We fail to appreciate how artists
actually
work to produce an art object and
?
?
Foucault-Key-Concepts
On the one hand, this guidance seems completely natural: are we not all trying our best to be ourselves?
Yet, on the other hand, the directive, be yourself, some?
- times sounds strangely hollow: after all, who else could I possibly be but myself?
Of course, everyone is familiar with the many ways in which we fail to be ourselves.
We all know the pressures and impulses to conform, to mask, to deny ourselves.
We say what we think others want us to say; we act the way others want us to act.
We lie to ourselves, betray our- selves, forget ourselves, let ourselves down, and neglect ourselves.
On top of all this we live at a time of rapidly advancing technologies for the chemical manipulation of moods and the genetic engineering of physi- cal and mental traits.
Faced with the capacity to transform one's mood, memory, longevity, or sexuality through chemical or genetic manipula- tion, what could it possibly mean to "just be yourself " ?
And yet in the face o f all these obstacles w e still seek out and prize the true, authentic self and the true, authentic life. This struggle to be true to oneself is one of the most defining characteristics of modern life. Movies and music, literature and reality television all portray it. It is the central motif of commercial advertisements and brand marketing, psychology, ethics and politics. If we stop to think about all this we are faced with a strange, unsettling realization. All this focus on the true self reflects a desire for a higher, truer life; a yearning for something more that could be called an "ethic of the self " or an "ethic of authenticity"
? ? 127
? MICHEL FOU CAULT: KEY CONCEPTS
(Taylor 1992). Yet at the same time, the fact that we seem to need all of this constant encouragement to be our true selves also implies that our predominant way of being is false, that for the most part we fall short of truly being ourselves, that we are not our selves. As Jean-Paul Sartre (1989) put it, a human being is not a cauliflower. A cauliflower never has to confront the problem of what it means to be a cauliflower; it never has to make a choice about how it will live its life; it will never be challenged about its choice. A cauliflower is just what it is, fully defined and determined by its essence as a cauliflower. A human being, on the other hand, at a profound level is strange and unfamiliar to him or herself, at once far from and yet bound to the self.
Resolutely facing this paradoxical task of being ourselves is what Michel Foucault calls the "care for the self" (souci de soi). 2 He defines our "subjectivity" as what we make of ourselves when we do devote our- selves to taking care of ourselves. We can begin to understand precisely what Foucault means by the care for the self and subjectivity by exam- ining more carefully what the quest to be true to oneself entails. Each of those very common pieces of advice - be true to yourself, express yourself, or discover yourself ? refers to ways of forming a relationship of the self to itself. For example, when I express myself, I am both the self who is doing the expressing and the self who is being expressed. My self as expressive agent is related to my self as object expressed through the very activity of self-expression (whatever that activity might concretely entail). When we speak of self-discovery or self-expression, we have a tendency to get caught up in the content delivered in each of these activi- ties and hence neglect their relational character. In the activity of seeking and discovering my self, my attention is entirely directed towards the self as that object being sought, as that substance or essence that I discover and come to know. In self-discovery and self-expression our interest is in the self that is being expressed. If we attend to the expressive act or gesture it is usually in order to make sure that it is properly suited to the content being expressed. In other words, we tend to see the act of discovery or expression as a mere vehicle for the manifestation and com- munication of the self being expressed. On closer examination, however, it becomes clear that discovering and expressing are what we might call relational activities. In other words, they are activities that form, maintain, or intensify relationships. What makes self-relational activities distinctive and strange is that the terms being related are essentially iden- tical. Self-discovery and self-expression form a relationship of the self to itself. But this implies that the self is in some sense other than itself.
How does this work? The self-relational activity forms a relation- ship by establishing a difference within an identity. For example, in the
128
? FOU CAULT'S THEORY AND PRACTICE O F S UB J E CTIVITY
activity of finding oneself, the self divides itself into (a) a subject actively seeking and (b) an object passively being sought. Of course, the activity of relating these two terms is nothing other than the self actively seek- ing, discovering and expressing itself. But for the self to become both active agent and passive object, it must actively divide itself through some activity of self-relating. In other words, it is the activity of seek- ing and discovering that makes or constitutes the self as both an active seeker and sought after object.
Care of the self is what we do when we set out to do the hard work of forging a relationship to ourselves. The resulting subjectivity is the concrete form of activity that defines the relationship of the self to itself. Subjectivity in this sense is the real basis of the self as both agent and object. In other words, Foucault argues that the self or subject is not a self-standing being, some sort of essence or substance, that exists within us whether we look for it or not (1996b). It is brought into exist- ence as the upshot of some form of relational activity. What is more, subjectivity, as a dynamic, active relationship, can take on a number of different forms (1996a: 440). For example, someone may believe, as did the Cynics and Nietzsche, that they can only discover who they truly are by facing great hardships or dangers. Or someone might think, like the Stoics or Descartes, that self-discovery is the work of quiet, solitary introspection. Still another, following the lead of Socrates, might hold that self-discovery is only possible through provocative dialogue with others where individuals examine and challenge each other's most cher- ished beliefs. Each of these activities of self-seeking produces a different kind of active agent and makes manifest a different self-substance or self-object. In each of these cases, it is the activity through which the individual takes on this dynamic relationship to herself that establishes who she truly is. When we lose sight of this we start to accept a static, fixed idea of who and what we are, and then we are inclined to neglect the development of the active relationship, which is the real life and heart of subjectivity. 3 Rather than assuming that facing hardships allows me to discover my true qualities, my true self, I need to recognize that actively facing hardships is what makes me into a certain kind of self. 4
Because Foucault holds that subjectivity is the relationship of the self to itself and that this relationship is composed of and formed by a variety of possible activities, he does not produce a theory of the subject or the self that would tell us who and what we truly are - he does not tell us what kind of substance we are or what our essence is. Rather, Foucault's work simultaneously carries out two tasks. First he presents us with a careful description and analysis of a few of the many various forms of subjectivity that Western civilization has
? 129
? MICHEL FOU CAULT: KEY CONCEPTS
produced since the time of the ancient Greek philosophers. Second, and at the same time, he puts into practice a distinct form of subjec- tivity. In other words, Foucault's works are activities through which he gave form to his own subjectivity and established a certain way of being a philosopher. In order to better understand Foucault's theory and practice of subjectivity, and to see how it might help us in our quest to become ourselves, let us turn to a brief survey of the elements or material that we address when we try to form a relationship to ourselves.
Disciplinary subjectivity
When I look into myself I find thoughts and feelings, hopes and desires, memories and fantasies. I recognize my own power to perceive and to think, to focus and to choose. I distinguish my body, with its features and processes, from my mental or psychological life. As a consequence, I may wonder whether I am wholly a material substance or if I am an immaterial substance somehow connected to and dependent on this material body to perceive and move around in the world. But even if my true self (mind or soul) is distinct from my body, this self is bound to and responsible for its actions in the world.
My life from moment to moment, day to day, is composed of a series of interconnected experiences in which I find myself involved in relationships and engaged in projects that connect me in various ways to objects, persons, places and values that do not belong to my self. In fact, most of my inner life takes place as a result of and with respect to my actions, relationships, contact, or interaction with objects, persons, places and values that exist outside and independently of my self, that are other than me. I form opinions about the things I have seen and done, about what I have felt, desired and hoped. I make judgements, deciding that some things are good and others bad, that I like some and not others. In addition to judging things and forming opinions, I deliberate and choose. It seems that at every moment I am faced with the possibility of choice, although much of the time things keep mov- ing forward and taking me with them without my having to make a stand. But I believe that I am free to do one thing rather than another. Finally, I try to explain and understand all of these things and formulate an account of them, sometimes going as far as elaborating systematic theories about the world.
I spend my time doing things: going to school, eating, sleeping, hanging out with friends, killing time, entertaining myself, working,
130
? FOUCAULT'S THEORY AND PRACTICE OF SUBJECTIVITY
wondering what I am doing on earth. Sometimes it can seem as though my life is made up of a fairly random string of events, one after the other. At other times I recognize that there is a certain order to much, perhaps most, of what I do. At those times I can see that my life is composed of projects and tasks. I usually act in order to attain some end. And usually that end is really just the means to some other end. For example, I go to school to get an education and I get an education in order to get a good job and I get a good job in order to make good money so that I can support myself and maybe a family and so on.
I might believe in God and have faith that there is some purpose to all of this. But maybe I believe that there is no God and you just do these things and then die. Most likely, whether I believe in God or not, I generally find myself trying to, or at least hoping to, make the most of my time before I die. And when I think of this I realize that death itself lends a certain urgency and order to the things that I do. I do not live on this earth forever, and I cannot stop the passage of time. My life has a direction, a flow towards the future, from birth, through childhood and adolescence to adulthood, to old age and death: that is, if I do not die sooner. Even in the prime of my life, part of what defines me and makes me who and what I am is that I am a fragile, vulnerable, mortal being. I will absolutely die one day, but I could die at any moment. My body is vulnerable to harm from external objects, but its own internal processes could go awry and cause me to suffer or die. My inner life, my mental and emotional life, is in some respects even more vulnerable to outside events and forces than is my body: other people influence how I see myself, they can lead me to feel inadequate, strange, mis- understood, abnormal or evil. My vulnerability is intensified because I seem dependent on objects and people other than myself. In other words, my interactions with the world around me are not indifferent; they are necessary and urgent. I need food, shelter and companionship. My interaction with other people is especially urgent and consequently fraught with dangers. I find myself constantly seeking the affirmation and approval of others, I want them to recognize me, value me for who I am. I realize that this recognition is terribly important to me - I crave love, respect, honour. And yet the more I crave these things the more difficult they become, the more I seem to be at the mercy of others and how they see me. At the same time I realize that they crave the same sorts of things as I do, sometimes they even seem to want that recogni- tion and love to come from me.
This brief and rather simplistic pastiche is sufficient to illustrate the complexity of the struggle to be true to oneself, to discover oneself, to express oneself. Sorting through the elements of which life and self
? 131
? MICHEL FOUCAULT: KEY CO N CEPTS
seem to be composed I wonder precisely how I might even begin to discern and discover my self in them and to live a life that is authentic and true. However, the need for real self-examination loses its intensity when I realize that I can go through life with a minimal attention to these facts and without much reflection on how best to understand and live them. Life, as it turns out, has largely been laid out before me. I am daily encouraged and instructed, gently nudged, or firmly pushed in the proper direction. It is easy enough simply to absorb, sponge-like, much of what I need to know to survive in the world. It is easy enough to follow the path, robot-like, that I have been set upon. For example, I go to school and write down what my teachers say and study it. But what I learn is more than just the content of the lesson. Whether I am studying maths or history, biology or economics, by getting up, brushing my teeth, getting dressed, eating breakfast, making it to class on time, sitting in my place and focusing on the lesson, I learn many other things than maths or history, biology or economics. I learn how to wait and listen. I learn how to defer gratification. I learn how to measure myself in quantitative terms : I am smart if I get a certain number on my exams, if I do certain things before others do them. I learn the importance of these quantitative evaluations and to consume them with passion and anxiety - the letter C is first met with a desire to do better, then with frustration and resentment, and finally with quiet resignation. Grades, evaluations, pay-cheques, commodities tell me who I am, how I am doing, what I am worth.
Television and entertainment amuses me and gives me a chance to feel things, but it also trains me by forming my imagination, by helping me form concrete images of what I love and desire, what I hate, who I want to be and how I need to act. Marketing does the same things, just less effectively. Thanks to all of this programming I know how to party and hang out, what to wear and what to listen to, how to talk and who to talk to. Whether I am in class, hanging out with my friends, at work, with my girlfriend or boyfriend, watching a movie, playing video games, I am always getting the message, sometimes directly and explicitly and sometimes indirectly and implicitly: here's how to be yourself! The pattern of my life, the form of my self, is mostly pre-established and already waiting for me.
This ready-made character of life comes from what Foucault calls disciplinary power or governmentality. 5 As I pass through all of the institutions (schools, workplaces, households, government agencies, doctors' offices, entertainment venues, etc. ) that give form to my life, I find myself caught up in an intricate web of compulsion and choice, desire and necessity. I interact with experts and authorities who are
132
? ? FOUCAULT'S THEORY AND PRACTICE OF SUBJECTIVITY
there to help me become a well-adjusted, happy, healthy, productive member of society. Psychologists and medical doctors, for example, have carefully worked out all of the minute stages of psychological and physical development and have devised marvellously precise instru- ments for measuring our lives and selves in terms of these stages. The market and the entertainment industry have worked hard to construct a world of commodities that help us know and express our true selves through the products and brands that we consume, the music we listen to, the movies we watch. These industries, authorities, experts and insti- tutions guide me by pushing me to discover, maximize and express my self: "the chief function of disciplinary power is to 'train' . . . Discipline 'makes'individuals"(Foucault1979: 170). Alloftheseauthoritiesand institutions train me to be me.
Central to this training process is the way it focuses attention on me (and you and everyone else) as an object of both control and knowledge. Discipline is a form of power that carefully watches, examines, records and measures. It does this in order to help me reach my full, produc- tive potential. But in so doing it regulates my behaviour and structures my time so that I can get the most out of it. It organizes everyone's time and behaviour so that it can compare us all to each other and get an idea of what kind of growth and development is normal. The end result is "calculable man" - a highly disciplined animal, very capable but also very "docile" (ibid. : 193; 135-? 69). This process is what Foucault calls "normalization" (ibid. : 177-84). The process of normalization has continued to become more pervasive and more intensive even as it becomes less obvious or intrusive. 6 Surveillance is more and more subtle (security cameras capture me in public places, spyware watches me on the Internet, my boss can audit my computer activity at work, my cell phone can be overheard easily, marketers register my behaviours and choices and target me with custom designed advertisements). Less and less of life is free and unstructured ? new communication technologies may free me from the cubicle, but they do so by making every place part of an interconnected network so that I am always at the office. Children's lives are more regimented, disciplined and governed than ever before: from the scientific design of developmental toys, to the structured, organized and supervised "play" groups and developmental activities that occupy more and more of their time.
In all of these examples, I am not governed in a way that represses or oppresses me. Rather, discipline makes me more productive, it trains me and develops my capacities for living, making it very hard to resist since it seems to be on my side, it provides me with resources to live my life. Yet, while all of these things shape me, give form and order to
? 133
? MICHEL FOUCAULT: KEY CONCEPTS
my life, and help me form an idea of who I am and how I am supposed to feel things and do things, I sometimes get the sensation that this is not really who I am.
It is in this disciplinary context that we often decide to look within for that true self, the self that has not been moulded or made to con- form, that has not been disciplined. But even at this moment, we are governed or trained to relate to our self in certain ways. The very idea that there is a true self within, waiting beneath the surface, is, as we have noted already, a very particular kind of relationship of the self to itself. Foucault calls this kind of subjectivity "herme- neutic" or "confessional" because it is formed through the activities of self-interpretation (hermeneutics is the art of interpretation) and self-expression (confession is the art or practice of expressing and communicating that which is difficult but necessary to say). Foucault's point is that hermeneutics and confession do not discern and express the inner truth. Rather by practising these activities we become a spe- cific kind of self:
The confession has spread its effects far and wide. It plays a part in justice, medicine, education, family relationships, and love relations, in the most ordinary affairs of everyday life, and in the most solemn rites; one confesses one's crimes, one's sins, one's thoughts and desires, one's illnesses and troubles; one goes about telling, with the greatest precision, whatever is most difficult to tell . . . Western man has become a singularly confessing animal.
(1990a: 59, emphasis added)
The hermeneutic and confessional subject falls into the trap we noted above. By focusing on the self who is revealed through interpretation and confession, we fail to see the way in which these very activities themselves are what define us and make us into the kind of person we are. While discipline arranges and orders our lives, hermeneutics and confession give form to our subjectivity.
Subjectivity and care ofthe self
In response to the disciplinary form of life and the hermeneutic, con- fessional form of subjectivity, Foucault proposes an alternative way of thinking about and giving form to our lives and selves. As we have seen, for Foucault subjectivity is not some thing we are, it is an activity that we do. Subjectivity is relational, dynamic and restless, potentially
134
? FOU CAULT'S THEORY AND PRACTICE O F SUBJECTI VIT Y
unruly and unpredictable. But if subjectivity is an active becoming, rather than a fixed being, then the quest to discover or find oneself - in the form of an essence or substance ? is futile. What is more, by focusing our attention on this self and our energy on trying to "express" it, we neglect our subjective becoming, which is taken over by the processes of disciplinary training and normalization.
In order to describe and analyse subjectivity, Foucault turns to a framework he calls "care of the self", which is his translation of an expression that appears regularly in the works of ancient Greek and Roman philosophy (epimeleia heautou) . Foucault juxtaposes care of the self with the confessional self and the hermeneutic self. Hermeneutic and confessional subjectivity is dominated by the imperative: "know yourself". In the ancient world, on the other hand, subjectivity was based on the imperative: "take care of yourself". Foucault tries to show that the framework of care of the self makes possible a fuller, richer way of thinking about, and actively becoming, ourselves. For ancient philosophers subjectivity was not a form of self-knowledge, rather self- knowledge was pursued only to the extent that it was necessary in order to take care of oneself. The pursuit of self-knowledge was only one possible element, and not always the most important one, in the more fundamental effort to take care of oneself. So if care of the self is not completely defined by self-knowledge, what else might it involve? The care of the self is composed of what Foucault sometimes calls the "technologies of the self " or the "arts of living".
When Foucault speaks of the "technologies" or "arts" of the self or of life, he is drawing on the Greek term techne, the etymological source of our word technology. The term "techne" is usually translated as know-how or craft or art. Techne is the kind of knowledge that allows someone to accomplish a specific task or produce a specified outcome. Ancient philosophers often thought of philosophy as the techne tou bio - the art of living (Foucault 2005a: 177-8). Philosophy was conceived of as the art or craft of producing a noble, beautiful and true life (for ancient Greeks goodness, beauty and truth are regularly thought of as identical). In this framework the self is understood to be a work of techne, of art.
Foucault's notion of the technologies or arts of the self, and the arts of living, has little to do with a fairly common, and essentially modern conception of the artist and her relationship to her work of art. We often think of art in terms of self-expression, again falling back on our presupposition about the substantial, foundational self. When we give in to this tendency we miss the dynamic genesis of art and artworks.
We fail to appreciate how artists actually work to produce an art object and
? 135
? MI CHEL FOUCAULT: KEY CONCEPTS
we fail to comprehend how artists actually become artists. For Foucault, art or techne is realized in creative labour or work (the Greeks called this kind of labour poiesis, the root of our word "poetry"). In order to produce an object or an outcome it is necessary to perform certain very precise and well-ordered activities, activities that require a certain amount of know-how. For instance, an artist needs to know how the particular paint she is using will take to the surface she is painting on because the way that the paint adheres to or is absorbed by a surface will shape the look of the painting. If the artist begins with an idea of the painting to be accomplished but has no knowledge of how to mix her paints, or what kind of paint to use on which kind of surface, she will not be able to realize her idea, she will not be able to create the work. The know-how of the artist is not the kind of knowledge that can be learned primarily through study; it is not essentially "theoretical" knowledge. Of course, learning the chemical science behind oil-based paints and their adhesion to wood surfaces may be useful, but studying chemistry does not result in art. In order to acquire art the artist needs to experiment with and experience the look and feel of the paint on the surface - no study of chemistry can provide this kind of know-how. Only by mixing the paint, choosing a particular brush and surface, and applying the paint to the surface can the artist begin to develop the art
techne - that is necessary to produce a painting, to produce a work of art. One learns to paint by painting. 7
The artfulness of the work derives from these very precise activities and the know-how (techne) that both makes them possible but also, and importantly, comes from them. Of course, painting is more than the mere study of paints and surfaces. In addition to all of the other concerns that go into the artfulness of the painter, there are those key elements that we as spectators tend to focus on: the form or style of the painting and its content or "meaning". A completed work of art is the realization of what we call the artist's "vision", "intent" or aesthetic "idea". In the self-expression view of art we presume that vision, intent or idea express who the artist truly is. The painting is then seen as a kind of confession of the artist and its meaning is dis- cerned through a hermeneutic that would discern, operating behind the manifest content, the hidden motive, the vision, intent or idea that reside in the self (soul, heart, mind) of the artist. But form, style and content are just as much the upshot of the actual labour of art as they are its directives and sources. The ability of an artist actually to see, imagine or conceptualize the completed work is the consequence of having learned the possibilities of the medium through the concrete practice of painting. Certainly, we all gain some capacity to envision
? ? 136
? F O U CAULT'S THE OR Y AND PRACTICE O F SUBJECTIVITY
a work of art that does not exist by looking at possible subjects of art and especially by studying the works of others. But we do not have a realizable aesthetic vision or idea until we have actually learned the real possibilities of the medium we wish to work in, and these can only be learned through the practice of painting. Intent, idea and vision are the results of practice and art, not the causes of it. The vision of the artist is itself transformed, deepened, expanded or intensified by the actual labour. In effect the artist is a work of art just as much as the object she produces. It is through rigorously practising the activities of the art that we acquire something like vision and become capable of a real, meaningful, realizable artistic idea or intent.
How does this discussion of art apply to the relationship of the self to itself? How does the self give form to itself and its life as works of art? Foucault discovers many examples of arts of the self and arts of living in the works of ancient philosophers. For Foucault the study of these practices can provide us with a resource of all sorts of techniques that we might adapt and try out. In the following we will briefly summarize and examine a couple of the techniques for taking care of the self devel- oped by ancient philosophers. This will give us a more concrete idea of what the arts of the self and of living might look like. We will also consider how Foucault's work itself is composed of arts of the self that he practises in order to form a certain kind of relationship to himself, to become a particular kind of philosopher.
First, let us look at a couple of examples of the ancient practice of the examination of conscience. For example, here is how Foucault describes the way Marcus Aurelius begins his day with an anticipatory examination of conscience :
This examination does not at all involve going back over what you could have done in the night or the day before; it is an exami- nation of what you will do . . . It involves reviewing in advance the actions you will perform in the day, your commitments, the appointments you have made, the tasks you will have to face: remembering the general aim you set yourself by these actions and the general aims you should always have in mind throughout life, and so the precautions to be taken so as to act according to these precise objectives and general aims in the situations that anse. (2005a: 481)
The relation to oneself that i s formed by this technique is not prin- cipally one of confession or interpretation. Rather, it is a form of prep- aration and memory. I must remember my goals and my principles,
? ? 137
? MICHEL FOUCAULT: KEY CON CEPTS
I must be prepared for the events of the day so that I will not forget what I am trying to achieve. In a similar vein, Foucault discusses a form of self-examination that can be found in the work of Seneca. In this example, Seneca takes some time at the end of the day to recollect and record what he has done that day. Once again, his primary aim and focus in this activity is not to discern the hidden motive at work in what he did, nor is he primarily intent on judging his actions (although he does employ juridical language for describing the process). There is no sense of a self lurking behind his actions and giving them meaning. First and foremost his activity is a kind of "accounting" or administra- tive activity, adding up the balance sheets and seeing how he has done that day. He also describes this art as a kind of inspection of his actions that day to see if he has done everything as well as he could have and to learn how he might avoid mistakes and improve in the future. As with the morning examination of Marcus Aurelius, the evening exami- nation of Seneca is:
primarily a test of the reactivation of the fundamental rules of action, of the ends we should have in mind, and of the means we should employ to achieve these ends and the immediate objectives we may set ourselves. To that extent, examination of conscience is a memory exercise, not just with regard to what happened during the day, but with regard to the rules we should always have in our mind. (Ibid. : 483)
The examination of conscience in both Marcus Aurelius and Seneca is an art for the formation of subjectivity, for the formation of the self. It is not an attempt to discover a pre-existing substance or essence, but rather part of an effort to become a certain kind of individual, to give a distinctive form to one's life, to shape, deepen, intensify and cultivate the relationship of the self to itself. These techniques of self- examination are ways of taking care of oneself in the sense that they assist one in the activity of becoming the self that one wants or needs to be. Marcus Aurelius and Seneca both take up the material of life, all of those elements which we reviewed at the beginning of this essay: thoughts and feelings, actions and relationships, and so on. In face of the rush of events and actions, storms of emotion, the endless flow of thoughts, judgements, choices, they attempt to sculpt a form out of life and to shape the self-relation. The aim of the exercise is to make sure that I do not end up completely uprooted and carried away in the stream of events, never catching a glimpse of or getting a firm hold on what is worthwhile in life and what I might be able to make of my
138
? FOUCAULT'S THEORY AND PRACTICE O F SUBJECTIVITY
self. Foucault's purpose in turning to these philosophers is not to con- vince us to relive the lives of Stoic philosophers. Rather, the drift of his work detaches us from the hermeneutic and confessional practice of subjectivity; to show us that the self is not a substance or essence but a work of art; and to give us a taste of the many different arts, and consequently many different kinds of self, that can be practised. In this way his study provides us with new resources, techniques that we might use, even if we do not appropriate wholesale the Stoic life and the Stoic aims in life.
Not all of the arts of the self and of life are forms of self- examination. For example, one of the principal arts of the self in ancient philosophy involved the contemplation of nature and of external reality. The contemplation of nature can have a powerful, transformative effect on one's relationship to oneself and the way one lives. For example, Seneca practised a form of natural philoso- phy that allowed him to attain an elevated perspective from which he could look down on himself and his life (ibid. : 275-85). When we are caught up in the middle of things - the pressures of work or school, relationships, money, health, and so on -? the day-to-day anxi- eties of life become all consuming. We find ourselves absorbed in our problems and concerns, obsessed with our work or our relationship, in ways that take a toll on us and can result in self-destructive behav- iours and habits, the crushing anxiety that accompanies a life and self that is spinning out of control. But through the contemplation of the vastness and magnificence of the cosmos we elevate ourselves above and beyond the day-to-day world. Then looking down on it from above we are able to see it within this larger, truer, cosmic perspec- tive. The world of our everyday preoccupations appears in truth as a brief moment in the vast infinity of time, hardly a speck of dust swal- lowed up in the endless expanses of space, completely insignificant in relation to the power and beauty of the heavenly bodies. Other ancient philosophers developed their own forms of the contempla- tion of nature, but in each case they serve as arts for the formation of the self: freeing the self from its fears or compulsions, calming the mind disturbed by pressing problems, reinforcing a will constantly bombarded by frivolous demands, distractions, temptations. For Foucault, this art of the self shows us that the practice of subjectiv- ity does not necessarily entail turning our gaze inward, focusing on and essentializing the inner life. Rather, there are powerful arts of living that project us out into the world, further detaching us from our presuppositions about self-discovery and self-expression. Being true to ourselves may in fact involve focusing our attention on the
? 139
? MICHEL FOU C A ULT: KEY CONCEPTS
natural world or history and society - in other words, turning out- wards rather than inwards.
Becoming oneself
Foucault's study of care of the self and the arts of the self in ancient philosophy is not merely a record and analysis of these activities. In fact, it is clear that in this study Foucault, as in all of his philosophical activity, was engaged in the active practice of forming his own sub- jectivity. If we examine the trajectory of Foucault's own work, we see that through the labour of philosophical thought, Foucault developed an art of philosophical practice that served as the source of a certain vision and relationship to himself. He formed a distinctive way of being a philosopher. Here is one way he described his own efforts to fashion himself as a work of art:
As for what motivated me, it is quite simple; I would hope that in the eyes of some people it might be sufficient in itself. It was curiosity - the only kind of curiosity, in any case, that is worth acting upon with a degree of obstinacy; not the curiosity that seeks to assimilate what it is proper for one to know, but that which enables one to get free of oneself. After all, what would be the value of the passion for knowledge if it resulted only in a certain amount of knowledgeableness and not, in one way or another and to the extent possible, in the knower's straying afield of himself?
(1990b: 8)
Foucault's care of the self was composed of numerous arts - includ- ing but not limited to reading, thinking, writing, teaching - that allow him to "get free" of himself. Philosophy for Foucault was not prima- rily a form of knowledge or self-knowledge but rather "an exercise of oneself in the activity of thought" (ibid. : 9). What is the result of this kind of exercise ?
There is irony in those efforts one makes to alter one's way of looking at things, to change the boundaries of what one knows and to venture out a ways from there. Did mine actually result in a different way of thinking? Perhaps at most they made it possible to go back through what I was already thinking, to think it differ- ently, and to see what I had done from a new vantage point and in a clearer light. Sure of having traveled far, one finds that one
140
? FOUCAULT'S THEORY AND PRACTICE O F SUBJECTIVITY
is looking down on oneself from above. The journey rejuvenates things, and ages the relationship with oneself. (Ibid. : 1 1 )
Clearly getting free of oneself does not mean that one simply aban- dons oneself in order to become a completely new person, whatever that might mean. Rather, one gets some distance and perspective, one "looks down on oneself from above". But who is the self that one gets free of? The self Foucault gets free of is none other than the one formed by discipline, whose subjectivity is shaped by the practices of hermeneutics and confession. Discipline, confession and hermeneutics produce a self that lives a certain way, that sees itself and the world in terms of normalization, self-interpretation and self-expression. When Foucault "exercises" himself in the "activity of thought" he is attempt- ing to "think differently", to detach himself from the disciplined, nor- malized self that he has become so far. The work or art of the self is the exercise by which Foucault establishes a relationship of distance from the self of discipline, hermeneutics and confession. But has he now arrived at his true self?
Just be yourself. Keep it real. Follow your own path. Foucault's account of subjectivity gives a whole new meaning to these words and helps us understand why the task they prescribe is so urgent but yet so difficult, ultimately endless. Being oneself is a matter of strenuous trying and determined artfulness, because the self is a continuous becoming, not a fixed being. Consequently, the art of becoming my self is always to some extent an art of no longer being what I was, an art that detaches the self from itself in order to form a new, deeper, wiser relationship to itself, which in turn will give way to its own self-distancing, sending me on my way towards unknown futures.
Notes
1. I would like to acknowledge Serena Parekh, Paul Bruno and Dianna Taylor for reading drafts of this chapter and giving me invaluable feedback and insight. This paper has also benefited greatly from the careful reading and incisive com- ments of two students at Saint Anselm College: Sara Kallock and Ryan Manley.
2. For example, see Foucault (1988, 1997e, 2005a).
3. Paul Bruno has helped me to see the particular danger that occurs here, a kind
of divorce between the "fixed idea of who we are" and action/human agency. In other words, when we have a fixed idea of ourselves, our actions become meaningless in a way. No matter what we do, we are still the fixed person we have conceived for ourselves.
4. See Foucault's discussion of self-reflection as constitutive of the self as both knower and known (Foucault 2005a: 461-2).
5. See the chapters on power in Part I of this book. 141
? ? MI CHEL FOU CAULT: KEY CONCEPTS
6. For an excellent study of the spread and intensification of power since the death of Michel Foucault, see: Nealon (2008).
7. One of the key features of techne is its bodily character: it is acquired through embodied activities, situated and concrete investigations and experiments. Techne is embodied or bodily knowledge.
142
? TEN
Su a
Brad Elliott Stone
Is there a relationship between subjectivity and truth in our contempo- rary age? Foucault's answer is "no". In this chapter, I seek to explicate Foucault's conclusion about the divorce of subjectivity and truth. Begin- ning with Foucault's account of the shift between ancient and modern philosophy,1 I show in the first section that the modern, strictly epis- temological understanding of truth removes us from the possibility of having an ethical relationship to the truth. This ethical relationship to the truth, however, was the heart of ancient philosophy, whose goal was not "knowledge" but human flourishing. The second section explores the role of truth in ancient philosophy. The third section turns to an explication of Foucault's account of parrhesia as it was understood in ancient philosophy. Parrhesia is the act of telling the truth out of one's moral duty, even in dangerous situations. I then offer examples of how parrhesia was used in ancient philosophy, followed by a brief discussion of whether or not we can recreate a meaningful relationship between subjectivity and truth.
In the shadow ofthe Cartesian moment
Foucault's 1 9 8 2 lecture course The Hermeneutics olthe Subject contin- ues his investigation into the connection between subjectivity and truth beguninthe 1981 courseSubjectivityandTruth. 2Inthe 1981 lecture course, Foucault focused exclusively on Hellenic views of sexuality. In 1 9 8 2, Foucault wants to ask the question of the relationship between subjectivityandtruthinamoregeneralway: "[i]nwhathistoricalform
? ? 143
? MICHEL FOU CAULT: KEY CONCEPTS
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? " (2005a: 2). How does the West relate subjectivity and truth, if at all?
One of Foucault's main arguments in his opening lecture in 1 9 8 2 is that there is a discontinuity in the history of the relationship between subjectivity and truth. To show this discontinuity, Foucault discusses the radical difference between how the ancient thinkers understood the relationship between subjectivity and truth and how the modern thinkers understand it. Foucault returns to the old philosophical motto "Know yourself", gnothi seauton. This hope for self-knowledge, cen- tral to the philosopher's quest, was always essentially coupled with another motto: "take care of yourself", epimeleia heautou. However, in the contemporary age, this coupling is no longer essential. For the ancient thinkers, one had to be a particular kind of person in order to know oneself, let alone know anything else of importance. In our age, however, knowledge is considered something that one can obtain regardless of the kind of person one is. This is where Foucault detects an archaeological (in Foucault's sense of the term) break in the history of knowledge. Foucault asserts that the ancient thinkers considered the care of the self "the justificatory framework, ground, and founda- tion for the imperative 'know yourself"' (ibid. : 8). That we can now claim self-knowledge without any ethical requirements would be for the ancients unintelligible.
The 1982 course focuses on the ancient methods ofbeingthe kind of person who could gain access to the truth. This will provide a prelimi- nary answer to Foucault's key question: "Why did Western thought and philosophy neglect the notion ofepimeleiaheautou in its reconstruction of its own history ? " (ibid. : 1 2) . Why has contemporary thought claimed continuity with ancient thought through the quest for self-knowledge while being oblivious to the fact that the ancient thinkers had require- ments for self-knowledge that modern thought does not bother to fulfil?
One possible explanation is the rise of Christianity with its emphasis on selflessness. The non-egoist principle of Christianity causes one to see the care of the self as too selfish. Also, the Judaeo-Christian belief in an omniscient God whose knowledge is distinct from God's moral goodness allows for a hope for God's kind of knowledge without having to care for oneself. Although this is a possible explanation, it does not give the strongest case. For Foucault, the stronger case is archaeological rather than historical.
For Foucault, Descartes' philosophy represents an archaeological event3 in which the "concept" of self-knowledge had shifted. Foucault
? ? 144
? S UB J E CTIVITY AND TRUTH
describes what he calls "the Cartesian moment", a moment character- ized "by philosophically requalifying the gnothi seauton and by dis- crediting the epimeleia heautou" (ibid. : 14). Foucault spends the rest of the first hour of the opening lecture of the 1982 course on the discontinuity in the history of the relationship of subjectivity and truth evidenced by this moment. At the heart of the Cartesian moment is the belief that self-knowledge is a given, a fact that Descartes nimbly proves in the Second Meditation of Meditations on First Philosophy. From this self-knowledge, one can then proceed, with certainty, to knowledge of God, mathematics and even the physical world itself. What is missing here, Foucault points out, is the ancient notion of the care of the self.
What is missing at the core of Cartesian philosophy (and modern thought since Descartes) is spirituality. Foucault uses this term in a technical sense, not to be immediately confused with one's religious practices (although that sense of spirituality will itself be a mode of what Foucault means here by "spirituality"). Foucault defines spiritu- ality as "the search, practice, and experience through which the sub- ject carries out the necessary transformations on himself in order to have access to the truth" (ibid. : 1 5 ) . When philosophy is coupled with spirituality, philosophy is "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 to the subject's access to the truth" (ibid. ). Ancient philosophy was the pursuit of the kind of life that would lead to knowledge, not just an analysis of what could be known and how one could know it. The Cartesian moment, however, allows for a philosophy without spirituality, removing the first part of philosophy's definition (What enables the subject to have access to the truth? ) while retaining the second part (What are the conditions and limits to the subject's access of truth? ). This is a point of diffraction (cf. Foucault 1972: 65) between ancient and modern thought: ancient thought finds the second part of the definition unintelligible with- out the first part, while modern thought cleanly divides epistemology from ethics.
The reason the ancients would find modern philosophy unintelligi- ble, Foucault claims, is the Cartesian insistence that self-knowledge is self-given, and that the right use of one's own already-in-place mental powers can lead to truth. One of the postulates of spirituality pre- sented by Foucault is that "the truth is never given to the subject by right"; that is, "the subject does not have right of access to the truth" (Foucault 2005a: 15). For the ancients, the subject's already-in-place mental "powers" are precisely what need to be overcome! The second
? 145
?
And yet in the face o f all these obstacles w e still seek out and prize the true, authentic self and the true, authentic life. This struggle to be true to oneself is one of the most defining characteristics of modern life. Movies and music, literature and reality television all portray it. It is the central motif of commercial advertisements and brand marketing, psychology, ethics and politics. If we stop to think about all this we are faced with a strange, unsettling realization. All this focus on the true self reflects a desire for a higher, truer life; a yearning for something more that could be called an "ethic of the self " or an "ethic of authenticity"
? ? 127
? MICHEL FOU CAULT: KEY CONCEPTS
(Taylor 1992). Yet at the same time, the fact that we seem to need all of this constant encouragement to be our true selves also implies that our predominant way of being is false, that for the most part we fall short of truly being ourselves, that we are not our selves. As Jean-Paul Sartre (1989) put it, a human being is not a cauliflower. A cauliflower never has to confront the problem of what it means to be a cauliflower; it never has to make a choice about how it will live its life; it will never be challenged about its choice. A cauliflower is just what it is, fully defined and determined by its essence as a cauliflower. A human being, on the other hand, at a profound level is strange and unfamiliar to him or herself, at once far from and yet bound to the self.
Resolutely facing this paradoxical task of being ourselves is what Michel Foucault calls the "care for the self" (souci de soi). 2 He defines our "subjectivity" as what we make of ourselves when we do devote our- selves to taking care of ourselves. We can begin to understand precisely what Foucault means by the care for the self and subjectivity by exam- ining more carefully what the quest to be true to oneself entails. Each of those very common pieces of advice - be true to yourself, express yourself, or discover yourself ? refers to ways of forming a relationship of the self to itself. For example, when I express myself, I am both the self who is doing the expressing and the self who is being expressed. My self as expressive agent is related to my self as object expressed through the very activity of self-expression (whatever that activity might concretely entail). When we speak of self-discovery or self-expression, we have a tendency to get caught up in the content delivered in each of these activi- ties and hence neglect their relational character. In the activity of seeking and discovering my self, my attention is entirely directed towards the self as that object being sought, as that substance or essence that I discover and come to know. In self-discovery and self-expression our interest is in the self that is being expressed. If we attend to the expressive act or gesture it is usually in order to make sure that it is properly suited to the content being expressed. In other words, we tend to see the act of discovery or expression as a mere vehicle for the manifestation and com- munication of the self being expressed. On closer examination, however, it becomes clear that discovering and expressing are what we might call relational activities. In other words, they are activities that form, maintain, or intensify relationships. What makes self-relational activities distinctive and strange is that the terms being related are essentially iden- tical. Self-discovery and self-expression form a relationship of the self to itself. But this implies that the self is in some sense other than itself.
How does this work? The self-relational activity forms a relation- ship by establishing a difference within an identity. For example, in the
128
? FOU CAULT'S THEORY AND PRACTICE O F S UB J E CTIVITY
activity of finding oneself, the self divides itself into (a) a subject actively seeking and (b) an object passively being sought. Of course, the activity of relating these two terms is nothing other than the self actively seek- ing, discovering and expressing itself. But for the self to become both active agent and passive object, it must actively divide itself through some activity of self-relating. In other words, it is the activity of seek- ing and discovering that makes or constitutes the self as both an active seeker and sought after object.
Care of the self is what we do when we set out to do the hard work of forging a relationship to ourselves. The resulting subjectivity is the concrete form of activity that defines the relationship of the self to itself. Subjectivity in this sense is the real basis of the self as both agent and object. In other words, Foucault argues that the self or subject is not a self-standing being, some sort of essence or substance, that exists within us whether we look for it or not (1996b). It is brought into exist- ence as the upshot of some form of relational activity. What is more, subjectivity, as a dynamic, active relationship, can take on a number of different forms (1996a: 440). For example, someone may believe, as did the Cynics and Nietzsche, that they can only discover who they truly are by facing great hardships or dangers. Or someone might think, like the Stoics or Descartes, that self-discovery is the work of quiet, solitary introspection. Still another, following the lead of Socrates, might hold that self-discovery is only possible through provocative dialogue with others where individuals examine and challenge each other's most cher- ished beliefs. Each of these activities of self-seeking produces a different kind of active agent and makes manifest a different self-substance or self-object. In each of these cases, it is the activity through which the individual takes on this dynamic relationship to herself that establishes who she truly is. When we lose sight of this we start to accept a static, fixed idea of who and what we are, and then we are inclined to neglect the development of the active relationship, which is the real life and heart of subjectivity. 3 Rather than assuming that facing hardships allows me to discover my true qualities, my true self, I need to recognize that actively facing hardships is what makes me into a certain kind of self. 4
Because Foucault holds that subjectivity is the relationship of the self to itself and that this relationship is composed of and formed by a variety of possible activities, he does not produce a theory of the subject or the self that would tell us who and what we truly are - he does not tell us what kind of substance we are or what our essence is. Rather, Foucault's work simultaneously carries out two tasks. First he presents us with a careful description and analysis of a few of the many various forms of subjectivity that Western civilization has
? 129
? MICHEL FOU CAULT: KEY CONCEPTS
produced since the time of the ancient Greek philosophers. Second, and at the same time, he puts into practice a distinct form of subjec- tivity. In other words, Foucault's works are activities through which he gave form to his own subjectivity and established a certain way of being a philosopher. In order to better understand Foucault's theory and practice of subjectivity, and to see how it might help us in our quest to become ourselves, let us turn to a brief survey of the elements or material that we address when we try to form a relationship to ourselves.
Disciplinary subjectivity
When I look into myself I find thoughts and feelings, hopes and desires, memories and fantasies. I recognize my own power to perceive and to think, to focus and to choose. I distinguish my body, with its features and processes, from my mental or psychological life. As a consequence, I may wonder whether I am wholly a material substance or if I am an immaterial substance somehow connected to and dependent on this material body to perceive and move around in the world. But even if my true self (mind or soul) is distinct from my body, this self is bound to and responsible for its actions in the world.
My life from moment to moment, day to day, is composed of a series of interconnected experiences in which I find myself involved in relationships and engaged in projects that connect me in various ways to objects, persons, places and values that do not belong to my self. In fact, most of my inner life takes place as a result of and with respect to my actions, relationships, contact, or interaction with objects, persons, places and values that exist outside and independently of my self, that are other than me. I form opinions about the things I have seen and done, about what I have felt, desired and hoped. I make judgements, deciding that some things are good and others bad, that I like some and not others. In addition to judging things and forming opinions, I deliberate and choose. It seems that at every moment I am faced with the possibility of choice, although much of the time things keep mov- ing forward and taking me with them without my having to make a stand. But I believe that I am free to do one thing rather than another. Finally, I try to explain and understand all of these things and formulate an account of them, sometimes going as far as elaborating systematic theories about the world.
I spend my time doing things: going to school, eating, sleeping, hanging out with friends, killing time, entertaining myself, working,
130
? FOUCAULT'S THEORY AND PRACTICE OF SUBJECTIVITY
wondering what I am doing on earth. Sometimes it can seem as though my life is made up of a fairly random string of events, one after the other. At other times I recognize that there is a certain order to much, perhaps most, of what I do. At those times I can see that my life is composed of projects and tasks. I usually act in order to attain some end. And usually that end is really just the means to some other end. For example, I go to school to get an education and I get an education in order to get a good job and I get a good job in order to make good money so that I can support myself and maybe a family and so on.
I might believe in God and have faith that there is some purpose to all of this. But maybe I believe that there is no God and you just do these things and then die. Most likely, whether I believe in God or not, I generally find myself trying to, or at least hoping to, make the most of my time before I die. And when I think of this I realize that death itself lends a certain urgency and order to the things that I do. I do not live on this earth forever, and I cannot stop the passage of time. My life has a direction, a flow towards the future, from birth, through childhood and adolescence to adulthood, to old age and death: that is, if I do not die sooner. Even in the prime of my life, part of what defines me and makes me who and what I am is that I am a fragile, vulnerable, mortal being. I will absolutely die one day, but I could die at any moment. My body is vulnerable to harm from external objects, but its own internal processes could go awry and cause me to suffer or die. My inner life, my mental and emotional life, is in some respects even more vulnerable to outside events and forces than is my body: other people influence how I see myself, they can lead me to feel inadequate, strange, mis- understood, abnormal or evil. My vulnerability is intensified because I seem dependent on objects and people other than myself. In other words, my interactions with the world around me are not indifferent; they are necessary and urgent. I need food, shelter and companionship. My interaction with other people is especially urgent and consequently fraught with dangers. I find myself constantly seeking the affirmation and approval of others, I want them to recognize me, value me for who I am. I realize that this recognition is terribly important to me - I crave love, respect, honour. And yet the more I crave these things the more difficult they become, the more I seem to be at the mercy of others and how they see me. At the same time I realize that they crave the same sorts of things as I do, sometimes they even seem to want that recogni- tion and love to come from me.
This brief and rather simplistic pastiche is sufficient to illustrate the complexity of the struggle to be true to oneself, to discover oneself, to express oneself. Sorting through the elements of which life and self
? 131
? MICHEL FOUCAULT: KEY CO N CEPTS
seem to be composed I wonder precisely how I might even begin to discern and discover my self in them and to live a life that is authentic and true. However, the need for real self-examination loses its intensity when I realize that I can go through life with a minimal attention to these facts and without much reflection on how best to understand and live them. Life, as it turns out, has largely been laid out before me. I am daily encouraged and instructed, gently nudged, or firmly pushed in the proper direction. It is easy enough simply to absorb, sponge-like, much of what I need to know to survive in the world. It is easy enough to follow the path, robot-like, that I have been set upon. For example, I go to school and write down what my teachers say and study it. But what I learn is more than just the content of the lesson. Whether I am studying maths or history, biology or economics, by getting up, brushing my teeth, getting dressed, eating breakfast, making it to class on time, sitting in my place and focusing on the lesson, I learn many other things than maths or history, biology or economics. I learn how to wait and listen. I learn how to defer gratification. I learn how to measure myself in quantitative terms : I am smart if I get a certain number on my exams, if I do certain things before others do them. I learn the importance of these quantitative evaluations and to consume them with passion and anxiety - the letter C is first met with a desire to do better, then with frustration and resentment, and finally with quiet resignation. Grades, evaluations, pay-cheques, commodities tell me who I am, how I am doing, what I am worth.
Television and entertainment amuses me and gives me a chance to feel things, but it also trains me by forming my imagination, by helping me form concrete images of what I love and desire, what I hate, who I want to be and how I need to act. Marketing does the same things, just less effectively. Thanks to all of this programming I know how to party and hang out, what to wear and what to listen to, how to talk and who to talk to. Whether I am in class, hanging out with my friends, at work, with my girlfriend or boyfriend, watching a movie, playing video games, I am always getting the message, sometimes directly and explicitly and sometimes indirectly and implicitly: here's how to be yourself! The pattern of my life, the form of my self, is mostly pre-established and already waiting for me.
This ready-made character of life comes from what Foucault calls disciplinary power or governmentality. 5 As I pass through all of the institutions (schools, workplaces, households, government agencies, doctors' offices, entertainment venues, etc. ) that give form to my life, I find myself caught up in an intricate web of compulsion and choice, desire and necessity. I interact with experts and authorities who are
132
? ? FOUCAULT'S THEORY AND PRACTICE OF SUBJECTIVITY
there to help me become a well-adjusted, happy, healthy, productive member of society. Psychologists and medical doctors, for example, have carefully worked out all of the minute stages of psychological and physical development and have devised marvellously precise instru- ments for measuring our lives and selves in terms of these stages. The market and the entertainment industry have worked hard to construct a world of commodities that help us know and express our true selves through the products and brands that we consume, the music we listen to, the movies we watch. These industries, authorities, experts and insti- tutions guide me by pushing me to discover, maximize and express my self: "the chief function of disciplinary power is to 'train' . . . Discipline 'makes'individuals"(Foucault1979: 170). Alloftheseauthoritiesand institutions train me to be me.
Central to this training process is the way it focuses attention on me (and you and everyone else) as an object of both control and knowledge. Discipline is a form of power that carefully watches, examines, records and measures. It does this in order to help me reach my full, produc- tive potential. But in so doing it regulates my behaviour and structures my time so that I can get the most out of it. It organizes everyone's time and behaviour so that it can compare us all to each other and get an idea of what kind of growth and development is normal. The end result is "calculable man" - a highly disciplined animal, very capable but also very "docile" (ibid. : 193; 135-? 69). This process is what Foucault calls "normalization" (ibid. : 177-84). The process of normalization has continued to become more pervasive and more intensive even as it becomes less obvious or intrusive. 6 Surveillance is more and more subtle (security cameras capture me in public places, spyware watches me on the Internet, my boss can audit my computer activity at work, my cell phone can be overheard easily, marketers register my behaviours and choices and target me with custom designed advertisements). Less and less of life is free and unstructured ? new communication technologies may free me from the cubicle, but they do so by making every place part of an interconnected network so that I am always at the office. Children's lives are more regimented, disciplined and governed than ever before: from the scientific design of developmental toys, to the structured, organized and supervised "play" groups and developmental activities that occupy more and more of their time.
In all of these examples, I am not governed in a way that represses or oppresses me. Rather, discipline makes me more productive, it trains me and develops my capacities for living, making it very hard to resist since it seems to be on my side, it provides me with resources to live my life. Yet, while all of these things shape me, give form and order to
? 133
? MICHEL FOUCAULT: KEY CONCEPTS
my life, and help me form an idea of who I am and how I am supposed to feel things and do things, I sometimes get the sensation that this is not really who I am.
It is in this disciplinary context that we often decide to look within for that true self, the self that has not been moulded or made to con- form, that has not been disciplined. But even at this moment, we are governed or trained to relate to our self in certain ways. The very idea that there is a true self within, waiting beneath the surface, is, as we have noted already, a very particular kind of relationship of the self to itself. Foucault calls this kind of subjectivity "herme- neutic" or "confessional" because it is formed through the activities of self-interpretation (hermeneutics is the art of interpretation) and self-expression (confession is the art or practice of expressing and communicating that which is difficult but necessary to say). Foucault's point is that hermeneutics and confession do not discern and express the inner truth. Rather by practising these activities we become a spe- cific kind of self:
The confession has spread its effects far and wide. It plays a part in justice, medicine, education, family relationships, and love relations, in the most ordinary affairs of everyday life, and in the most solemn rites; one confesses one's crimes, one's sins, one's thoughts and desires, one's illnesses and troubles; one goes about telling, with the greatest precision, whatever is most difficult to tell . . . Western man has become a singularly confessing animal.
(1990a: 59, emphasis added)
The hermeneutic and confessional subject falls into the trap we noted above. By focusing on the self who is revealed through interpretation and confession, we fail to see the way in which these very activities themselves are what define us and make us into the kind of person we are. While discipline arranges and orders our lives, hermeneutics and confession give form to our subjectivity.
Subjectivity and care ofthe self
In response to the disciplinary form of life and the hermeneutic, con- fessional form of subjectivity, Foucault proposes an alternative way of thinking about and giving form to our lives and selves. As we have seen, for Foucault subjectivity is not some thing we are, it is an activity that we do. Subjectivity is relational, dynamic and restless, potentially
134
? FOU CAULT'S THEORY AND PRACTICE O F SUBJECTI VIT Y
unruly and unpredictable. But if subjectivity is an active becoming, rather than a fixed being, then the quest to discover or find oneself - in the form of an essence or substance ? is futile. What is more, by focusing our attention on this self and our energy on trying to "express" it, we neglect our subjective becoming, which is taken over by the processes of disciplinary training and normalization.
In order to describe and analyse subjectivity, Foucault turns to a framework he calls "care of the self", which is his translation of an expression that appears regularly in the works of ancient Greek and Roman philosophy (epimeleia heautou) . Foucault juxtaposes care of the self with the confessional self and the hermeneutic self. Hermeneutic and confessional subjectivity is dominated by the imperative: "know yourself". In the ancient world, on the other hand, subjectivity was based on the imperative: "take care of yourself". Foucault tries to show that the framework of care of the self makes possible a fuller, richer way of thinking about, and actively becoming, ourselves. For ancient philosophers subjectivity was not a form of self-knowledge, rather self- knowledge was pursued only to the extent that it was necessary in order to take care of oneself. The pursuit of self-knowledge was only one possible element, and not always the most important one, in the more fundamental effort to take care of oneself. So if care of the self is not completely defined by self-knowledge, what else might it involve? The care of the self is composed of what Foucault sometimes calls the "technologies of the self " or the "arts of living".
When Foucault speaks of the "technologies" or "arts" of the self or of life, he is drawing on the Greek term techne, the etymological source of our word technology. The term "techne" is usually translated as know-how or craft or art. Techne is the kind of knowledge that allows someone to accomplish a specific task or produce a specified outcome. Ancient philosophers often thought of philosophy as the techne tou bio - the art of living (Foucault 2005a: 177-8). Philosophy was conceived of as the art or craft of producing a noble, beautiful and true life (for ancient Greeks goodness, beauty and truth are regularly thought of as identical). In this framework the self is understood to be a work of techne, of art.
Foucault's notion of the technologies or arts of the self, and the arts of living, has little to do with a fairly common, and essentially modern conception of the artist and her relationship to her work of art. We often think of art in terms of self-expression, again falling back on our presupposition about the substantial, foundational self. When we give in to this tendency we miss the dynamic genesis of art and artworks.
We fail to appreciate how artists actually work to produce an art object and
? 135
? MI CHEL FOUCAULT: KEY CONCEPTS
we fail to comprehend how artists actually become artists. For Foucault, art or techne is realized in creative labour or work (the Greeks called this kind of labour poiesis, the root of our word "poetry"). In order to produce an object or an outcome it is necessary to perform certain very precise and well-ordered activities, activities that require a certain amount of know-how. For instance, an artist needs to know how the particular paint she is using will take to the surface she is painting on because the way that the paint adheres to or is absorbed by a surface will shape the look of the painting. If the artist begins with an idea of the painting to be accomplished but has no knowledge of how to mix her paints, or what kind of paint to use on which kind of surface, she will not be able to realize her idea, she will not be able to create the work. The know-how of the artist is not the kind of knowledge that can be learned primarily through study; it is not essentially "theoretical" knowledge. Of course, learning the chemical science behind oil-based paints and their adhesion to wood surfaces may be useful, but studying chemistry does not result in art. In order to acquire art the artist needs to experiment with and experience the look and feel of the paint on the surface - no study of chemistry can provide this kind of know-how. Only by mixing the paint, choosing a particular brush and surface, and applying the paint to the surface can the artist begin to develop the art
techne - that is necessary to produce a painting, to produce a work of art. One learns to paint by painting. 7
The artfulness of the work derives from these very precise activities and the know-how (techne) that both makes them possible but also, and importantly, comes from them. Of course, painting is more than the mere study of paints and surfaces. In addition to all of the other concerns that go into the artfulness of the painter, there are those key elements that we as spectators tend to focus on: the form or style of the painting and its content or "meaning". A completed work of art is the realization of what we call the artist's "vision", "intent" or aesthetic "idea". In the self-expression view of art we presume that vision, intent or idea express who the artist truly is. The painting is then seen as a kind of confession of the artist and its meaning is dis- cerned through a hermeneutic that would discern, operating behind the manifest content, the hidden motive, the vision, intent or idea that reside in the self (soul, heart, mind) of the artist. But form, style and content are just as much the upshot of the actual labour of art as they are its directives and sources. The ability of an artist actually to see, imagine or conceptualize the completed work is the consequence of having learned the possibilities of the medium through the concrete practice of painting. Certainly, we all gain some capacity to envision
? ? 136
? F O U CAULT'S THE OR Y AND PRACTICE O F SUBJECTIVITY
a work of art that does not exist by looking at possible subjects of art and especially by studying the works of others. But we do not have a realizable aesthetic vision or idea until we have actually learned the real possibilities of the medium we wish to work in, and these can only be learned through the practice of painting. Intent, idea and vision are the results of practice and art, not the causes of it. The vision of the artist is itself transformed, deepened, expanded or intensified by the actual labour. In effect the artist is a work of art just as much as the object she produces. It is through rigorously practising the activities of the art that we acquire something like vision and become capable of a real, meaningful, realizable artistic idea or intent.
How does this discussion of art apply to the relationship of the self to itself? How does the self give form to itself and its life as works of art? Foucault discovers many examples of arts of the self and arts of living in the works of ancient philosophers. For Foucault the study of these practices can provide us with a resource of all sorts of techniques that we might adapt and try out. In the following we will briefly summarize and examine a couple of the techniques for taking care of the self devel- oped by ancient philosophers. This will give us a more concrete idea of what the arts of the self and of living might look like. We will also consider how Foucault's work itself is composed of arts of the self that he practises in order to form a certain kind of relationship to himself, to become a particular kind of philosopher.
First, let us look at a couple of examples of the ancient practice of the examination of conscience. For example, here is how Foucault describes the way Marcus Aurelius begins his day with an anticipatory examination of conscience :
This examination does not at all involve going back over what you could have done in the night or the day before; it is an exami- nation of what you will do . . . It involves reviewing in advance the actions you will perform in the day, your commitments, the appointments you have made, the tasks you will have to face: remembering the general aim you set yourself by these actions and the general aims you should always have in mind throughout life, and so the precautions to be taken so as to act according to these precise objectives and general aims in the situations that anse. (2005a: 481)
The relation to oneself that i s formed by this technique is not prin- cipally one of confession or interpretation. Rather, it is a form of prep- aration and memory. I must remember my goals and my principles,
? ? 137
? MICHEL FOUCAULT: KEY CON CEPTS
I must be prepared for the events of the day so that I will not forget what I am trying to achieve. In a similar vein, Foucault discusses a form of self-examination that can be found in the work of Seneca. In this example, Seneca takes some time at the end of the day to recollect and record what he has done that day. Once again, his primary aim and focus in this activity is not to discern the hidden motive at work in what he did, nor is he primarily intent on judging his actions (although he does employ juridical language for describing the process). There is no sense of a self lurking behind his actions and giving them meaning. First and foremost his activity is a kind of "accounting" or administra- tive activity, adding up the balance sheets and seeing how he has done that day. He also describes this art as a kind of inspection of his actions that day to see if he has done everything as well as he could have and to learn how he might avoid mistakes and improve in the future. As with the morning examination of Marcus Aurelius, the evening exami- nation of Seneca is:
primarily a test of the reactivation of the fundamental rules of action, of the ends we should have in mind, and of the means we should employ to achieve these ends and the immediate objectives we may set ourselves. To that extent, examination of conscience is a memory exercise, not just with regard to what happened during the day, but with regard to the rules we should always have in our mind. (Ibid. : 483)
The examination of conscience in both Marcus Aurelius and Seneca is an art for the formation of subjectivity, for the formation of the self. It is not an attempt to discover a pre-existing substance or essence, but rather part of an effort to become a certain kind of individual, to give a distinctive form to one's life, to shape, deepen, intensify and cultivate the relationship of the self to itself. These techniques of self- examination are ways of taking care of oneself in the sense that they assist one in the activity of becoming the self that one wants or needs to be. Marcus Aurelius and Seneca both take up the material of life, all of those elements which we reviewed at the beginning of this essay: thoughts and feelings, actions and relationships, and so on. In face of the rush of events and actions, storms of emotion, the endless flow of thoughts, judgements, choices, they attempt to sculpt a form out of life and to shape the self-relation. The aim of the exercise is to make sure that I do not end up completely uprooted and carried away in the stream of events, never catching a glimpse of or getting a firm hold on what is worthwhile in life and what I might be able to make of my
138
? FOUCAULT'S THEORY AND PRACTICE O F SUBJECTIVITY
self. Foucault's purpose in turning to these philosophers is not to con- vince us to relive the lives of Stoic philosophers. Rather, the drift of his work detaches us from the hermeneutic and confessional practice of subjectivity; to show us that the self is not a substance or essence but a work of art; and to give us a taste of the many different arts, and consequently many different kinds of self, that can be practised. In this way his study provides us with new resources, techniques that we might use, even if we do not appropriate wholesale the Stoic life and the Stoic aims in life.
Not all of the arts of the self and of life are forms of self- examination. For example, one of the principal arts of the self in ancient philosophy involved the contemplation of nature and of external reality. The contemplation of nature can have a powerful, transformative effect on one's relationship to oneself and the way one lives. For example, Seneca practised a form of natural philoso- phy that allowed him to attain an elevated perspective from which he could look down on himself and his life (ibid. : 275-85). When we are caught up in the middle of things - the pressures of work or school, relationships, money, health, and so on -? the day-to-day anxi- eties of life become all consuming. We find ourselves absorbed in our problems and concerns, obsessed with our work or our relationship, in ways that take a toll on us and can result in self-destructive behav- iours and habits, the crushing anxiety that accompanies a life and self that is spinning out of control. But through the contemplation of the vastness and magnificence of the cosmos we elevate ourselves above and beyond the day-to-day world. Then looking down on it from above we are able to see it within this larger, truer, cosmic perspec- tive. The world of our everyday preoccupations appears in truth as a brief moment in the vast infinity of time, hardly a speck of dust swal- lowed up in the endless expanses of space, completely insignificant in relation to the power and beauty of the heavenly bodies. Other ancient philosophers developed their own forms of the contempla- tion of nature, but in each case they serve as arts for the formation of the self: freeing the self from its fears or compulsions, calming the mind disturbed by pressing problems, reinforcing a will constantly bombarded by frivolous demands, distractions, temptations. For Foucault, this art of the self shows us that the practice of subjectiv- ity does not necessarily entail turning our gaze inward, focusing on and essentializing the inner life. Rather, there are powerful arts of living that project us out into the world, further detaching us from our presuppositions about self-discovery and self-expression. Being true to ourselves may in fact involve focusing our attention on the
? 139
? MICHEL FOU C A ULT: KEY CONCEPTS
natural world or history and society - in other words, turning out- wards rather than inwards.
Becoming oneself
Foucault's study of care of the self and the arts of the self in ancient philosophy is not merely a record and analysis of these activities. In fact, it is clear that in this study Foucault, as in all of his philosophical activity, was engaged in the active practice of forming his own sub- jectivity. If we examine the trajectory of Foucault's own work, we see that through the labour of philosophical thought, Foucault developed an art of philosophical practice that served as the source of a certain vision and relationship to himself. He formed a distinctive way of being a philosopher. Here is one way he described his own efforts to fashion himself as a work of art:
As for what motivated me, it is quite simple; I would hope that in the eyes of some people it might be sufficient in itself. It was curiosity - the only kind of curiosity, in any case, that is worth acting upon with a degree of obstinacy; not the curiosity that seeks to assimilate what it is proper for one to know, but that which enables one to get free of oneself. After all, what would be the value of the passion for knowledge if it resulted only in a certain amount of knowledgeableness and not, in one way or another and to the extent possible, in the knower's straying afield of himself?
(1990b: 8)
Foucault's care of the self was composed of numerous arts - includ- ing but not limited to reading, thinking, writing, teaching - that allow him to "get free" of himself. Philosophy for Foucault was not prima- rily a form of knowledge or self-knowledge but rather "an exercise of oneself in the activity of thought" (ibid. : 9). What is the result of this kind of exercise ?
There is irony in those efforts one makes to alter one's way of looking at things, to change the boundaries of what one knows and to venture out a ways from there. Did mine actually result in a different way of thinking? Perhaps at most they made it possible to go back through what I was already thinking, to think it differ- ently, and to see what I had done from a new vantage point and in a clearer light. Sure of having traveled far, one finds that one
140
? FOUCAULT'S THEORY AND PRACTICE O F SUBJECTIVITY
is looking down on oneself from above. The journey rejuvenates things, and ages the relationship with oneself. (Ibid. : 1 1 )
Clearly getting free of oneself does not mean that one simply aban- dons oneself in order to become a completely new person, whatever that might mean. Rather, one gets some distance and perspective, one "looks down on oneself from above". But who is the self that one gets free of? The self Foucault gets free of is none other than the one formed by discipline, whose subjectivity is shaped by the practices of hermeneutics and confession. Discipline, confession and hermeneutics produce a self that lives a certain way, that sees itself and the world in terms of normalization, self-interpretation and self-expression. When Foucault "exercises" himself in the "activity of thought" he is attempt- ing to "think differently", to detach himself from the disciplined, nor- malized self that he has become so far. The work or art of the self is the exercise by which Foucault establishes a relationship of distance from the self of discipline, hermeneutics and confession. But has he now arrived at his true self?
Just be yourself. Keep it real. Follow your own path. Foucault's account of subjectivity gives a whole new meaning to these words and helps us understand why the task they prescribe is so urgent but yet so difficult, ultimately endless. Being oneself is a matter of strenuous trying and determined artfulness, because the self is a continuous becoming, not a fixed being. Consequently, the art of becoming my self is always to some extent an art of no longer being what I was, an art that detaches the self from itself in order to form a new, deeper, wiser relationship to itself, which in turn will give way to its own self-distancing, sending me on my way towards unknown futures.
Notes
1. I would like to acknowledge Serena Parekh, Paul Bruno and Dianna Taylor for reading drafts of this chapter and giving me invaluable feedback and insight. This paper has also benefited greatly from the careful reading and incisive com- ments of two students at Saint Anselm College: Sara Kallock and Ryan Manley.
2. For example, see Foucault (1988, 1997e, 2005a).
3. Paul Bruno has helped me to see the particular danger that occurs here, a kind
of divorce between the "fixed idea of who we are" and action/human agency. In other words, when we have a fixed idea of ourselves, our actions become meaningless in a way. No matter what we do, we are still the fixed person we have conceived for ourselves.
4. See Foucault's discussion of self-reflection as constitutive of the self as both knower and known (Foucault 2005a: 461-2).
5. See the chapters on power in Part I of this book. 141
? ? MI CHEL FOU CAULT: KEY CONCEPTS
6. For an excellent study of the spread and intensification of power since the death of Michel Foucault, see: Nealon (2008).
7. One of the key features of techne is its bodily character: it is acquired through embodied activities, situated and concrete investigations and experiments. Techne is embodied or bodily knowledge.
142
? TEN
Su a
Brad Elliott Stone
Is there a relationship between subjectivity and truth in our contempo- rary age? Foucault's answer is "no". In this chapter, I seek to explicate Foucault's conclusion about the divorce of subjectivity and truth. Begin- ning with Foucault's account of the shift between ancient and modern philosophy,1 I show in the first section that the modern, strictly epis- temological understanding of truth removes us from the possibility of having an ethical relationship to the truth. This ethical relationship to the truth, however, was the heart of ancient philosophy, whose goal was not "knowledge" but human flourishing. The second section explores the role of truth in ancient philosophy. The third section turns to an explication of Foucault's account of parrhesia as it was understood in ancient philosophy. Parrhesia is the act of telling the truth out of one's moral duty, even in dangerous situations. I then offer examples of how parrhesia was used in ancient philosophy, followed by a brief discussion of whether or not we can recreate a meaningful relationship between subjectivity and truth.
In the shadow ofthe Cartesian moment
Foucault's 1 9 8 2 lecture course The Hermeneutics olthe Subject contin- ues his investigation into the connection between subjectivity and truth beguninthe 1981 courseSubjectivityandTruth. 2Inthe 1981 lecture course, Foucault focused exclusively on Hellenic views of sexuality. In 1 9 8 2, Foucault wants to ask the question of the relationship between subjectivityandtruthinamoregeneralway: "[i]nwhathistoricalform
? ? 143
? MICHEL FOU CAULT: KEY CONCEPTS
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? " (2005a: 2). How does the West relate subjectivity and truth, if at all?
One of Foucault's main arguments in his opening lecture in 1 9 8 2 is that there is a discontinuity in the history of the relationship between subjectivity and truth. To show this discontinuity, Foucault discusses the radical difference between how the ancient thinkers understood the relationship between subjectivity and truth and how the modern thinkers understand it. Foucault returns to the old philosophical motto "Know yourself", gnothi seauton. This hope for self-knowledge, cen- tral to the philosopher's quest, was always essentially coupled with another motto: "take care of yourself", epimeleia heautou. However, in the contemporary age, this coupling is no longer essential. For the ancient thinkers, one had to be a particular kind of person in order to know oneself, let alone know anything else of importance. In our age, however, knowledge is considered something that one can obtain regardless of the kind of person one is. This is where Foucault detects an archaeological (in Foucault's sense of the term) break in the history of knowledge. Foucault asserts that the ancient thinkers considered the care of the self "the justificatory framework, ground, and founda- tion for the imperative 'know yourself"' (ibid. : 8). That we can now claim self-knowledge without any ethical requirements would be for the ancients unintelligible.
The 1982 course focuses on the ancient methods ofbeingthe kind of person who could gain access to the truth. This will provide a prelimi- nary answer to Foucault's key question: "Why did Western thought and philosophy neglect the notion ofepimeleiaheautou in its reconstruction of its own history ? " (ibid. : 1 2) . Why has contemporary thought claimed continuity with ancient thought through the quest for self-knowledge while being oblivious to the fact that the ancient thinkers had require- ments for self-knowledge that modern thought does not bother to fulfil?
One possible explanation is the rise of Christianity with its emphasis on selflessness. The non-egoist principle of Christianity causes one to see the care of the self as too selfish. Also, the Judaeo-Christian belief in an omniscient God whose knowledge is distinct from God's moral goodness allows for a hope for God's kind of knowledge without having to care for oneself. Although this is a possible explanation, it does not give the strongest case. For Foucault, the stronger case is archaeological rather than historical.
For Foucault, Descartes' philosophy represents an archaeological event3 in which the "concept" of self-knowledge had shifted. Foucault
? ? 144
? S UB J E CTIVITY AND TRUTH
describes what he calls "the Cartesian moment", a moment character- ized "by philosophically requalifying the gnothi seauton and by dis- crediting the epimeleia heautou" (ibid. : 14). Foucault spends the rest of the first hour of the opening lecture of the 1982 course on the discontinuity in the history of the relationship of subjectivity and truth evidenced by this moment. At the heart of the Cartesian moment is the belief that self-knowledge is a given, a fact that Descartes nimbly proves in the Second Meditation of Meditations on First Philosophy. From this self-knowledge, one can then proceed, with certainty, to knowledge of God, mathematics and even the physical world itself. What is missing here, Foucault points out, is the ancient notion of the care of the self.
What is missing at the core of Cartesian philosophy (and modern thought since Descartes) is spirituality. Foucault uses this term in a technical sense, not to be immediately confused with one's religious practices (although that sense of spirituality will itself be a mode of what Foucault means here by "spirituality"). Foucault defines spiritu- ality as "the search, practice, and experience through which the sub- ject carries out the necessary transformations on himself in order to have access to the truth" (ibid. : 1 5 ) . When philosophy is coupled with spirituality, philosophy is "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 to the subject's access to the truth" (ibid. ). Ancient philosophy was the pursuit of the kind of life that would lead to knowledge, not just an analysis of what could be known and how one could know it. The Cartesian moment, however, allows for a philosophy without spirituality, removing the first part of philosophy's definition (What enables the subject to have access to the truth? ) while retaining the second part (What are the conditions and limits to the subject's access of truth? ). This is a point of diffraction (cf. Foucault 1972: 65) between ancient and modern thought: ancient thought finds the second part of the definition unintelligible with- out the first part, while modern thought cleanly divides epistemology from ethics.
The reason the ancients would find modern philosophy unintelligi- ble, Foucault claims, is the Cartesian insistence that self-knowledge is self-given, and that the right use of one's own already-in-place mental powers can lead to truth. One of the postulates of spirituality pre- sented by Foucault is that "the truth is never given to the subject by right"; that is, "the subject does not have right of access to the truth" (Foucault 2005a: 15). For the ancients, the subject's already-in-place mental "powers" are precisely what need to be overcome! The second
? 145
?
