Study Resource-3, Continental Philosophy

Continental Philosophy
Study Resource-3


The Hermeneutics of the Subject
By Michel Foucault
Lectures at College De France (1981-82)
Focus on the hermeneutic of the self: Not only its theoretical formulations but to analyze it in relation to a set of practices which have been very important in classical and late antiquity. Gnothi seauton ('know yourself') is subordinated to care of the self.
Basics of notion of care of oneself:
Greek term: epimeleia heautou and Latin term: cura sui
Care of oneself, attending to oneself etc
When we consider the notion of care of the self, we come across two extremes: Socrates and Gregory of Nyssa.
Socrates: He believes that he has been conferred the job of moving people towards taking care of themselves by the deity and he will not give it up until his last breath. He performs it out of pure benevolence. By teaching the citizens to attend to themselves (than to their possessions), one teaches them to attend to the city-state itself (rather than its material affairs alone).
Gregory of Nyssa: Care of the self emerges as the act of renunciation of marriage, detachment from the flesh and virginity of one's body and heart- regaining the immortality from which one had fallen. Christian asceticism, thus, places knowing oneself as one of the elements of care of the self.
Content of care of the self:
To care of the self does not merely mean to avoid mistake, to pay attention to oneself or to stay away from danger but the entire domain of "complex and regulated activities". The care of the self was considered both a duty and a technique- a basic obligation and a set of carefully worked-out procedures.
Care of the self as a constant practice:
Care of the self is a constant practice, not a principle alone. Letter to Menoeceus : an Epicurean text- "Let no one when young delay to study philosophy, nor when he is old grow weary of his study. For no one can come too early or too late to secure the health of his soul". Here, philosophy is considered the care of the soul which must be carried out throughout one's life. It does not refer to an attitude of awareness of form of attention that one focuses on oneself but a regulated occupation, a work with its methods and objectives.
Care of the self in antiquity: Greece, Rome
Care of the self is not a philosophical invention. It was a percept of living of high value in Greece. A Lacedaemonian aphorism cited by Plutarch recalls: One day, Anaxandrides was asked why the Spartans entrusted the task of cultivation of the lands to slaves instead of doing it themselves. Anaxandrides responded in this manner: "It was by not taking care of the fields but of ourselves that we acquire those fields." Thus, attending to oneself is a privilege- a mark of social superiority in contrast to those who have to attend to others in order to serve them or involve in a trade in order to live. Thus, attending to oneself was the advantage afforded by wealth, status and birth. The Roman concept of otium (meaning: 'leisure') fundamentally is the time one spends attending to oneself.
Plato's Alcibiades: There are three questions in the text related to the care of the self pertaining to politics, pedagogy and self-knowledge.
Politics: Idea of conversion to oneself
While Socrates advises Alcibiades to take advantage of his youth to look after himself, Epicurus points out that there is no age to be attending to oneself. Musonius Rufus and Galen also point out the significance of care of the self for leading a wholesome life. Such an advice was given to people of all ages and from different walks of life.
Attending to oneself is not a momentary preparation for living but a form of living. It is the matter of attending to oneself, for oneself: "one should be, for oneself and throughout one's existence, one's own object".
Thus, the idea of conversion to oneself- one's turning upon oneself- is not a move towards any end or outcome but a settling into oneself, to 'take up residency in oneself' and to remain there. It is also the establishment of relations with oneself: to be a sovereign over oneself, to exert mastery over oneself, to be completely 'self-possessed'. These relations are generally posed on a model of positive enjoyment: to enjoy oneself, to take one's pleasure with oneself and to delight in self alone.
Pedagogy:
In Alcibiades, care of the self was essential due to deficiencies of education. It was the act of perfecting the latter, of taking charge of it oneself. Other functions also become attached to it once its role is recognized to be a lifelong one:
Un-Learning (de-discere): Getting rid of all bad habits, false opinions that one can get from crowd or bad teachers, also from parents and associated.
Struggle: Practice of the self is a permanent battle. The individual is to be given those weapons and courage which would enable him to fight all his life. This is shown through two metaphors: athletic contest (in life, one is like a wrestler who has to dispose of his successive opponents and who must be training when he is not fighting) and warfare (the mind must be deployed like an army that an enemy is always liable to attack).
Curative and therapeutic function: Self-cultivation based more on medical than pedagogical model. The term pathos was applied to both mental and physical illnesses in ancient Greek culture such that expressions like 'heal', 'purge', and 'amputate' could be applied both to body and mind. The Epicureans, Stoics and Cynics also held that the primary role of philosophy is to heal the diseases of the soul. Moreover, Plutarch had declared that medicine and philosophy constituted mia khora, a single domain. Epictetus wanted his school to be not only seen as a place of education but a medical clinic- and iatreion- a dispensary for the soul.
Self-knowledge:
Knowing the self is not an isolated activity but one which originates and develops through relation with the Other.
Such a dependence on the Other- a teacher, a director- presupposes a growing independence from the relationship.
However, this does not imply that there is no requirement for the Other during and after maturation.
Moreover, one could not attend to oneself without the help of the other. Senece and Galen have pointed out the need for the other.
Different types of social relations can stand as support for the soul practice:
Educational organizations: Epictetus's school. Temporary auditors, soul directors.
Private counselors: Role of a suicide counselor- discourse on immortality given to Demetrius by Thrasea when the former was to take his own life.
Family relations, relations of protection, relations of friendship between two persons rather close in age, culture and situation, relations with highly placed personage to whom one pays homage by offering him useful advice.
'Soul service' is thus performed through a stream of diverse social relations. Traditional eros played an occasional role. Moreover, the nature of current affective relationships is inadequate to interpret the traditional eros. For instance, the correspondence between Marcus Aurelius and Fronto.
Askesis: The set of practices designated for cultivation of self are known as askesis. Using the metaphor of the athelete, we can say that it is not necessary to learn all the moves but only those moves which will allow him to triumph over his opponent in the wrestling match. Thus, in challenge of the common ideas of self-mortification through abstinence, fasts and others, askesis exhibits the need to only learn those skills which can help us to bear up against events that may occur- learning not to be overwhelmed by the emotions that arise in those moments, to not let ourselves be thrown by them. The purpose of the set of techniques is to link together truth and subject. Here, the matter is not of uncovering the truth within oneself or making the soul the place where truth resides but to arm the subject with a truth it did not know, one that did not reside in it. What is wanted is "to make this learned, memorized truth, progressively put into practice, a quasi-subject that reigns supreme in us".
Role of discourses (logoi): In order to keep our control in the face of events which might take place, we need 'discourses', logoi- true discourses and rational discourses. True discourses enable us to face reality.
Three questions about discourses:
Their nature:
Theoretical- supported by Epicureans- knowing the principles which govern the world, nature of gods, causes of wonders, laws of life and death is absolutely necessary if one is to prepare for possible events of existence.
Stoics were divided between the following two:
Dogmata: theoretical principles which complete the practical prescriptions;
Concrete rules of behavior.
The nature of the discourses is determined by our connection with the world, by our place in the natural order, in our dependence or independence with regard to occurring events. They do not a decoding of our representations, our thought and our desires.
Existence of true discourses inside us:
The true discourses must exist within us such that at any moment in the future when we need them, we can revive them to protect ourselves- "they must be at our disposal within us" The Greeks use the term 'prokheiron ekhein' and Latin- 'habere in manu, in prompt habere', that is, 'to have near at hand'.
In what way must these be contained within oneself to be able to call onto them when needed?
Not a simple memory
Gradation of its presence for disposal:
Instrument at one's disposal:
Marcus Aurelius- instrument kit that a surgeon always has near at hand
Plutarch- surest and best of friends whose useful presence in adversity lends assistance
Inner voice: automatism of a discourse which would speak within us of its own volition
Like a master whose voice is enough to subdue the growling of dogs
Broad categories of the source of these discourses:
The Outer: Formation of inner principle of action: Seneca- "One must 'grasp it with both hands' and never let go; but also 'cling' to it, attach it to one's mind, 'making it a part of oneself' and finally, 'by daily meditation reach the point where these wholesome maxims occur of their own accord'." Here, the discourse is appropriated in one's own terms more and more thoroughly.
The Inner: Soul turning back on itself: Plato; to discover the true nature
How does this appropriation occur?
Memory plays an important role, not in the sense of Platonic recollection but "in the form of progressive exercises of memorization". Some of the constituents of ascesis of truth:
Importance of listening: While Socrates questioned people in order to get them to say what they know (without knowing that they knew it), the disciples of Stoics and Epicureans (Pythagorean sects) must first, keep silent and listen. In Plutarch or Philo of Alexandria, we can find elaborate set of rules for proper listening like the physical posture, ways to direct one's attention, how to retain what has been said;
Importance of writing: Cultivation of 'personal writing'- taking notes on readings, conversations, reflections that one hears or has or does. Reactualization of what is contained in the notebooks (called hupomnemata in Greek) through consistent re-reading.
Importance of habitual self-reflection: Exercises to commit to memory those things that one has learnt. Marcus Aurelius- to come back inside oneself and examine the 'riches' that one has deposited there.
Distinguishing between exercises carried out in real situations (training in endurance and abstinence) and training in thought by means of thought:
Training in thought-
Praemeditatio malorum: a meditation on future ills
This was practiced rigorously by Stoics like Seneca and Epictetus. This could appear to be a pessimistic anticipation but the aim was different. The point was to imagine the worst that could happen even if it is not likely to happen. Seneca had said concerning a fire which had destroyed the whole city of Lyons that it might be set as an example of how the worst is always certain.
To consider these possibilities not in the distant future but as already present and already occurring. For instance, to imagine that we are already exiled and subjected to torture.
In imagining them happening in the present would not be to make us undergo the pain but to show that the suffering is not real and that only the opinion we have of them makes them true misfortunes.
The exercise is not to contemplate the possible future of real evils to get used to it but to neutralize both the future and the evil.
Training in endurance and abstinence:
Mainly practices of abstinence, privation or physical resistance, they were generally carried out to show the 'demonic' strength of the practionier or could have a purificatory value. However, in the cultivation of self, they meant the establishment and testing of one's independence relative to the external world.
On the Daemon of Socrates by Plutarch
A practice attributes to Pythagoreans- one engages in athletic activities which arouse the appetite, then one takes his position before tables laden with most savory dishes and after gazing upon them, one gives them to the servants while taking simple nourishments of a poor man for oneself.
Letter 18 of Seneca
Whole town is getting ready for Saturnalia. In preparing for the festivities, he will spend several days wearing cloak, sleeping on pallet and nourishing himself only with hard bread. Not to prepare oneself for the feast but to establish that poverty is not an evil and that he is capable of bearing it. Musonius Rufus also suggests spending a periods in country living like the peasants, devoting oneself to farm work.
Between the meditation (practices in thought) and exercitatio (training in reality), series of possible practices to prove oneself.
Many given by Epictetus and could be called 'control of representations'- constant supervision over what enters the mind- expressed using two metaphors of night watchman who won't let anyone come into town and of moneychanger who examines, weighs and check the metal of a coin presented to him. According to Epictetus, the main task is to determine whether one is affected or not by the thing that is represented and the reasons for being affected or not affected which would allow one to recall to mind a series of true principles concerning death, suffering, illness, political life and others and to check if they have actually become voice of the master- a voice which is raised as soon as the passions growl and is able to silence them.
Melete thanatou: meditation on death- the apex of these exercises
It is a way of making death actual in life. Seneca was especially given in to this practice. To fully understand the exercise, Seneca proposes that one must recall the correspondences which were traditionally established between the time cycles: time of the day from dawn to dusk are related symbolically to the seasons of the year from spring to winter and these seasons are related in turn to ages of life from childhood to old age.
Through certain letters of Seneca, one can trace that one is to live the long span of life as though it were short as a day and in living each day, as if one's entire life were dependent on it. Every morning ought to be in the childhood of his life but one ought live the whole day as if the evening would be the moment of death. Such a practice was also proposed by Marcus Aurelius.
The value of death meditation is not just the fact that it anticipates what is generally held to be the greatest misfortune, it is not just that it enables one to convince oneself that death is not an evil; it offers the possibility of looking back, in advance as it were, on one's life. By thinking of oneself as being about to die, one can judge each action in terms of its own value. "Death, said Epictetus, takes hold of the laborer in the midst of his labor, the sailor in midst of his sailing: "And you, in the midst of what occupation do you want to be taken?""
Seneca saw the moment of death as one in which the individual would be able to become a judge of himself and assess the moral progress he will have made, up to his final day.



27-April-2015


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