Technologies of the Self, page 2

Here is a possible “table” (vide Order of things!) of how Foucault suggests these questions were problematised in different time periods.

Greeks¹Classical

GreeksStoic

Acts–pleasure–desire (aphrodisia)

aphrodisia

Beautiful existance

Rationality

Tekhne for your role

Exercises in restraint

Self–Mastery in order to rule

Self–mastery to be rational

Note that some of the “codes” (interdictions) did not necessarily change all that much from one society to another (eg., don’t be unfaithful to your wife, leave boys alone)––or perhaps only in intensity but not generally. What did change are the ethics (which he defines as how to be in a relation with oneself).

¹ Foucault identifies two distinct periods with different arrangements: classical Greek and later Stoic Greek. For classical Greeks (Plato, Xenophon, Alcibiades, etc.), subjectification was achieved because of the choice to lead the beautiful life, while for Stoics (Seneca, Epictetus, etc.), it was under the sign of rationality (man was rational). Although under “teleology” the goal was self–mastery, for Classical Greeks it meant being a master of onself alone, in order to be able to rule others (power over others), whereas later it was needed because you were a rational being. This later effort was more reciprocal than before.

² Foucault’s book Les Aveux de la chair (Confession of the Flesh) was apparently completed before his death, but remains unpublished. It was apparently about the early Christian era. He originally saw it appearing after “Usage of Pleasures” and in the same series. A third book, separate from the sex series was “Care of the Self” (III, p. 255). Of course what happened is that “Confession” did not appear and “Care of the self” was grafted on to the sex series as Vol. 3.

³ Foucault claimed in the Genealogy interview that he had “more than a draft” of a book on the ethics of the Middle Ages (III, p. 255). But he says very little about this time period.

The epimeleia heautou or “care of oneself” is often a focus of Foucault’s project above under the category of practices of the self. He dates it to the third century BC–2^nd or 3^rd century AD. It involved knowledge and technology (as it does today, but in different ways). See p. 269 ff.