quo, designed in response to another kind of Order which is the chaos of change in time. Constructing a useful paradigm is only half of the question; the other half of it is to deconstruct and to push forward into even better shared cultural assumptions.
Nature as a higher form of evidence
Because of the strange nature of reality, the nature of life on earth is shown as an ultimate kind of evidence in Foucault's understanding of human life. Sometimes, a culture will reflect the sacrosanct relationship between the human animal and its habitat, the earth, but other times, the culture may not reflect it, so Foucault's attention to biology serves to anchor his ideas in a meta-narrative or meta-physical kind of way.
