scholarly journals Foucault’s Empire of the Free

2017 ◽  
pp. 94-112
Author(s):  
Richard Alston
Keyword(s):  
The Self ◽  
Historical Change ◽  
Complex Societies ◽  
Greek Philosophy ◽  
Care Of The Self ◽  
Critical Position ◽  
Imperial Power ◽  
Historical Specificity ◽  
The Will ◽  
Self Knowledge

This essay argues that the engagement with Greece and Rome after The Will to Knowledge allowed Foucault to bring clarity to his conception of limited freedom in complex societies. The Classical fulfilled this function paradoxically by being jarringly different from and integral to the discourses of modern sexuality. Foucault’s engagement with the Classical in The Use of Pleasure and The Care of the Self continued his established method of uncovering the development of a discourse, or set of discourses, over time. He thereby demonstrated the historical specificity of understandings of sexuality and the self. It follows that if the ancient self was a historical construct, then the modern self must also be such. But Foucault’s Classical engagement leads him to an innovative position in which the disciplinary dynamics of ancient self-knowledge offer a practical philosophy. Foucault’s Greek philosophy could have effects through two related mechanisms: the care of the self through askesis (discipline) and the speaking of truth to power through parresia (free speech). Through the rigors of askesis, the self can be rendered an object of analysis and hence a critical position external to the self can be achieved. Externality allows the philosopher to exercise parresia since the constraints of society have been surpassed and consequently offers a prospect of agency and a measure of freedom. The second part of the essay questions the extent of that freedom by reading Foucault against Tacitus, particularly the Agricola and the mutinies episode in the Annales. These episodes show the limitations of parresia and how parresia is bound into the workings of imperial power (and not a position external to that power). In the Tacitean model, externality is a viable political stance (achieved by Agricola), but is problematic ethically. The essay concludes by contrasting Foucauldian and Tacitean models of historical change. 

Foucault Goes to Weight Watchers

Hypatia ◽  
2006 ◽  
Vol 21 (2) ◽  
pp. 126-149 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cressida J. Heyes
Keyword(s):  
Weight Loss ◽  
Michel Foucault ◽  
Self Care ◽  
The Self ◽  
Power Weight ◽  
Care Of The Self ◽  
Self Knowledge ◽  
Weight Watchers

This article argues that commercial weight-loss organizations appropriate and debase the askeses—practices of care of the self—that Michel Foucault theorized, increasing members’ capacities at the same time as they encourage participation in ever-tightening webs of power. Weight Watchers, for example, claims to promote self-knowledge, cultivate new capacities and pleasures, foster self-care in face of gendered exploitation, and encourage wisdom and flexibility. The hupomnemata of these organizations thus use asketic language to conceal their implication in normalization.

scholarly journals Care of the self in the daily living of nurses: an integrative review

2020 ◽  
Vol 73 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Edson José da Silva Júnior ◽  
Alexandre Pazetto Balsanelli ◽  
Vanessa Ribeiro Neves
Keyword(s):  
Professional Practice ◽  
Retrieval System ◽  
Web Of Science ◽  
The Self ◽  
Integrative Review ◽  
Care Of The Self ◽  
Self Knowledge ◽  
Nursing Courses ◽  
Content Similarity ◽  
Graduate Nursing

ABSTRACT Objectives: to identify if nurses care for themselves and describe such practices. Methods: this is an integrative review of the literature published between 2006 and 2018 and indexed in the Literatura Latino-Americana e do Caribe em Ciências da Saúde, Medical Literature Analysis and Retrieval System Online and Web of Science databases. Results: the sample totaled 20 articles, grouped by content similarity in the thematic categories “limits and possibilities for the care of the self”, “knowledge about practices on the care of the self” and “implications of care of the self in professional practice”. Final considerations: the knowledge about techniques on caring for the self allows nurses to develop themselves personally and professionally. We suggest to managers and administrators a redirection of the nursing practice that contemplates the strengthening of the nurse as the manager of care and leader of the team, as well as the inclusion of the concept of care of the self in the curricula of undergraduate and graduate nursing courses.

Nihilistic Thinking as the Self-Will of the Mind and the Projects of Its Overcoming

2020 ◽  
Vol 63 (10) ◽  
pp. 74-87
Author(s):  
Irina N. Sidorenko
Keyword(s):  
Significant Role ◽  
Current Situation ◽  
The Self ◽  
Spatial Perspective ◽  
The World ◽  
The Will ◽  
The Mind ◽  
Radical Transformation

 The author analyzes the conceptions of ontological nihilism in the works of S. Kierkegaard, F. Nietzsche, M. Heidegger, E. Jünger. On the basis of this analysis, violence is defined as a manifestation of nihilism, of the “will to nothingness” and hypertrophy of the self-will of man. The article demonstrates the importance of the problem of nihilism. The nihilistic thinking of modern man is expressed in the attitude toward a radical transformation of the world from the position of his “absolute” righteousness. The paradox of the current situation is that there is the reverse side of this transformative activity, when there is only the appearance of action and the dilution of responsibility. Confidence in the rightness of own views and beliefs increases the risk of the violent imposition of own vision of reality. Historical and philosophical reconstruction of the conceptions of nihilism allowed to reveal the following projects of its comprehension and resolution: (1) the project of “positing of values,” which consists in the transformation of the evaluation, which is understood as another perspective of positing values, leading to the affirmation of being; (2) the project of overcoming nihilism from the space of temporality, carried out through the resoluteness to accept the historicity of own existence; (3) the project of overcoming nihilism as the oblivion of being from the spatial perspective of the “line,” allowing to realize the “glimpse” of being. The author concludes that it is impossible to solve the problem of violence and its various forms of its manifestation without overcoming “ontological nihilism.” Significant role in solving the problem of ontological violence is assigned to philosophy as a critical and responsible form of thinking, which is capable to help a person to bear the burden of the world, to provide meanings and affirm being, as well as to unite people and resist the fundamentalist claims of exclusivity and rightness.

Gur Zak, Petrarch’s Humanism and the Care of the Self

2012 ◽  
Vol 42 (2) ◽  
pp. 379-380
Author(s):  
Ronald L. Martinez
Keyword(s):  
The Self ◽  
Care Of The Self

Ancient and Modern Practices of Citizenship in Asia and the West

2018 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Everyday Life ◽  
The Self ◽  
First Century ◽  
Care Of The Self ◽  
The West ◽  
City Life ◽  
Good Citizen ◽  
The Past ◽  
Twenty First Century ◽  
Point Of Departure

What does it mean to be a good citizen today? What are practices of citizenship? And what can we learn from the past about these practices to better engage in city life in the twenty-first century? Ancient and Modern Practices of Citizenship in Asia and the West: Care of the Self is a collection of papers that examine these questions. The contributors come from a variety of different disciplines, including architecture, urbanism, philosophy, and history, and their essays make comparative examinations of the practices of citizenship from the ancient world to the present day in both the East and the West. The papers’ comparative approaches, between East and West, and ancient and modern, leads to a greater understanding of the challenges facing citizens in the urbanized twenty-first century, and by looking at past examples, suggests ways of addressing them. While the book’s point of departure is philosophical, its key aim is to examine how philosophy can be applied to everyday life for the betterment of citizens in cities not just in Asia and the West but everywhere.

Spiritual Exercises, Improvisation, and Moral Perfectionism

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Arnold Davidson
Keyword(s):  
The Self ◽  
Spiritual Exercises ◽  
Ethical Practice ◽  
Care Of The Self ◽  
Spiritual Self ◽  
Experimental Attitude ◽  
Moral Perfectionism

Abstract: Beginning with Pierre Hadot’s idea of spiritual exercises and Stanley Cavell’s conception of moral perfectionism, this essay argues that improvisation can be understood as a practice of spiritual self-transformation. Focusing on the example of Sonny Rollins, the essay investigates the ways in which Rollins’ improvisations embody a series of philosophical concepts and practices: the care of the self, the Stoic exercise of cosmic consciousness, the problem of moral exemplarity, the ideas, found in the later Foucault, of a limit attitude and an experimental attitude, and so on. The underlying claim of the essay is that improvisation is not only an aesthetic exercise, but also a social and ethical practice that can give rise to existential transformations.

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