"The Hermeneutics of the Subject" is the third volume in the collection of Michel Foucault's lectures at the College de France, where faculty give public lectures on any topic of their choosing. Attended by thousands, Foucault's lectures were seminal events in the world of French letters, and his ideas expressed there remain benchmarks of contemporary critical inquiry. Foucault's wide-ranging lectures at this school, delivered throughout the 1970s and early 1980s, clearly influenced his groundbreaking books, especially "The History of Sexuality" and "Discipline and Punish," In the lectures comprising this volume, Foucault focuses on how the "self" and the "care of the self" were conceived during the period of antiquity, beginning with Socrates. The problems of the ethical formation of the self, Foucault argues, form the background for our own questions about subjectivity and remain at the center of contemporary moral thought. This series of lectures continues to throw new light on Foucault's final works, and shows the full depth of his engagement with ancient thought. Lucid and provocative, "The Hermeneutics of the Subject" reveals Foucault at the height of his powers.
Table of Contents
Foreword: Francois Ewald and Alessandro Fontana Introduction: Arnold I. Davidson Translator's Note One:6 January 1982: First Hour 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 fromThe 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 practices. -- Reasons for the modern elimination of care of the self in favor of self-knowledge: modern morality; the Cartesian moment. -- The Gnostic exception. -- Philosophy and spirituality. Two:6 January 1982: Second Hour Presence of conflicting requirements of spirituality: science and theology before Descartes; classical and modern philosophy; Marxism and psychoanalysis. -- Analysis of a Lacedaemonian maxim: the care of the self as statutory privilege. -- First analysis of Plato'sAlcibiades. -- Alcibiades' political expectations and Socrates' intervention. -- The education of Alcibiades compared with that of young Spartans and Persian Princes. -- Contextualization of the first appearance of the requirement of care of the self inAlcibiades: political expectation and pedagogical deficiency; critical age; absence of political knowledge(savior). -- The indeterminate nature of the self and its political implications. Three: 13 January 1982: First Hour Contexts of appearance of the Socratic requirement of care of the self: the political ability of young men from good families; the (academic and erotic) limits of Athenian pedagogy; the ignorance of which one is unaware. -- Practices of transformation of the self in archaicGreece. -- Preparation for dreaming and testing techniques in Pythagoreanism. -- Techniques of the self in Plato'sPhaedo. -- Their importance in Hellenistic philosophy. -- The question of the being of the self one must take care of in theAbcibiades. -- Definition of the self as soul. -- Definition of the soul as subject of action. -- The care of the self in relation to dietetics, economics, and erotics. -- The need for a master of the care. Four:13 January 1982: Second Hour Determination of care of the self as self-knowledge in theAlcibiades: conflict between the two requirements in Plato's work. -- The metaphor of the eye: source of vision and divine element. -- End of the dialogue: the concern for justice. -- Problems of the dialogue's authenticity and its general relation to Platonism. -- Care of the self in theAlcibiadesin its relation to political action, pedagogy, and the erotics of boys. -- Anticipation in theAlcibiadesof the fate of care of the self in Platonism. -- Neo-Platonist descendants ofAlcibiades. -- The paradox of Platonism. Five:20 January 1982: First Hour The care of the self from Alcibiades to the first two centuries A.D.: general evolution. -- Lexical study around theepimeleia. -- A constellation of expressions. -- Generalizations of the care of the self: that it is coextensive with the whole of life. --Readingof texts: Epicurus, Musonius Rufus, Seneca, Epictetus, Philo ofAlexandria, Lucian. -- Ethical consequences of this generalization: care of self
