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Reminder of the general problematic: subjectivity and truth. ‘-‘ New theoretical point of departure: the care of the self Interpretations of the Delphic precept “know yourself.” “-‘ Socrates as man of care of the self analysis of three extracts from The Apology. Care of the self as precept of ancient philosophical and moral life. “-‘ Care of the self in the first Christian texts. -‘ Care of the self as general standpoint, relationship to the self and set of practices. ‘ Reasons for the modern elimination of care of the self in favor of self-knowledge: modem morality; the Cartesian moment. The Gnostic exception. “-‘ Philosophy and spirituality.
THIS YEAR I THOUGHT of trying the following arrangements1: I will lecture for two hours, from 9:15 until 11:15, with a short break of a few minutes after an hour to allow you to rest, or to leave if you are bored, and also to give me a bit of a rest. As far as possible I will try nevertheless to vary the two hours. That is to say, in the first hour, or at any rate in one of the two hours, I will give a somewhat more, let’s say, theoretical and general exposition, and then, in the other hour, I will present something more like a textual analysis with, of course, all the obstacles and drawbacks of this kind of approach due to the fact that we cannot supply you With the texts and do not know how many of you there will be, etcetera. Still, we can always try If it does not work we will try to find another method next year, or even this year. Does it bother you much to come at 9:15? No? It’s okay? You are more fortunate than me, then.
Last year I tried to get a historical reflection underway on the theme of the relations between subjectivity and truth.2 To study this problem I took as a privileged example, as a refracting surface if you like, the question of the regimen of sexual behavior and pleasures in Antiquity, the regimen of the aphrodisia you recall, as it appeared and was defined in the first two centuries A.D.3 It seemed to me that one of the interesting dimensions of this regimen was that the basic framework of modern European sexual morality was to be found in this regimen of the aplirodisia, rather than in so-called Christian morality, or worse, in so-called Judeo-Christian morality This year I would like to step back a bit from this precise example, and from the sexual material concerning the aphrodisia and sexual behavior, and extract from it the more general terms of the problem of “the subject and truth.” More precisely, while I do not want in any way to eliminate or nullify the historical dimension in which I tried to situate this problem of subjectivity/truth relations, I would, however, like to present it in a much more general form. The question I would like to take up this year is this: In what historical form do the relations between the “subject” and “truth,” elements that do not usually fall within the historian’s practice or analysis, take shape in the West?
So, to start with I would like to take up a notion about which I think I said a few words last year.5 This is the notion of “care of oneself.” This is the best translation I can offer for a very complex, rich, and frequently employed Greek notion which had a long life throughout Greek culture:
the notion of epimeleia heautou, translated into Latin with, of course, all the flattening of meaning which has so often been denounced or, at any rate, pointed out,6 as cura sui.7 Epimelela heautou is care of oneself, attending to oneself, being concerned about oneself, etcetera. You will no doubt say that in order to study the relations between the subject and truth it is a bit paradoxical and rather artificial to select this notion of epimeleia /zeautou, to which the historiography of philosophy has not attached much importance hitherto. It is somewhat paradoxical and artificial to select this notion when everyone knows, says, and repeats, and has done
so for a long time, that the question of the subject (the question of know1edge of the subject, of the subject’s knowledge of himself) was originally posed in a very different expression and a very different precept: the famous Delphic prescription of gnothi seauton (“know yourself” ).8 So, when everything in the history of philosophy—and more broadly in the history of Western thought—tells us that the gnothi seauton is undoubtedly the founding expression of the question of the relations between the subject and truth, why choose this apparently rather marginal notion—that of the care of oneself, of epimeleia heautou—which is certainly current in Greek thought, but which seems not to have been given any special status? So, in this first hour I would like to spend some time on this question of the relations between the epimeleia heautou (care of the self) and the gnöthi seauton (“know yourself”).
Relying on the work of historians and archaeologists, I would like to make this very simple preliminary remark with regard to the “know yourself.” We should keep the following in mind: In the glorious and spectacular form in which it was formulated and engraved on the temple stone, the gnothi seauton originally did not have the value it later acquired. You know (and we will have to come back to this) the famous text in which Epictetus says that the precept “gnöthi seauton” was inscribed at the center of the human community.9 In fact it undoubtedly was inscribed in this place, which was a center of Greek life, and later of the human community,1° but it certainly did not mean “know yourself” in the philosophical sense of the phrase. The phrase did not prescribe self-knowledge, neither as the basis of morality, nor as part of a rela— tionship with the gods. A number of interpretations have been suggested. There is Roscher’s old interpretation, put forward in 1901 in an article in Philologus,11 in which he recalled that the Delphic precepts were after all addressed to those who came to consult the god and should be read as kinds of ritual rules and recommendations connected with the act of consultation itself. You know the three precepts. According to Roscher the precept mëden agan (“not too much”) certainly does not designate or express a general ethical principle and measure for human conduct. Meden agan (“not too much”) means: You who have come to consult do not ask too many questions, ask only useful questions
those that are necessary The second precept concerning the ezië (the pledges)12 would mean precisely this: When you consult the gods, do not make vows and commitments that you will not be able to honor. As for the gnöthi seauton, according to Roscher it would mean: When you question the orade, examine yourself dosely and the questions you are going to ask, those you wish to ask, and, since you must restrict yourself to the fewest questions and not ask too many, carefully consider yourself and what you need know. Defradas gives a much more recent interpretation, in 1954, in his book on Les Thames de la propagande delphique.13 Defradas proposes a different interpretation, but which also shows, or suggests, that the gnöthi seauton is definitely not a principle of self-knowledge. According to Defradas, the three Deiphic precepts were general demands for prudence: “not too much” in your requests and hopes and no excess in how you conduct yourself. The “pledges” was a precept warning those consulting against excessive generosity. As for the “know yourself,” this was the principle [that] you should always remember that you are only a mortal after all, not a god, and that you should neither presume too much on your strength nor oppose the powers of the deity
Let us skip this quickly. I want to stress something else which has much more to do with the subject with which I am concerned. Whatever meaning was actually given and attached to the Delphic precept “know yourself” in the cult of Apollo, it seems to me to be a fact that when this Delphic precept, this gnöthi seauton, appears in philosophy, in philosophical thought, it is, as we know, around the character of Socrates. Xenophon attests to this in the Memorahilia, as does Plato in a number of texts to which we will have to return. Now not always, but often, and in a highly significant way, when this Delphic precept (this gnothi seauton) appears, it is coupled or twinned with the principle of “take care of yourself” (epimeleia heautou). I say “coupled,” “twinned.” In actual fact, it is not entirely a matter of coupling. In some texts, to which we will have to return, there is, rather, a kind of subordination of the expression of the rule “know yourself” to the precept of care of the self. The g,zöthi seauton (“know yourself”) appears, quite dearly and again in a number of significant texts, within the more general framework of the epimeleia
heautou (care of oneself) as one of the forms, one of the consequences, as
a sort of concrete, precise, and particular application of the general rule:
You must attend to yourself, you must not forget yourself, you must take care of yourself. The rule “know yourself” appears and is formulated within and at the forefront of this care. Anyway, we should not forget that in Plato’s too well-known but still fundamental text, the Apology, Socrates appears as the person whose essential, fundamental, and original function, job, and POStOfl is to encourage others to attend to themselves, take care of themselves, and not neglect themselves. There are in fact three texts, three passages in the Apology that are completely dear and explicit about this.
The first passage is found in 29d of the Apology.15 In this passage, Socrates, defending himself, making a kind of imaginary defense plea before his accusers and judges, answers the following objection. He is reproached with having ended up in a situation of which “he should be ashamed.” The accusation, if you like, consists in saying: I am not really sure what evil you have done, but I avow all the same that it is shame- ful to have led the kind a life that results in you now finding yourself accused before the courts and in danger of being condemned, perhaps condemned to death. Isn’t this, in the end, what is shameful, that some-
one has led a certain life, which while we do not know what it is, is such
that he is in danger of being condemned to death by such a judgment?
In this passage, Socrates replies that, on the contrary, he is very proud of
having led this life and that if ever he was asked to lead a different life
he would refuse. So: I am so proud of the life I have led that I would not change it even if you offered to acquit me. Here are Socrates’ words:
“Athenians, I am grateful to you and love you, but I shall obey God rather than you, and be sure that I will not stop practicing philosophy SO long as I have breath and am able to, [exhorting] you and telling whoever I meet what they should do.”16 And what advice would he give if he is not condemned, since he had already given it before he was accused? To those he meets he will say, as he is accustomed to saying:
Dear friend, you are an Athenian, citizen of the greatest city, more amous than any other for its knowledge and might, yet are you not ashamed for devoting all your care (epimeleisthai) to increasing your
wealth, reputation and honors while not caring for or even considering (epimete, phrontizçis) your reason, truth and the constant improvement of your soul?” Thus Socrates recalls what he has always said and is quite determined to continue to say to those he will meet and stop to question: You care for a whole range of things, for your wealth and your reputation. You do not take care of yourself. He goes on: “And if anyone argues and daims that he does care [for his soui, for truth, for reason; M.F.j, don’t think that I shall let him go and go on my wa No, I shall question him, examine him and argue with him at length Whoever I may meet, young or old, stranger or fellow citizen, this is how I shall act, and especially with you my fellow citizens, since you are my kin. For you should understand that this is what the god demands, and I believe that nothing better has befallen this city than my zeal in executing this command.1B This “command,” then, is the command by which the gods have entrusted Socrates with the task of stopping people, young and old, citizens or strangers, and saying to them: Attend to yourselves. This is Socrates’ task.
In the second passage, Socrates returns to this theme of the care of the self and says that if the Athenians do in fact condemn him to death then he, Socrates, will not lose a great deal. The Athenians, however, will suffer a very heavy and severe loss.19 For, he says, there will no longer be anyone to encourage them to care for themselves and their own virtue unless the gods care enough about them to send someone to replace him, someone who will constantly remind them that they must be concerned about themselves.20
Finally, in 36b-c, there is the third passage, which concerns the penalty incurred. According to the traditional legal forms,21 Socrates himself proposes the penalty he will accept if condemned. Here is the text: “What treatment do I deserve, what amends must I make for thinking I had to relinquish a peaceful life and neglect what most people have at heart—wealth, private interest, military office, success in the assembly, magistracies, alliances and political factions; for being convinced that with my scruples I would be lost if I followed such a course; for not wanting to do what was of no advantage either to you or myself for preferring to do for each particular individual what I dedait
to be the greatest service, trying to persuade him to care (epimeletheie) less about his property than about himself so as to make himself as excellent and reasonable as possible, to consider less the things of the city than the city itself, in short, to apply these same principles to everything? What have I deserved, I ask, for having conducted myself in this way [and for having encouraged you to attend to yourselves? Not punishment, to be sure, not chastisement, but; M.F.] something good, Athenians, if you want to be just.”22
I will stop there for the moment. I just wanted to draw your attention to these passages, in which Socrates basically appears as the person who encourages others to care for themselves, and I would like you to note three or four important things. First, this activity of encouraging others to care for themselves is Socrates’ activity, but it is an activity entrusted to him by the gods. In acting in this way Socrates does no more than carry out an order, perform a function or occupy a post (he uses the term taxis23) determined for him by the gods. In this passage you will also have been able to see that it is because the gods care for the Athenians that they sent Socrates, and may possibly send someone else, to encourage them to care for themselves.
Second, you see as well, and this is very dear in the last passage I read to you, that if Socrates cares for others, then this obviously means that he will not care for himself, or at any rate, that in caring for others he will neglect a range of other activities that are generally thought to be self-interested, profitable, and advantageous. So as to be able to care for others, Socrates has neglected his wealth and a number of civic advantages, he has renounced any political career, and he has not sought any office or magistrac Thus the problem arises of the relation between the “caring for oneself” encouraged by the philosopher, and what caring for himself, or maybe sacrificing himself, must represent for the philosopher, that is to say, the problem, consequently, of the position occupied by the master in this matter of “caring for oneself.”
Third, I have not quoted this passage at great length, but it doesn’t matter, you can look 1 up: in this activity of encouraging others to attend to themselves Socrates says that with regard to his fellow citizens h5 role is that of someone who awakens them.24 The care of the self will
thus be looked upon as the moment of the first awakening. It is situated precisely at the moment the eyes open, when one wakes up and has access to the first light of day. This is the third interesting point in this question of “caring for oneself.”
Finally, again at the end of a passage I did not read to you, there is the famous comparison of Socrates and the horsefly, the insect that chases and bites animals, making them restless and run about.25 The care of oneself is a sort of thorn which must be stuck in men’s flesh, driven into their existence, and which is a principle of restlessness and movement, of con— tinuous concern throughout life. So I think this question of the epimeleia heautou should be rescued from the prestige of the giiöthi seauton that has somewhat overshadowed its importance. In a text, then, which I will try to explain to you a bit more precisely in a moment (the whole of the second part of the famous Alcibiades), you will see how the epimeliea heautou (the care of the self) is indeed the justificatory framework, ground, and foundation for the imperative “know yourself.” So, this notion of epimeliea heautou is important in the figure of Socrates, with whom one usually associates, if not exdusively then at least in a privileged fashion, the gzothi seauton. Socrates is, and always will be, the person associated with care of the self. In a series of late texts, in the Stoics, in the Cynics, and especially in Epictetus,26 you will see that Socrates is always, essentially and fundamentally, the person who stops young men in the street and tells them: “You must care about yourselves.”
The third point concerning this notion of epimeleia heautou and its connections with the gnothi seauton is that the notion of epimeleia heautou did not just accompany, frame, and found the necessity of know ing oneself, and not solely when this necessity appeared in the thought, life, and figure of Socrates. It seems to me that the epimeleia heautou (the care of the self and the rule associated with it) remained a fundamen— tal principle for describing the philosophical attitude throughout Greek, Hellenistic, and Roman culture. This notion of the care of the self was, of course, important in Plato. It was important for the Epicureans, since in Epicurus you find the frequently repeated expression: Every man should take care of his soul day and night and throughout his life.27 For “take care of” Epicurus employs the verb tlzerapeuein,28
which has seveal meanings: t/zerapeuein refers to medical care (a kind of theraPY for the soul which we know was important for the Epicure5)9 but t/zerapeuein is also the service provided by a servant to his master. You know also that therapeuein is related to the duties of worship, to the statutory regular worship rendered to a deity or divine power. The care of the self is crucially important in the Cynics. I refer, for example, to the text cited by Seneca in the first paragraphs of book seven of De Beneficiis, in which the Cynic Demetrius, on the basis of a number of principles to which we will have to return because this is very important, explains how it is pointless to concern oneself with speculations about certain natural phenomena (like, for example, the origin of earthquakes, the causes of storms, the reason for twins), and that one should look instead to immediate things concerning oneself and to a number of rules by which one conducts oneself and controls what one does.3° I don’t need to tell you that the epimeleia heautou is important in the Stoics; it is central in Seneca with the notion of cura
sui, and it permeates the Discourses of Epictetus. Having to care about oneself is not just a condition for gaining access to the philosophical life, in the strict and full sense of the term. You will see, I will try to show you, how generally speaking the principle that one must take care of oneself became the principle of all rational conduct in all forms of active life that would truly conform to the principle of moral rational— ity. Throughout the long summer of Hellenistic and Roman thought, the exhortation to care for oneself became so widespread that it became, I think, a truly general cultural phenomenon.31 What I would like to show you, what I would like to speak about this year, is this history that made this general cultural phenomenon (this exhortation, tts general acceptance of the principle that one should take care of
oneself) both a general cultural phenomenon peculiar to Hellenistic
and Roman society (anyway, to its elite), and at the same time an event
lfl thought.32 It seems to me that the stake, the challenge for any history
of thought, is precisely that of grasping when a cultural phenomenon of
a determinate scale actually constitutes within the history of thought a
decisive moment that is still significant for our modern mode of being
Subjects
One word more: If this notion of the care of oneself, which we see emerging quite explicitly and dearly in the figure of Socrates, traversed and permeated ancient philosophy up to the threshold of Christianity, well, you will find this notion of epimelela (of care) again in Christianity, or in what, to a certain extent, constituted its environment and preparation: Alexandrian spirituality. At any rate, you find this notion of epimeleia given a particular meaning in Philo (De Vita contemplative).33 You find it in Plotinus, in Ennead, II. You find this notion of epimeleia also and especially in Christian asceticism: in Methodius of Olympus35 and Basil of Caesarea.36 It appears in Gregory of Nyssa: in The Life of Moses,37 in the text on The Song of Songs,38 and in the Beatitudes.39 The notion of care of the self is found especially in Book XIII of On Virginity,40 the title of which is, precisely, “That the care of oneself begins with freedom from marriage.”41 Given that, for Gregory of Nyssa, freedom from marriage (celibacy) is actually the first form, the initial inflection of the ascetic life, the assimilation of the first form of the care of oneself and freedom from marriage reveals the extent to which the care of the self had become a kind of matrix of Christian asceticism. You can see that the notion of epimeleia heautou (care of oneself) has a long history extending from the figure of Socrates stopping young people to tell them to take care of themselves up to Christian asceticism making the ascetic life begin with the care of oneself.
It is dear that in the course of this history the notion becomes broader and its meanings are both multiplied and modified. Since the purpose of this year’s course will be to elucidate all this (what I am saying now being only a pure schema, a preliminary overview), let’s say — that within this notion of epimeleia heautou we should bear in mind that there is:
• First, the theme of a general standpoint, of a certain way of considering things, of behaving in the world, undertaking actions, and having relations with other people. The epimeleia heautou is
an attitude towards the self, others, and the world;
• Second, the epimeleia heautou is also a certain form of attention, of looking. Being concerned about oneself implies that we look
away from the outside to. . . I was going to say “inside.” Let’s leave to one side this word, which you can well imagine raises a host of problems, and just say that we must convert our looking from the outside, from others and the world etc., towards “oneself.” The care of the self implies a certain way of attending to what we think and what takes place in our thought. The word epimeleia is related to melefe, which means both exercise and meditation. 42 Again, all this will have to be elucidated;
Third, the notion of epimeleia does not merely designate this general attitude or this form of attention turned on the self. The episneleia also always designates a number of actions exercised on the self by the self, actions by which one takes responsibility for oneself and by which one changes, purifies, transforms, and transfigures oneself. It involves a series of practices, most of which are exercises that will have a very long destiny in the history of Western culture, philosophy, morality, and spirituality. These are, for example, techniques of meditation,43 of memorization of the past, of examination of conscience, of checking representations which appear in the mind,45 and so on.
FWith this theme of the care of the self, we have then, if you like, an early philosophical formulation, appearing clearly in the fifth century
B.C., of a notion which permeates all Greek, Hellenistic, and Roman philosophy, as well as Christian spirituality, up to the fourth and fifth centuries A.D. In short, with this notion of epimeleia heautou we have a body of work defining a way of being, a standpoint, forms of reflection, and practices which make it an extremely important phenomenon not Just in the history of representations, notions, or theories, but in the history of subjectivity itself or, if you like, in the history of practices of subjectivt. Anyway, as a working hypothesis at least, this onethousandyear development from the appearance of the first forms of
the Philosophical attitude in the Greeks to the first forms of Christian asceticism_from the fifth century B.C. to the fifth century A.D.—can be taken up starting from this notion of epimeleia heautou. Between the Ph1ilosophical exercise and Christian asceticism there are a thousand
years of transformation and evolution in which the care of the self is undoubtedly one of the main threads or, at any rate, to be more modest, let’s say one of the possible main threads.
Even so, before ending these general remarks, I would like to pose the following question: Why did Western thought and philosophy neglect the notion of epimeleia heautou (care of the self) in its reconstruction of its own history? How did it come about that we accorded so much privilege, value, and intensity to the “know yourself” and omitted, or at least, left in the shadow, this notion of care of the self that, in actual fact, historically, when we look at the documents and texts, seems to have framed the principle of “know yourself” from the start and to have supported an extremely rich and dense set of notions, practices, ways of being, forms of existence, and so on? Why does the gzöthi seautou have this privileged status for us, to the detriment of the care of oneself? Okay, what I will sketch out here are of course hypotheses with many question marks and ellipses.
Just to begin with, entirely superficially and without resolving any thing, but as something that we should maybe bear in mind, I think we can say that there is dearly something a bit disturbing for us in this principle of the care of the self. Indeed, going through the texts, the different forms of philosophy and the different forms of exercises and philosophical or spiritual practices, we see the principle of care of the self expressed in a variety of phrases like: “caring for oneself,” “taking care of the self,” “withdrawing into oneself,” “retiring into the self,” “finding one’s pleasure in oneself,” “seeking no other delight but in the self,” “remaining in the company of oneself,” “being the friend of oneself,” “being in one’s self as in a fortress,” “looking after” or “devoting oneself to oneself,” “respecting oneself,” etc. Now you are well aware that there is a certain tradition (or rather, several traditions) that dissuades us (us, now, today) from giving any positive value to all these expressions, precepts, and rules, and above all from making them the basis of a morality All these injunctions to exalt oneself, to devote oneself to oneself, to turn in on oneself, to offer service to oneself, sound to our ears rather like—what? Like a sort of challenge and defiance, a desire for radical ethical change, a sort of moral dandyism, the assertion- challenge of a fixed aesthetic and individual stage.’ Or else they sound to
USlike a somewhat melancholy and sad expression of the withdray.ral of the individual who is unable to hold on to and keep firmly before his eyes, in iis grasp and for himself, a collective morality (that of the city-state, for
exampk), and who, faced with the disintegration of this collective morality, has naught else to do but attend to himself.47 So, the immediate, initial (QflflOtatiOfl5 and overtones of all these expressions direct us away from thinking about these precepts in positive terms. Now, in all of the ancient
thought I am talking about, whether it be Socrates or Gregory of Nyssa, “taking care of oneself” always has a positive and never a negative meaning. A further paradox is that this injunction to “take care of oneself” is the basis for the constitution of what have without doubt been the most austere, strict, and restrictive moralities known in the West, moralities which, I repeat, should not be attributed to Christianity (this was the object of last year’s course), but rather to the morality of the first centuries B.C. and the first centuries A.D. (Stoic, Cynic and, to a certain extent, Epicurean morality). Thus, we have the paradox of a precept of care of the self which signifies for us either egoism or withdrawal, but which for centuries was rather a positive principle that was the matrix for extremely strict moralities. A further paradox which should be mentioned to explain the way in which this notion of care of the self was somehow overshadowed is that the strict morality and austere rules arising from the principle “take care of yourself” have been taken up again by us: These rules in fact appear, or reappear, either in a Christian morality or in a modern, non-Christian morality However, they do so in a different context. These austere rules,
which are found again identical in their codified structure, appear reacclimatized, transposed, and transferred within a context of a general ethic of non-egoism taking the form either of a Christian obligation of selfftflunciation or of a “modern” obligation towards others—whether this
be other people, the collectivity, the dass, or the fatherland etc. So, Christiamty and the modern world has based all these themes and codes of moral strictness on a morality of non-egoism whereas in actual fact they were born within an environment strongly marked by the obligation to
take care of oneself. I think this set of paradoxes is one of the reasons why th15 theme of the care of the self was somewhat neglected and able to disappear from the concerns of historians.
However, I think there is a reason that is much more fundamental
than these paradoxes of the history of morality This pertains to the 1 problem of truth and the history of truth. It seems to me that the more
serious reason why this precept of the care of the self has been forgotten, the reason why the place occupied by this principle in ancient culture for nigh on one thousand years has been obliterated, is what I will call— with what I know is a bad, purely conventional phrase—the “Cartesian moment.” It seems to me that the “Cartesian moment,” again within a lot of inverted commas, functioned in two ways. It came into play in two ways: by philosophically requalifying the gnothi seauton (know yourself), and by discrediting the epimeleia heautou (care of the self).
First, the Cartesian moment philosophically requalified the gnothi seauton (know yourself). Actually, and here things are very simple, the Cartesian approach, which can be read quite explicitly in the Meditations,8 placed self-evidence (I’e’vidence) at the origin, the point of departure of the philosophical approach—self-evidence as it appears, that is to say as it is given, as it is actually given to consciousness without any possible doubt [...]*. The Cartesian approach therefore] refers to knowledge of the self, as a form of consciousness at least. What’s more, by putting the self-evidence of the subject’s own existence at the very source of access to being, this knowledge of oneself (no longer in the form of the test of self-evidence, but in the form of the impossibility of doubting my existence as subject) made the “know yourself” into a fundamental means of access to truth. Of course, there is a vast distance between the Socratic gnöthi seauton and the Cartesian approach. However, you can see why, from the seventeenth century, starting from this step, the principle of gnöthi seauton as founding moment of the philosophical method was acceptable for a number of philosophical approaches or practices. But if the Cartesian approach thus requalified the g’zothi seauton, for reasons that are fairly easy to isolate, at the same time—and I want to stress this—it played a major part in discrediting the principle of care of the self and in exduding it from the field of modem philosophical thought.
*Only “whatever the effort...” is audible.
Let’s stand back a little to consider this. We will call, if you like, “philosophy” the form of thought that asks, not of course what is true and what is false, but what determines that there is and can be truth and falsehood and whether or not we can separate the true and the false. We will call “philosophy” the form of thought that asks what it is that enables the subject to have access to the truth and which attempts to determine the conditions and limits of the subject’s access to the truth. If we call this “philosophy,” then I think we could call “spirituality” the search, practice, and experience through which the subject carries out
the necessary transformations on himself in order to have access to the truth. We will call “spirituality” then the set of these researches, practices, and experiences, which may be purifications, ascetic exercises, renunciations, conversions of looking, modifications of existence, etc., which are, not for knowledge but for the subject, for the subject’s very being, the price to be paid for access to the truth. Let’s say that spirituality, as it appears in the West at least, has three characteristics.
Spirituality postulates that the truth is never given to the subject by right. Spirituality postulates that the subject as such does not have right of access to the truth and is not capable of having access to the truth. It postulates that the truth is not given to the subject by a simple act of knowledge (connaissance), which would be founded and justified simply by the fact that he is the subject and because he possesses this or that structure of subjectivity It postulates that for the subject to have right of access to the truth he must be changed, transformed, shifted, and become, to some extent and up to a certain point, other than himself. The truth is only given to the subject at a price that brings the subject’s being into play. For as he is, the subject is not capable of truth. I think that this is the simplest but most fundamental formula by which spirituality can be defined It follows that from this point of view there can be no truth Without a conversion or a transformation of the subject. This conversion, th15 transformation of the subject—and this will be the second major aspect of spirituality—may take place in different forms. Very roughly we can say (and this is again a very schematic survey) that this conversion They take place in the form of a movement that removes the subject from is Current status and condition (either an ascending movement of the
subject himself, or else a movement by which the truth comes to him and enlightens him). Again, quite conventionally, let us call this movement, n either of its directions, the movement of eros (love). Another major Form through which the subject can and must transform himself in order to have access to the truth is a kind of work. This is a work of the self on the self, an elaboration of the self by the self, a progressive transformation of the self by the self for which one takes responsibility in a long labor of ascesis (askësis). ErOs and askësis are, I think, the two major forms in Western spirituality for conceptualizing the modalities by which the subject must be transformed in order finally to become capable of truth. This is the second characteristic of spirituality
Finally, spirituality postulates that once access to the truth has really been opened up, it produces effects that are, of course, the consequence of the spiritual approach taken in order to achieve this, but which at the same time are something quite different and much more: effects which I will call “rebound” (“de retour”), effects of the truth on the subject. For spirituality, the truth is not just what is given to the subject, as reward for the act of knowledge as it were, and to fulfill the act of knowledge. The truth enlightens the subject; the truth gives beatitude to the subject; the truth gives the subject tranquility of the soul. In short, in the truth and in access to the truth, there is something that fulfills the sub ject himself, which fulfills or transfigures his very being. In short, I think we can say that in and of itself an act of knowledge could never give access to the truth unless it was prepared, accompanied, doubled, and completed by a certain transformation of the subject; not of the individual, but of the subject himself in his being as subject.
There is no doubt an enormous objection to everything I have been saying, an objection to which it will be necessary to return, and which is, of course, the gnosis.49 However, the gnosis, and the whole Gnostic movement, is precisely a movement that overloads the act of knowledge (connaissance), to [whichj sovereignty is indeed granted in access to the truth. This act of knowledge is overloaded with all the conditions and structure of a spiritual act. The gnosis is, in short, that which tends to transfer, to transpose, the forms and effects of spiritual experience jfltO the act of knowledge itself. Schematically, let’s say that throughout the
eriod we call Antiquity, and in quite different modalities, the philo5 ophical question of “how to have access to the truth” and the practice
of spirituality (of the necessary transformations in the very being of the subject which will allow access to the truth), these two questions,
[ these two themes, were never separate. It is dear they were not separate for the Pythagoreans. Neither were they separate for Socrates and Plato:
the epimeleia heautou (care of the self) designates precisely the set of conditions of spirituality, the set of transformations of the self, that are the necessary conditions for having access to the truth. So, throughout Antiquity (in the Pythagoreans, Plato, the Stoics, Cynics, Epicureans, and Neo-Platonists), the philosophical theme (how to have access to the truth?) and the question of spirituality (what transformations in the being of the subject are necessary for access to the truth?) were never separate. There is, of course, the exception, the major and fundamental exception: that of the one who is called “the” philosopher,° because he was no doubt the only philosopher in Antiquity for whom the question of spirituality was least important; the philosopher whom we have recognized as the founder of philosophy in the modern sense of the term: Aristotle. But as everyone knows, Aristotle is not the pinnade of Antiquity but its exception.
Now, leaping over several centuries, we can say that we enter the modern age (I mean, the history of truth enters its modern period) when it is assumed that what gives access to the truth, the condition for the subject’s access to the truth, is knowledge (connaissance) and knowledge alone. It seems to me that what I have called the “Cartesian moment” takes on its position and meaning at this point, without in any way my wanting to say that it is a question of Descartes, that he was its inventor or that he was the first to do this. I think the modern age of the history of truth begins when knowledge itself and knowledge alone gives access to the truth. That is to say, it is when the philosopher (or the Scientist, or simply someone who seeks the truth) can recognize the truth and have access to it in himself and solely through his activity of Kflowing without anything else being demanded of him and without
himh . . 1•
aving to change or alter his being as subject. Of course, tnis does not mean that the truth is obtained without conditions. But these
conditions are of two orders, neither of which fall under the conditions of spirituality. On the one hand, there are the internal conditions of the act of knowledge and of the rules it must obey to have access to the truth: formal conditions, objective conditions, formal rules of method, the structure of the object to be known.51 However, in any case, the conditions of the subject’s access to the truth are defined within knowledge. The other conditions are extrinsic. These are conditions such as: “In order to know the truth one must not be mad” (this is an important moment in Descartes).52 They are also cultural conditions: to have access to the truth we must have studied, have an education, and operate within a certain scientific consensus. And there are moral conditions: to know the truth we must make an effort, we must not seek to deceive our world, and the interests of financial reward, career, and status must be combined in a way that is fully compatible with the norms of disinterested research, etcetera. As you can see, these are all conditions that are either intrinsic to knowledge or extrinsic to the act of knowledge, but which do not concern the subject in his being; they only concern the individual in his concrete existence, and not the structure of the subject as such. At this point (that is, when we can say: “As such the subject is, anyway, capable of truth”—with the two reservations of conditions intrinsic to knowledge and conditions extrinsic to the individual*), when the subject’s being is not put in question by the necessity of having access to the truth, I think we have entered a different age of the history of relations between subjectivity and truth. And the consequence—or, if you like, the other aspect of this—is that access to truth, whose sole condition is henceforth knowledge, will find reward and fulfillment in nothing else but the indefinite development of knowledge. The point of enlightenment and fulfillment, the moment of the subject’s transfiguration by the “rebound effect” on himself of the truth he knows, and which passes through, permeates, and transfigures his being, can no longer exist. We can no longer think that access to the
*flle manuscript (by which we designate the written notes Foucault used to support the delive’l of this course at the College de France) allows this last point to be understood as extrinsic, that 4.4, is to say individual, conditions of knowledge.
truth will complete in the subject, like a crowning or a reward, the work or the sacrifice, the price paid to arrive at it. Knowledge will simply open out onto the indefinite dimension of progress, the end of which is unknown and the advantage of which will only ever be realized in the course of history by the institutional accumulation of bodies of knowledge, or the psychological or social benefits to be had from having discovered the truth after having taken such pains to do so. As such, henceforth the truth cannot save the subject. If we define spirituality as being the form of practices which postulate that, such as he is, the subject is not capable of the truth, but that, such as it is, the truth can transfigure and save the subject, then we can say that the modern age of the relations between the subject and truth begin when it is postulated that, such as he is, the subject is capable of truth, but that, such as it is, the truth cannot save the subject. Okay, a short rest if you like. Five minutes and then we will begin again.
1. From 1982, Foucault, who previously had both lectured and held a seminar, decided to give up the seminar and just lecture, but for two hours.
2. See the summary of the 1980-1981 course at the Collage de France in M. Foucault, (his ci crits, 1954-1988, ed. Daniel Defert and François Ewald (Paris: Gallimard, 1994), vol. 4, pp. 213-18; English translation by Robert Hurley “Subjectivity and Truth” in Michel Foucault, Essential Works of Foucault 1954-1984, voi. 1: Ethics: Subjectivity and Truth, ed. Paul Rabinow translations by Robert Hurley Ct a] (New York: The New Press, 1997), pp. 87-92.
3. For the first elaboration of this theme, see the lecture of 28January 1981, but more especially M. Foucault, L’Usage des p/aisles (Pads: Gallimard, 1984), pp. 47-62; English translation by Robert Honey, The Use of Pleasure (New York: Pantheon Books, 1985), pp. 38-52. By aphnsdisia Foucault understands an expenence, which is a historical experience: the Greek experience of pleasures as opposed to the Christian experience of theflesh and the modern experience of sexuality. The aphevdlsia are identified as the “ethical substance” of ancient moralit5
4. In the first lecture of the 1981 course (“Subjectivitk et verité,” 7 January 1981) Foucault states that what is at stake in his research is whether it was not precisely paganism that developed the strictness and sense of decency of our moral code (which, furthermore, would problematize the break between Christianity and paganism in the field of a history of morality).
5. In the 1981 lectures there are no analyses explicitly concerned with the care of the self, but there are lengthy analyses dealing with the arts of existence and processes of sub jectivation (the lectures of 13 January, 25 March, and 1 April). However, generally speaking, the 1981 course continues to focus exdusively on the Status of the aphrodisia in pagan ethics of the first two centuries A.D. while maintaining that we cannot speak of subjectivity in the Greek world, the ethical element being determined as bios (mode of life).
6. All the important texts of Cicero, Lucretius, and Seneca on these problems of translation have been brought together by Carlos Levy in his article, “Du grec au latin,” in Le Discours phiosophique (Paris: PUF, 1998), pp. 1145-54.
7. “If I do everything in my own interest, it is because the interest I have in myself comes before everything else (Si omnia pmpter curam meifacio, ante omnia est mci rura.).” Seneca, Letters, CXXI.17.
8. See P. Courcelle, Connais-toi même, de Socrate a saint Bernard (Paris: Etudes augustiniennes,
1974), 3 volumes.
9. Epictetus, Discourses, III.i.18-19.
10. For the Greeks, Delphi was the geographical center of the world (omphalos: the world’s navel), where the two eagles sent by Zeus from the opposite sides of the Earth’s circunl ference came together. Delphi became an important religious center at the end of the eighth century s.c. (the sanctuary of Apollo from which Python delivered oracles) and continued to be so until the end of the fourth century A.O., extending its audience to the entire Roman world.
ii. W. H. Roscher, “Weiteres isber die Bedeutung des E[ggziaj zu Delphi und die ubrigeii grammata De/phika,” Phi/ologus 60, 1901, pp. 81-101.
12. The second maxim is: eua, para d’aff. See Plutarch’s Statement fl Dinner of the Seven Wise Men, 164b: “Until I have learned it from these gentlemen, I won’t be able to explain to you the meaning of the precepts Not too much and Know yourse’f and the famous maxim which has stopped so many from getting married, has made so many others mistrustful and others silent: Commitment brings misfortune (eggua pam d’ata).”
13. J. Defradas, Les Themes de Ia propaganda de/phique (Paris: Klincksieck, 1954), ch. 3, “ sagesse delphique,” pp. 268-83.
14. “Then Socrates demanded: ‘Tell me, Euthydemus, have you ever been to Delphi?’
‘Yes, by Zeus,’ Euthydemus answered, ‘I have even been twice.’
‘Then did you notice somewhere on the temple the inscription: Know yourself?’
‘Yes.’
‘Did you just idly glance at it, or did you pay attention to It and try to examine who you are?’” icenophon, Memorabilia, IV.ll.24.
15 For his lectures Foucault usually Uses the Belles Lettres edition (otherwise called the BudC edition) that enables him to have the original Greek or Latin facing the translation. This
is why for the important terms and passages he accompanies his reading with references to the text in the original language. Moreover, when Foucault reads French translations in this way, he does not always follow them to the letter, but adapts them to the demands of oral style, multiplying logical connectors (“and,” “or,” “that is to say,” “well,” etc.) or giving reminders of the preceding arguments. Usually we restore the original French translation while indicating, in the text, significant additions (followed by “M.F.”) in brackets.
16. Plato, Apology, 29d.
17. Foucault here cuts a sentence from 30a: “If it seems clear that, despite what he says, he does not possess virtue, I shall reproach him for attaching less value to what has the most value
and more value to what has the least.” Ibid.
18. Ibid.. 30a.
19. “1 tell you, being what I am, it is not to me that you do the most wrong if you condemn me to death, but to yourselves.” Ibid., 30c.
20. Foucault refers here to a development of the exposition from 31a to 31c.
21. In 35e-37a, on being told of his condemnation to death, Socrates proposes an alternative penalty Actually, in the kind of trial Socrates undergoes, there is no pena]ty fixed by law:
it is up to the judges to determine the penalty The penalty demanded by the accusers (and indicated in the charge) was death, and the judges acknowledge that Socrates is guilty of the misdeeds of which he is accused and therefore liable to incur this penalty However, at this moment of the trial, Socrates, recognized as guilty, must propose an alternative penalty It is only after this that the judges must fix a punishment for the accused on the basis of the penal proposals of the two parties. For further details see C. MossC, i.e Pnscès de Socrate (Brussels: Ed. Complexe, 1996) as well as the lengthy introduction by L Bnisson to his edition of the Apologie de Socrate (Paris: Gamier Flammarion, 1997).
22. Apology, 36b-d.
23. This alludes to the famous passage of 28d: “The true principle, Athenians, is this. Someone who oeeupies a post (taxë), whether chosen by himself as most honorable or placed there by a commander, has to my mind the duty to remain firmly in place whatever the risk, without thought of death or danger, rather than sacrifice honor.” Epictetus praises steadfastness in one’s post as the philosophical attitude par excellence. See, for example, Discourses, I.ix.24, and III.,iv36 and 95, in which Epictetus alternates between the terms taxis and khöns. See also the end of Seneca’s On the Fsnnness of the Wise Man, XIX.4: “Defend the post (locum) that nature has assigned you. You ask what post? That of a man.”
24. Socrates warns the Athenians of what will happen if they condemn him to death: “You will spend the rest of your life asleep.” Apology, 31a.
25. “If you put me to death you will not easily find another man. . . attached to you by the will of the gods in order to stimulate you like a horsefly stimulates a horse.” Apology, 30e.
26. Dd Socrates manage to persuade all those who came to him to take care of themselves (eplmeleis,hai heautIn)?” Epictetus, Discourses, III.i.19.
27. It is found in the Letter to Menoeceus, 122. More exactly the text says: “For no-one is it ever too early or too late for ensuring the soul’s health. . . So young and old should practice Philosophyn This quotation is taken up by Foucault in Michel Foucault, Histoire de Ia sex- Salute, vol. 3, Le Soucu de soi (Paris: Gallimard, 1984), p. 60; English translation by Robert
28 Hurley, The Care of the SeF(New York: Pantheon, 1985), p. 46.
Actually, the Greek text has “to kata psukhn huguainon.” The verb therapeuein appears only Once in Epicurus, in Vatican Sayings, 55: “We should treat (therapeuteon) misfortunes with the grateful memory of what we have lost and with the knowledge that what has come
2 about cannot be undone.”
The center of gravity for the whole of this theme is Epicurus’s phrase: “The discourse of e Philpher who does not treat any human affection is empty Just as a doctor who does
not get rid of bodily illnesses is useless, so also is a philosophy if it does not get rid of the affection of the soul (221 Us.).” Translated by A.—J. Voelke in his La Philosophic comme thirapie de l’âme (Paris: Ed. du Cerf, 1993), p. 36. In the same work, see the artides: “Sante de l’Ime et bonheur de Ia raison. 1a fonction therapeutique de Ia philosophic dans épicurisme” and “Opinions vides et troubles de l’âine: Ia medication épicurienne.”
30. Seneca, On Bef Its, VILi.3-7. This text is analyzed at length in the lecture of 10 February, second hour.
31. For a conceptualization of the notion of culture of the self, see the lecture of 6 January, first hour.
32. On the concept of the event in Foucault, see “Nietzsche, Ia généalogie, l’histoire” (1971) in flits et E.crits, vol. 2, p. 136, for the Nietzschean roots of the concept; and “Mon corps, cc papier, cc feu” in flits et E.crits, vol. 2, p. 260 on the polemical value of the event in thought against a Derridean metaphysics of the originary (English translations by Robert Hurley and others, as “Nietzsche, Genealogy, History” and “My Body, This Paper, This Fire,” in Essential Works of Foucault, 1954-1984, vol. 2: Aesthetics, Method and Epistemology, ed., J.D. Faubion, translations by Robert Hurley et al [New York: New Press, 2000]), “Table ronde du 20 mai 1978” for the program of an “événementialisation” of historical knowledge, flits et Ecrits, vol. 4, p. 23; and, in particular, “Pniémique, politique, et problkmatisations” in flits et Ecrits, vol. ‘, concerning the distinctiveness of the history of thought (translated by I.ydia Davis as “Polemics, Politics, and Problematizations: An Interview with Michel Foucault” in Ethics: Subjectivity and Truth).”
33. “Considering the seventh day to be very holy and a great festival, they accord it a special honor: on this day, after caring for the soul (ts psukhës epimeleian), they anoint their bodies with oil.” Philo of Alexandria, On the Contemplative 14k, 477M, IV.36.
34. “Then we will contemplate the same objects as [the soul of the universe], because we also will be well prepared thanks to our nature and our effort (epimeleiais).” Plotinus, The Enneads, 11.9.18.
35. “The law eliminates fate by teaching that virtue is taught and develops if one applies oneself to it (ex epimelelas pmsginomenen).” Methodius of Olympus, The Banquet, 172c.
36. “Hate toinun he agan haurE tou sömatos epimeleia auto te alusitetes to sOmati, kai pros ten psukhtn empodion esti; to ge hupopeptOkenai toutO hat therapeuein mania saphes” (“When excessive care for the body becomes useless for the body and harmful to the soul, submitting to it and attaching oneself to it seems an obvious madness”). Basil of Caesarea, Senno de legendis libris gentilium, 584d, inJ.-P. Migne, ed. Patrologie grecque (SEU Petit-Montrouge, 1857), vol. 31.
37. “Now that [Moses] had raised himself to the highest level in the virtues of the soul, both by lengthy application (makras epimeleias) and by knowledge from on high, it is, rather, a happy and peaceful encounter that he has with his brother. . . The help given by God to our nature .. . only appears . . . when we are sufficiently familiarized with the life from on high through progress and application (epimeleias).” Grégoire de Nysse [Gregory of Nyssa], La Vie de Moise, ou Traiti de la perfection en mature de la vertue, translations by J. DaniClou (Paris: Ed. du Cerf, 1965), 337c-d, 43-44, pp. 130-131; see also 55 in 341b, setting out the requirement of a “long and serious study (toiaurés kai tosautCs epimeleias),” p. 138.
38. “But now I have returned here to this same grace, joined by love to my master; also strengthen in me what is ordered and stable in this grace, you the friends of my fiancé, who, by your cares (epiineleias) and attention, preserve the impulse in me towards the divine.” Grégoire de Nysse, Ii Cantique des cantsques, translations by C. Bouchet (Paris: Migne, 1990), p. 106.
39. “Es oun apokluseias palm di’episneleias biou ton epiplasthenta tt kardia sou rupon, analampsei soi tO theoeirtes halos (If, on the other hand, you purify the dregs spread out in your heart by taking care of your life, the divine beauty will shine within you).” Gregory of Nyssa. De &atitudinibus, Oratio VI, in Patrologie grecque, vol. 44, p. 1272a.
10. Gregory of Nyssa, Treatise on Virginity. See in the same book the parable of the lost drachm5 I (300c-301c, XII), often cited by Foucault to illustrate the care of the self. See the lectuit
(“Technologies of the Self” in Ethics: Subjectivity and Truth, p. 227); “1_es techniques de so in flits et Ecrits, vol. 4, p. 787: “By filth, we should understand, I think, the taint of the flesh:
when one has ‘swept it away’ and deared it by the ‘care’ (epimeleia) that one takes of one° life, the object appears in broad daylight.” 301c XII, 3.
an interview in January 1984, Foucault notes that in this text by Gregory of Nyssa
41. (303c3O5c, XIII) the care of the self is essentially defined as “the renunciation of all
ztlJy attachments. It is the renunciation of all that may be love of self, of attachment to
an earthly self” (“L’ethique du souci de scsi comme pratique de Ia liberté,” in flits et Ecrits, d. 4, p. 716; English translation by P. Aranov and D. McGrawth, “The Ethics of the Concern for Self as a Practice of Freedom” in Ethics: Subjectivity and Truth, p. 288).
42 On the meaning of melefe, see the lecture of 3 March, second hour, and 17 March, first hour. 3 On the techniques of meditation, and the meditation on death in particular, see the lectures
of 27 February, second hour, 3 March, first hour, and 24 March, second hour. . On examination of conscience see the lecture of 24 March, second hour.
45. On the technique of screening representations, in Marcus Aurelius in particular, and
in comparison with the examination of ideas in Cassian, see the lecture of 24 February,
first hour.
4o. In “moral dandyism” we can see a reference to Bauddaire (see Foucault’s pages on “the atti tude of modernity” and the Baudelairean ethos in “What is Enlightenment?” in Ethics:
subjectivity and Truth, pp. 310-12 [French version “Qu’est-ce que les Lumiéres?” in flits et [H E.c,*s, vol. 4, pp. 568-71) and in the “aesthetic stage” there is a dear allusion to
Kierkegaard’s existential triptych (aesthetic, ethical, and religious stages), the aesthetic
Psphere (embodied by the Wandering Jew, Faust, and Don Juan) being that of the individ ua who exhausts the moments of an indefinite quest as so many fragile atoms of pleasure (it is irony that allows transition to the ethical). Foucault was a great reader of Kierkegaard, although he hardly ever mentions th5 author, who nonetheless had for him an importance as secret as it was decisive.
47. This thesis of the Hellenistic and Roman philosopher no longer finding the basis for the
freeuse of his moral and political action in the new sociopolitical conditions (as if the Greek city-state had always been its natural element), and finding in the self a last resort
intowhich to withdraw, became a topos, if not unchallenged self-evidence of the history of philosophy (shared by Bréhier, Festugière and others). During the second half of the century, the artides on epigraphy and the teaching of a famous scientist with an international audience, Louis Robert (“Opera minora selecta”. Epzgraphie et antiquités grecques [Amsterdam: Haklcert, 1989], vol.6, p. 715) made this vision of the Greek lost in a world which was too big and in which he was deprived of his city state outmoded (I owe all this information to Paul Veyne). This thesis of the obliteration of the city-state in the Hellenistic period is thus strongly challenged by, among others, Foucault in La Souci de soi (The Care of the Sei[ part three, ch. 2, “The Political Game”, pp. 81-95, and see also pp. 41-43). For Foucault it is primarily a question of challenging the thesis of a breakup of the political framework of the city-state in the Hellenistic monarchies (pp. 81-83) and then of showing (and again in this course) that the care of the self is basically defined as a mode of living rather than as an individualistic resort (“The care of the self.. . appears then as an intensification of social relations,” p. 53). P. Hadot, in Qu ‘estee que Ia philosophic antique? (Paris: Callimard, 1995), pp.146-47, traces this prejudice of a disappearance of the Greek city state back to a work by G. Murray, Four Stages of Greek Religion (New York:
[ Columbia University Press, 1912).
48. Descartes, Meditations sur la philosophic premiire (1641), in F_uvres (Paris: Gallimard/
Bibliothèque de Ia PlCiade, 1952); English translation by John Cottingham, in Descartes, Meditations on First Philosophy, ed. John Cottingham (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996).
9. Gnosticism represents an esoteric philosophico religious movement that developed in the first centuries A.n. This extremely widespread movement, which is difficult to delimit and define, rejected both by the Church Fathers and by philosophy inspired by Platonism. The “gnosis” (from the Greek gnosis: knowledge) designates an esoteric knowledge that offers salvation to whomever has access to it, and for the initiated it represents knowledge of is Origin and destination as well as the secrets and mysteries of the higher world (bringing the promise of a heavenly voyage), uncovered on the basis of secret exegetical traditions. In this sense of a salvationist, initiatory, and symbolic knowledge, the “gnosis” covers a vast set o JUdeo.Chnstian speculations based on the Bible. The “Gnostic” movement, through the
revelation of a supernatural knowledge, thus promises liberation of the soul and victory over the evil cosmic power. For a literary reference see Michel Foucault, “La prose d’Actéon” in Dits et Ecnts, vol. 1, p. 326. It is likely, as A. I. Davidson has suggested to me, that Foucault was familiar with the studies of H. C. Puech on this subject (See Stir le manicliiisme et Autres Essais [Paris: Flammarion, 19791).
50. “The” philosopher is how Aquinas designates Aristotle in his commentaries.
51. In the classification of the conditions of knowledge that follow we find, like a muffled echo, what Foucault called “procedures of limitation of discourse” in his inaugural lecture at the College de France, L’Ordre du discours (Paris, Gallimard, 1971). However, in 1970 the fundamental element was discourse, as an anonymous and blank sheet, whereas everything here is structured around the articulation of the “subject” and “truth.”
52. We can recognize here an echo of the famous analysis devoted to the Meditations in Foucault’s Histoire de la folie (Paris: Gallimard/Tel, 1972). In the exercise of doubt, Descartes encounters the vertigo of madness as a reason for doubting, and he excludes it a pnori refuses to countenance it, preferring the gentle ambiguities of the dream: “madness is excluded by the doubting subject” (p. 7). Derrida immediately challenged this thesis in “Cogito et Histoire de Ia folie” (in L’Ecrzture ci Ia Difference, Paris: fd. du Seuil, 1967; English translation by A. Bass, “Cogito and the History of Madness,” in Writing and Dfference, I.ondon: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1978), which takes up a lecture delivered on 4 March 1963 at the CollCge philosophique, showing that the peculiarity of the Cartesian Cogito is precisely to take on the risk of a “total madness” by resorting to the hypothesis of the evil genius (pp. 81-82; English translation pp. 52-53). We know that Foucault, openly stung by this criticism, some years later published a masterly response, raising a specialist quarrel to the level of an ontological debate through a rigorous textual explanation (“My Body, This Paper, This Fire,” and “Réponse a Derrida,” in Dits et E.crits, vol. 2). Thus was born what is called the “Foucault/Derrida polemic” about Descartes’ Meditations.
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