My answer to the question about an existentialist motif in Foucault or, to put it another way, about the 'later' Foucault's supposed 'return to the subject', is negative: there is no 'subjectivistic turn' in Foucault. Foucault adheres to the project of a philosophical history of (the nature of) reason, even where he seems to go beyond that by considering- from the 'outside'- our rationalities rather than rationality in general, by shifting weights and directions, or, finally, by seeking to understand reason, from a 'pragmatic point of view', as an 'aesthetics of existence'. As I have argued, Foucault's idea of 'governance' as the reflexive conduct of oneself and of others by the self opens a promising perspective for answering the question of what it means to 'submit to a rule'. But this question remains unanswered. The role of the law (droit ) for 'our modern mode of being' also remains underexposed, even in this new light . Curiously enough, for, on the one hand, ' le juridique' is used by Foucault, from the period of Discipline and Punish up to the lectures on governmentality and The Birth of Biopolitics, in a quasi-paradigmatic way to illustrate the functioning of rule, command and act (loi). On the other hand, by cutting off the law in the context of an 'art of existence', Foucault fails to recognise both that the modern 'juridical' is a really new 'social truth generating system', and that an emblematic way of being a person in modern society is the ability to produce an argument from legal necessity. But that would have to be argued elsewhere.

Subjectivation as Problem and Project. Is there an Existentialist Motif in Foucault?

MESSNER, Claudius Karl Ewald
2011-01-01

Abstract

My answer to the question about an existentialist motif in Foucault or, to put it another way, about the 'later' Foucault's supposed 'return to the subject', is negative: there is no 'subjectivistic turn' in Foucault. Foucault adheres to the project of a philosophical history of (the nature of) reason, even where he seems to go beyond that by considering- from the 'outside'- our rationalities rather than rationality in general, by shifting weights and directions, or, finally, by seeking to understand reason, from a 'pragmatic point of view', as an 'aesthetics of existence'. As I have argued, Foucault's idea of 'governance' as the reflexive conduct of oneself and of others by the self opens a promising perspective for answering the question of what it means to 'submit to a rule'. But this question remains unanswered. The role of the law (droit ) for 'our modern mode of being' also remains underexposed, even in this new light . Curiously enough, for, on the one hand, ' le juridique' is used by Foucault, from the period of Discipline and Punish up to the lectures on governmentality and The Birth of Biopolitics, in a quasi-paradigmatic way to illustrate the functioning of rule, command and act (loi). On the other hand, by cutting off the law in the context of an 'art of existence', Foucault fails to recognise both that the modern 'juridical' is a really new 'social truth generating system', and that an emblematic way of being a person in modern society is the ability to produce an argument from legal necessity. But that would have to be argued elsewhere.
2011
9780230283152
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Utilizza questo identificativo per citare o creare un link a questo documento: https://hdl.handle.net/11587/363772
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