Foucault's Subjectivities

Foucault Studies, 2005

The 'late' Foucault and his purported 'return to the subject' is a much discussed issue. Over the past twenty years, various suggestions have been made as to how to integrate Foucault's ethics into his oeuvre as a whole. This paper holds that there is a 'conceptual continuity', rather than a break, between Foucault's earlier works on normalizing power, and his later works on ethical self-constitution. On the basis of a conceptual framework, which is developed in Section II, a reading of two themes concerning certain practices of the self is offered in the following sections (namely, dietetics and spiritual guidance). The material, drawn from the recently published lecture series L'herméneutique du sujet as well as from other published works, is related back to Foucault's ideas on the process of 'subjectivation', in order to support the claim that 'fabrication' and 'self-constitution' are but two aspects of subjectivation. 1 The notion of "aesthetics of existence" refers to an understanding of ethics that derives from the philosophies of post-classical Greece and the Roman Empire, and these are the same sources that Foucault uses for his re-interpretation. The idea it refers to was called "ethics" in Antiquity, in the sense of a personal "ethos" (cf. Alasdair MacIntyre, After Virtue: A Study in Moral Theory (Notre Dame (Indiana): University of Notre Dame Press, 2nd edition 1984), chap. 4) The idea of "Art", which is implied by the term "aesthetics", was always understood as an "imitation of life" in ancient philosophy (cf. Aristotle, Poetics, 1. 1447a). Hence, life itself cannot be interpreted as an "Art" in the sense of "aesthetics". The ancient notion of "tekhnê tou biou", i.e. the "art of living", bears a different use of the term, as in "the art of woodcarving", (cf. Julia Annas, "Virtue as a Skill," International Journal of Philosophical Studies 3 (1995): 227-243). While the idea behind it clearly derives from ancient foucault studies, No 2, pp. 75-96 embedded in, have given rise to the hypothesis of a "return of the subject" in Foucault's later philosophy. The "late Foucault" is probably one of the most widely discussed topics in research published on Foucault. A popular view on this late period holds that at some point in his oeuvre, Foucault turned away from analysing the power/knowledge mechanisms that fabricate subjects, and turned to analysing how subjects constitute themselves. 2 This view sometimes implies the idea that these notions, "constitution" and "fabrication", refer to two distinct phenomena. 3 In this paper, I will argue against this view. Instead of a "return of the subject", I will advocate the view that on the theme of subjectivity, we find a conceptual continuity traversing the whole of Foucault's oeuvre, rather than a rupture that separates the "early" from the "late" Foucault. Assuming we granted the idea that the "subject" in Foucault's later work is ontologically different from the one we find in his earlier work, we would have to assume that at the respective point in Foucault's oeuvre, there is some sort of turn or even rupture in his thinking. And this can in turn be evaluated either positively or negatively. Those that have criticised Foucault thought, the notion of "aesthetics of existence", which plays on the ambiguity of the word "art", is a Foucaldian term. Recently, another aspect of this notion has been pointed out by Joseph Tanke (cf. his "Cynical aesthetics: A theme from Michel Foucault's 1984 lectures at the Collège de France," Philosophy Today 46, 2 (2002): 170-184). Tanke reports Foucault's comparison of the way of life of the early Cynics to that of contemporary artists, pointing out that the forms of likening one's life to one's thinking involved in both of them are essentially the same. This is an idea that may also be implied to Foucault's notion of the "aesthetics" of existence. 2 Cf.

This paper proposes a new reading of the interaction between subjectivity, reflection and freedom within Foucault’s later work. I begin by introducing three approaches to subjectivity, locating these in relation both to Foucault’s texts and to the recent literature. I suggest that Foucault himself operates within what I call the “entanglement approach”, and, as such, he faces a potentially serious challenge, a challenge forcefully articulated by Han. Using Kant’s treatment of reflection as a point of comparison, I argue that Foucault possesses the resources to meet this challenge. The key, I contend, is to distinguish two related theses about reflection and freedom: Foucault’s position is distinctive precisely because he accepts one of these theses whilst rejecting the other. I conclude by indicating how this reading might connect to the longstanding question of Foucault’s own right to appeal to normative standards.

Journal for Cultural Research,, 2017

The paper interprets Foucault’s intellectual project by analyzing the relation between his understanding of critique and the political conditions of subjectivation out of which it emerged. After reviewing some of the most typical criticisms to Foucault’s work (and especially those maintaining that genealogy can only be rooted in a non-genealogical and universal conception of power), the argument shows in what sense he conceived of critique as a form of resistance and how the latter, in turn, was theorized as a force co-extensive to the power it counters. The paper goes on arguing that his theory of resistance is not necessarily to be viewed as a metaphysical representation of the immutable nature of political struggle, but might well be interpreted in performative terms, i.e. as a strategic re-inscription of existing political-discursive formations. More precisely, the analysis shows in what way Foucault’s articulation of critique represented an attempt to displace the forms of subjectivation that underpin anthropological thought and the government of the self in the modern age.

2016

Michel Foucault’s account of the subject has a double meaning: it relates to both being a “subject of” and being “subject to” political forces. This book interrogates the philosophical and political consequences of such a dual definition of the subject, by exploring the processes of subjectivation and objectivation through which subjects are produced. Drawing together well-known scholars of Foucaultian thought and critical theory, alongside a newly translated interview with Foucault himself, the book will engage in a serious reconsideration of the notion of “autonomy” beyond the liberal tradition, connecting it to processes of subjectivation. In the face of the ongoing proliferation of analyses using the notion of subjectivation, this book will retrace Foucault’s reflections on it and interrogate the current theoretical and political implications of a series of approaches that mobilize the Foucaultian understanding of the subject in relation to truth and power.

Educational Philosophy and Theory

This article argues against the doxa that Foucault's analysis of education inevitably undermines self-originating ethical intention on the part of teachers or students. By attending to Foucault's lesser known, later work-in particular, the notion of 'biopower' and the deepened level of materiality it entails-the article shows how the earlier Foucauldian conception of power is intensified to such an extent that it overflows its original domain, and comes to 'infuse' the subject that might previously have been taken as a mere effect.What emerges, accordingly, is a subject divested of 'traditional', substantial, formation, located wholly on an immanent plane, and yet centrally concerned with the practice of freedom and ethical resistance. In turn, what seemed to have no place at all in the earlier Foucault becomes central: in general, active subjectivization (subjectivation) as a counter to passive subjection (assujetissement); more particularly, subjects' ongoing production and creation (via strategic decisions and localized opposition) of a new ethos, new 'practices of self', and new kinds of relations.With this alternative Foucauldian position outlined, the article then focuses more particularly on the practices of education: it concludes that, instead of being rendered merely the factories of obedient behaviour, schools or colleges can be the locus for a critically-informed, oppositional micro-politics. In other words: the power-relations that (quite literally) constitute education can now be regarded, on Foucault's own terms, as being creative, 'enabling' and positive.

Rowman and Littlefield International , 2015

Michel Foucault defined critique as an exercise in de-subjectivation. To what extent did this claim shape his philosophical practice? What are its theoretical and ethical justifications? Why did Foucault come to view the production of subjectivity as a key site of political and intellectual emancipation in the present? Andrea Rossi pursues these questions in The Labour of Subjectivity. The book re-examines the genealogy of the politics of subjectivity that Foucault began to outline in his lectures at the Collège de France in the late 1970s and early 1980s. He explores Christian confession, raison d’état, biopolitics and bioeconomy as the different technologies by which Western politics has attempted to produce, regulate and give form to the subjectivity of its subjects. Ultimately Rossi argues that Foucault’s critical project can only be comprehended within the context of this historico-political trajectory, as an attempt to give the extant politics of the self a new horizon. "Through an in-depth and skillful presentation of Foucault’s work, Andrea Rossi traces the genealogy of governmentality in the problematic relation between the subject and the norm, action and freedom, power and knowledge. His analysis offers a rigorous and original interpretation of the great Foucauldian themes of biopolitics, economy and the formation of modern subjectivity." Roberto Esposito, Professor of Theoretical Philosophy, Scuola Normale Superiore, Italy "Everyone who thinks they have a secure and incisive grasp of the philosophical, ethical and political implications of Foucault on subjectivity should test their presuppositions by reading Andrea Rossi’s book. His innovative investigation is philosophically profound, ethically sensitive, and politically astute. Based on impressive close reading and full of quotable sentences, the book should be consulted whenever one wants to evoke Foucault on the historical production of subjectivity, on bio-political economy, on technologies of power, and on the particularities of the politics of the present." Michael J. Shapiro, Professor of Political Science, University of Hawaii

The Philosophical Forum, 2000

Foucault Studies, 2010

Polity, 1999

From the mid-1970s until his death, Michel Foucault sought to develop an account of the subject that would avoid both regarding the subject as merely the passive product of power relations and regarding it as entirely selfcreating. Following Foucault’s final cues focused on his discussion of the ethics of the self and rooted in a conception of freedom as an ontological condition of possibility rather than as human will drawn mainly from Heidegger, I argue that Foucault sought to develop an account of humans as beings-in-the-world situated within an existing web of relations occurring within a context of background practices, all the while possessing an ontological freedom that is not molded by power relations but is instead the condition of possibility of power itself In this way, Foucault sought to achieve a balance between activity and passivity, agency and structure in his account of the subject.

Radical Philosophy 51, 1989

The following essay is an initial attempt to extend the comparison of the thought of Michel Foucault with that of the Frankfurt School, begun in my Logics of Disintegration (Verso, 1987), to cover the work ofF oucault's last phase. It does not claim to be a comprehensive analysis, but simply seeks to establish two fundamental points: firstly, that the return of a self-constituting subjectivity in F oucault' s final writings cannot be seen as merely a shift of emphasis within a consistent probject (as suggested,for example, by Deleuze, in his book on Foucault), but arises out of the intractable dilemmas ofF oucault' s earlier work, and represents a break with many of its assumptions; secondly, that the form in which Foucault introduces the concept of the subject, namely as an undialectical reaction to the political implications of philosophical' antihumanism' , raises as many problems as it solves. A somewhat different version of this essay is to appear in German in the anthology Die Aktualitlit der 'Dialektik der Aufkllirung ': Zwischen Modernismus und Postmodernismus, published by Campus Verlag, Frankfurt (1989). I am grateful to the Verlag for permission to republish this material here.