From: "Ali Rizvi" <ali_m_rizvi-AT-hotmail.com> Subject: Strategic Side of Foucault's thinking [2] Date: Mon, 12 Aug 2002 01:28:33 +0000 Thanks to Jesper, and Andrew and to all others for helpful comments. I realised a while ago parallels in Veyne's comments with comments by another major contemporary influence on Foucalt. I mean Pierre Hadot. In the last of his writings Foucault investigates ancient texts, especially Greek and Roman texts. Foucault uses many new concepts derived from these traditions in subtle way to give new life and new vigour and new strategic depth to essentially modern and postmodern pursuits. One such concept is the concept of Philosophy as spiritual exercise, which he borrows from Pierre Hadot (Hadot 1987). Foucault explicates this in a famous passage from his The Use of Pleasure: “. . . what is philosophy today-philosophical activity I mean-if it is not the critical work that thought brings to bear on itself? In what does it consist, if not in the endeavour to know how and to what extent it might be possible to think differently, instead of legitimating what is already known? There is always something ludicrous in philosophical discourse when it tries, from the outside, to dictate to others, to tell them where their truth is and how to find it, or when it works up a case against them in the language of naïve positivity. But it is entitled to explore what might be changed, in its own thought, through the practice of a knowledge that is foreign to it. The “essay”-which should be understood as the assay or test by which, in the game of truth, one undergoes changes, and not as the simplistic appropriation of others for the purpose of communication-is the living substance of philosophy, at least if we assume that philosophy is still what it was in times past, i.e; an “ascesis’, askesis, an exercise of oneself in the activity of thought” (8-9) Now on the face of it there is a very considerable difference between Foucault’s philosophy of difference and his notion of thought one the one hand and the notion of spiritual exercises or askesis on the other. In his later essay on Foucault, Hadot analyses some of the misinterpretations carried out by Foucault while attributing the idea of exercise of self in thought to ancients. Hadot specifically mentions the following misconstrual of Greek thought. Firstly Hadot questions Foucault’s attribution of the notion of the joy of “another pleasure” to Seneca or Stoics in general. The reason being the fact that “if the Stoics set store by the word gaudium, the word ‘joy’, this was precisely because they refused to introduce the principle of pleasure into moral life. For them happiness did not consist in pleasure but in virtue itself, which is seen as being its own reward” (Hadot 1992 p. 226). Second reason Hadot gives for doubting Foucault’s interpretation is that according to Hadot, Foucault’s conception of self is quite different (and at loggerheads with) the Stoic conception of self. For “Stoics did not find joy in the ‘self’ but, as Seneca says, ‘in the best part of the self’” and ‘the ‘best part’ of the self is ultimately a transcendent self. Seneca does not find joy just in ‘Seneca’, but by transcending Seneca, by discovering that he has a reason in himself, a part of the universal Reason which is within all men and the cosmos itself” (ibid. translation amended). Now this conception of self, attributed to Seneca by Hadot would have been anathema to Foucault. However after mentioning these ‘misinterpretations’, Hadot makes the following comment, which sums up the issue very aptly: “I understand Foucault’s motive in glossing over these aspects very well, though he was well aware of them. His description of practices of the self (like, moreover, my description of spiritual exercises) is not only a historical study; it was meant also to offer contemporary man a model of life (which Foucault calls the ‘aesthetic of existence’). Now, according to a very general tendency in modern thought-a tendency, which is perhaps rather more, instinctive then considered-the notions of ‘universal Reason’ and ‘universal Nature’ are no longer seen as having much meaning. It was therefore expedient to parenthesise them” (ibid. pp. 26-27,). Hadot’s comment that it was ‘expedient to parenthesise them’ correspond to Veyne’s comments on about “strategic reasons (to avoid words which might shock . . .)” and his comments about ‘for reasons of hygiene’. Does this parallel cast any fresh light on Veyne's quotes? Any other comments related to these issue are greatly appreciated. best regards ali References: Pierre Hadot (1987) Exercices spirituels et philosophie antique (Paris: Études augustiniennes, second edition). Pierre Hadot (1992) “Reflections on the notion of ‘the cultivation of the self’”, in Armstrong ed. (1992).Michel Foucault Philosopher trans. Timothy J. Armstrong (Hemel Hempstead, Harvester Wheatsheaf). _________________________________________________________________ Chat with friends online, try MSN Messenger: http://messenger.msn.com
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