The Self, Life, and the Arts of Living

Abstract

Foucault’s late works examine how we develop relationships with ourselves that involve, at the same time, an ethical approach and a relationship with truth. His historical studies address this problem in Mediterranean antiquity and notably include the last three volumes of his History of Sexuality and the lecture courses Subjectivity and Truth, The Hermeneutics of the Subject, and The Courage of Truth, among others. Within those works, this dissertation analyzes different historical ways to approach the self from a moral perspective and, in particular, the concepts that define the self or its elements. Here, I unearth a crucial, recurrent, and understudied tension in late Foucault’s historical works between two moral emphases on the relationship with oneself. One is an outward focus on our life—what we do and our engagement with others and the world. The other is an inward focus on our soul. This perspective tends to privilege self-knowledge, advocate for converting the self to its right state, and adopt a universalist approach independent of individual circumstances. In his historical studies, Foucault finds that, in the transition from Classical Greece to the first two centuries of the Roman Empire to early Christian thought, there is a shift of focus from life to the soul. However, those opposing emphases are already present in Plato. My dissertation tracks these findings and the evolution of Foucault’s views in some of his major works from 1981 to 1984. I observe that their historical and philosophical sophistication increases in each work.My detailed analysis of Foucault’s historical research also offers a clearer understanding of his own philosophical views. Secondary literature often mentions the importance in his thought of the concept of the care of the self. This approach is too general because it does not consider the difference between the inward and outward focuses on the self. I argue that Foucault prefers an outward focus that emphasizes life. In other words, he advocates for life taking care of itself over the soul taking care of itself. This dissertation also conducts a historical and philosophical analysis of the concept of the arts of living in Foucault’s work. Compared to the related notion of the techniques or practices of the self, secondary literature has not extensively studied the arts of living. However, I argue this notion is crucial in both Foucault’s historical research and his philosophical proposals for the present. Unlike the more general concept of the care of the self, Foucault considers that the art of living is pertinent in his present, including for philosophy, sexual minorities, and general ethical purposes. Finally, this dissertation takes distance from the secondary literature that emphasizes the affinity between Foucault’s thought and Stoicism. I suggest that, in his view, Stoicism takes an inward perspective of the self, which, compared to Classical Greece, increases the universality of morality and the need for individual self-knowledge. In this sense, Stoicism moves Greco-Roman morality in the direction of Christianity. Stoicism also proposes conversion—taking the self to its right state and keeping it there. In contrast, Foucault advocates for a non-universalist morality and, regarding the self, proposes to maintain an outward perspective of it and constantly disturb it.