5
A second and very different response to the problems of modernity can be found within the thought of Michel Foucault. Whilst Habermas sought to return to the Enlightenment project, with the intention of completing it, Foucault seeks to overcome the Enlightenment project, rather than repair a fragmented framework. The Habermasian perspective was that communicative rationality possessed unfulfilled potential; for Foucault, on the other hand, discourses of power have penetrated every aspect of modern life and made individuality impossible. Unlike Habermas, Foucault accepts the consequences of the Enlightenment’s failure to establish a rational end to human action. The consequence for Foucault is that the promise of increased freedom was not delivered, but that the sense of individuality which supposedly emerged was a myth. Although we believe ourselves to possess the potential of self-determination, Foucault claims that we are subjected to discourses of power which produce truth and determine how we conceive of ourselves. However, rather than resigning in vain to a pessimistic fate, it will be suggested that Foucault’s approach is to seek out a method of self-creation which has not been subjected to discourse. In order to achieve this aim, he turns to pre-modernity where he discovers the ethic of care which was championed by the Stoics and which he believes provides the means to combat the subjection of modern subjects. However, although Foucault focuses on self-creation, he does not say anything substantial about meaning but instead offers an empty aesthetic.
This chapter will begin with an analysis of Foucault’s account of modernity (Section 5.1). Here we will explicate his claim that the Enlightenment, which promised increased freedom, in fact led to subjection, with institutions creating subjects through discourses of power. Although a response to this problem can be found within Foucault’s later work, we will question the continuity of his oeuvre (Section 5.2). In this section we will illustrate that the concept of power devised in his early work prevents any form of resolution, and that he must modify this to provide a constructive account. It will also be claimed that thinking in terms of power relations enables us to develop a more refined understanding of authenticity, which will become useful later in our book. Having resolved the tension in Foucault’s account, we will then proceed to discuss his response to subjection (Section 5.3). Here we will turn to his ethical analysis of pre-modernity and his argument that we ought to appropriate the Stoic-inspired ‘care of the self’. With an adequate understanding of Foucault’s resolution, we will then argue that in comparison with socio-existential authenticity, Foucauldian care is an inferior ethic (Section 5.4). Although Foucault quite explicitly engages with the problem of freedom, he does not satisfactorily address this issue. In order to determine whether he provides an adequate response to the problem of meaning we will question whether his idea of turning one’s life into a work of art can fulfil this role.
5.1 The subjection of individuality
Like Habermas, Foucault has an ambivalent attitude towards modernity. Rather than upholding it as progressive or arguing that it was instrumental in the cultural decomposition of society, his approach was to reject this simple distinction of, for or against, noting that acceptance of this ‘would trap us into playing the arbitrary and boring part of either the irrationalist or the rationalist’ (2001a: 328). Thus, where Foucault differs from Habermas is in his rejection of this dichotomy of advocate or detractor. This is evident in his claim that ‘the “Enlightenment,” which discovered the liberties, also invented the disciplines’ (1991a: 222). Thus, like Weber, Foucault understands that the Enlightenment simultaneously advanced and limited individual freedom. His attitude towards modernity is perhaps best expressed in his homage to Kant ‘What is Enlightenment’. In this short essay, Foucault understands Kant’s achievement to be the critical analysis of his own contemporary social setting. However, rather than a historical period, Foucault refers to modernity as an attitude. Furthermore, he believes ‘modernity is not a phenomena of sensitivity to the fleeting presents; it is the will to “heroize” the present’ (1991b: 40). It is precisely this attitude of acceptance that introduces not only a permanent critique of our historical era but also the ability to ‘free ourselves from the intellectual blackmail of “being for or against the Enlightenment”’ (1991b: 45). Only by accepting modernity as it is, rather than attempting to overcome it, can one recognize and criticize history. According to Foucault, ‘a philosophical life in which the critique of what we are is at one and the same time the historical analysis of the limits that are imposed on us and an experience with the possibility of going beyond them’ (1991b: 50). Thus, only by accepting these can one recognize that the Enlightenment has not yet brought about ‘man’s emergence from self-incurred immaturity’, as Kant prescribed.1
What has transpired, Foucault alleges, is that various institutions have come to dominate the individual, to the extent that one is a subject only insofar as one is ‘subjected’ to the discourses of power which these institutions produce. For example, whilst one who enlists in the military is defined by their punctuality, obedience to commands and reserved behaviour, these are not essential characteristics of the person in question, but norms which have been instilled by a military institution. According to Foucault, this is the effect which all institutions produce and is achieved through discipline and surveillance, which he associates with the rise of modern science. Power not only creates the rules which one must abide by but also creates those whom it dominates through obedience, submission and subjection. Categorization of social groups is presented as beneficial for the development of scientific study and the promotion of knowledge. However, it has adverse effects upon the general public, insofar as it enables them to be more easily controlled. Thus, it is through instruments of disciplinary power, within Foucault’s account, that the individual is produced.
He exemplifies his theory of subjection through the roles of prisons in Discipline and Punish and asylums in Madness and Civilisation. What he here determines is that these institutions are oppressive because they label and exclude those whom they contain. In the case of prisons, the intended purpose is to reform offenders to prevent them from reoffending, but what they actually do is to isolate ‘delinquents’. This is also the case with asylums, which are supposed to cure patients, but which in reality incarcerate ‘lunatics’. By isolating ‘delinquents’ and ‘lunatics’ from society, these institutions turn them into negative role models, as warnings for others (1991a: 231–2). On Foucault’s account then, the purpose of prisons and asylums is not to reform and ‘normalize’ those inside, but to normalize the general public. This normalization of the public is achieved by isolating and excluding the ‘delinquent’ and ‘lunatic’. However, it is not only institutions which incarcerate social deviants that have this effect. Foucault explicates the effect that science also has had upon sex in The History of Sexuality. Here he notes that sexual acts which are non-marital became labelled as perverse. Whilst a man who had engaged in sodomy had previously been seen as having to succumb to sin, in modernity he was no longer a sinner, but categorized as a ‘homosexual’. As Foucault explains, ‘the sodomite had been a temporary aberration; the homosexual was now a species’ (1980: 42). This form of social conditioning is therefore applied to not only those who do not conform to the norm but also the general public, who regulate their behaviour, in order to avoid being labelled a social misfit.
This is made explicit in Discipline and Punish, where Foucault launches a genealogical enquiry into the origin of punishment. In this seminal work, he argues that the mechanism of discipline, which originated in prisons, has been made manifest in institutions such as education, health care and the military. Infiltrating various social institutions, punishment was utilized as a political tactic to modify and control behaviour. However, rather than physical punishment, which is used to control one’s body, this technology of power controls one’s soul. The consequence is that the ‘modern soul’ is born out of methods of punishment, supervision and constraint. Opposing the narrative that public execution was abolished due to the Enlightenment’s humane disposition, Foucault claims that it was because the crowds could no longer be physically controlled. As an alternative to torture, discipline thus emerged as a new technology of power. Although power is usually associated with negative connotations, Foucault claims that it is productive, by which he means that individuals are the product of power relations. As Alan D. Schrift explains, ‘the modern individual is no longer called upon as a subject to obey the law, but is produced instead as an individual who is required to conform to the norm’ (2013: 145).
According to Foucault, modern society is structured in the same way as Jeremy Bentham’s ideal prison, the Panopticon (1991a: 200). What Bentham envisaged was the construction of a correctional facility in which the incarcerated can be simultaneously seen, without being able to see their observer. As a result of believing they are being constantly observed, this encourages the prisoner to conduct self-surveillance and moderate their own behaviour. In Foucault’s analysis, this same psychological disposition is instilled within subjects, who are made aware that they are constantly being observed and judged by others. The consequence is that individuals willingly conform to social norms without the need for externally imposed sanctions. This state is established, according to Foucault, through instruments of power.
In Discipline and Punish, Foucault claims that in the modern world, people have become nothing but ‘docile bodies’, by which he means they are easily manipulated and coercible. In his own words, ‘a body is docile that may be subjected, used, transformed and improved’ (1991a: 136). In the eighteenth century, it was discovered that a ‘military air’ did not need to be inborn, but that one could be trained to become a soldier. This belief however was not restricted to the military but applied to social institutions in general. It is precisely this function which is fulfilled by politics within Foucault’s account. As he explains, ‘politics, as the technique of internal peace and order, sought to implement the mechanism of the perfect army, of the disciplined mass, of the docile, useful troop’ (1991a: 168). It is this very technique of discipline which ‘subjects’ individuals by making them into docile bodies. As Foucault puts it, ‘discipline “makes” individuals; it is the specific technique of a power that regulates individuals both as objects and instruments of its exercise’ (1991a: 170). In order to explicate the means by which individuals are ‘made’, Foucault offers three instruments of disciplinary power.
The first instrument which forms ‘docile bodies’ is hierarchical observation. This operates in the same manner as Bentham’s Panopticon, insofar as it makes individuals aware that they are being observed, causing them to be aware of and regulate their own behaviour. As Foucault explains, ‘the essence of discipline presupposes a mechanism that coerces by means of observation’ (1991a: 170). This is not necessarily achieved through surveillance, though this has become a concern for modern individuals. What Foucault is primarily concerned with, rather, is space and the construction of architecture. Much as military camps are designed, so, too, have modern institutions and spaces been constructed. As Foucault himself explains, ‘for a long time this model of the camp, or at least its underlying principle, was found in urban development, in the construction of working class housing estates, hospitals, asylums, prisons, schools: the spatial “resting” of hierarchal surveillance’ (1991a: 171). The way in which architecture is manipulated to control individual behaviour is further illuminated by Walter Benjamin, who notes that Baron Haussmann’s post-revolution reconstruction of Paris widened the streets to prevent protestors from once again barricading them.2 Architecture thus assists in the application of this instrument of discipline, as Foucault subtly says, ‘stones can make people docile’ (1991a: 170).
The second instrument of disciplinary power in Foucault’s account is normalizing judgement. Within every institution, norms are established which individuals must maintain, with failure to do so resulting in punishment. Thus, institutions devise ‘a kind of judicial privilege with its own laws, its own specific offences, its particular forms of judgement’ (1991a: 178). Institutions therefore exploit judicial vacuums by establishing their own rules and employ penal mechanisms to sustain these. These include micro-penalties of times – deducting wages for lateness, and threat of dismissal over absenteeism; activity – enforcing zeal and punishing negligence; behaviour – conditioning one to be more obedient and to adopt a certain mode of conduct; speech – forbidding insolence and frowning upon idle chatter; body – regulating one’s attitude, gestures and level of cleanliness; and sexuality – condemning indecency and impurity.
In these ways ‘they defined and then repressed a mass of behaviour that the relative indifference of the great systems of punishment had allowed to escape’ (1991a: 178). The pre-modern systems of punishment that Foucault refers to include capital punishment and public shaming. However, whilst these were able to physically control subjects, they were unable to effectively regulate their behaviour. The modern instruments of disciplinary power, on the other hand, such as normalizing judgement regulates the individual’s behaviour in accordance with a particular institution’s aims. As a consequence, ‘the perpetual penalty that traverses all points and supervises every instant in the disciplinary institution compares, differentiates, hierarchizes, homogenizes, excludes. In short it normalizes’ (1991a: 183).
A third instrument of disciplinary power, which is a combination of the former two, is that of examination. As Foucault explains, ‘it is a normalising gaze, a surveillance that makes it possible to qualify, to classify, and to punish. It establishes over individuals a visibility through which one differentiates them, judges them’ (1991a: 183). Examination links the formation of knowledge to the exercise of power. Unlike traditional power, which is seen, disciplinary power is exercised through invisibility – the subjects are seen and it is this which assures the hold of power which is exercised over them. ‘The examination is the technique by which power, instead of emitting the signs of its potency, instead of imposing its mark on its subjects, holds them in a mechanism of objectification’ (1991a: 138). Means of examination include registers for enlistment and deserters in the military, study of treatments in hospitals and the aptitude analysis of students in schools. Each of these leads to the ‘formalization’ of the individual within power relations. What this means is that examination makes each individual a case, an object for a branch of knowledge and a hold for a branch of power. In this way, reality is produced by power, the standards expected of individuals, and to which they are made to perform, become truth. Reality is therefore produced and manipulated by these disciplines of power.
Thus, what Foucault seems to be inferring is a rejection of the phenomenological perspective, which emphasizes a privileged subject, instead Foucault argues that the subject does not exist, but is a product of the power imposed upon them by various institutions which govern their lives. In his own words, ‘there is no sovereign, founding subject, a universal form of subject to be found everywhere [. . .] the subject is constituted through practices of subjection’ (1988: 50–1). By understanding individuals as none other than socially construed, Foucault strips the individual of their ability to exist in any genuine sense. This perspective is also held by Deleuze, who notes that ‘Foucault does not use the word subject as a person or as a form of identity, but the words “subjectivation” as a process and “Self” as a relation’ (Schrift 1995: 127). Foucault’s account thus entails that the subject is but a social construction, determined by the various discourses of power which are exercised upon it. Having outlined Foucault’s account of modernity, that subjects are created by institutions through domination and discourse, we will now turn our attention to his response to this problem. However, before we do, it is first important to address the logical implications of Foucault’s diagnosis of modernity.
5.2 From power to subjection
One major consequence of this theory, which Foucault himself does not address, is that if there is no individual subject, then one cannot exist in any genuine sense. That is, by rejecting the self, he also rejects the possibility of subjects being able to live a life which has been given purpose. This argument is developed by Luc Boltanski and Eve Chiapello, who in criticizing postmodern thinkers, note that they not only reject the ‘self’ as incapable of providing a satisfactory ground for freedom but also simultaneously dismiss the possibility for living an authentic existence. In their own words, Boltanski and Chiapello note the consequence of the postmodern perspective is ‘both to acknowledge the demand for authenticity as valid and to create a world where this question is no longer to be posed’ (2005: 452). Habermas also makes a similar criticism, that for Foucault ‘socialized individuals can only be perceived as exemplars, as standardized products, of some discourse formation – as individual copies that are mechanically punched out’ (1987b: 293). This has profound implications on our enquiry, for if his analysis of modernity is correct, then the problem of meaning becomes invalidated because subjects have no say over the direction of their lives. Is this, however, the case?
These criticisms suggest that Foucault does not problematize meaning, but instead rejects any sense of the self-constituting ‘subject’. However, Foucault himself later suggests that his early work outlines the problem which he intends to address, namely the subjection of the individual, and that his later work is intended to resolve this. Prior to discussing Foucault’s response, however, it is first important to address the question of continuity. That is, we will attempt to determine if Foucault’s oeuvre presents a linear development from power to the subject and whether he consciously outlines the problem of power with the intention of resolving it. In his early work, History of Madness (1961), it seems as though Foucault is primarily concerned with domination, then he focuses on power in Discipline and Punish (1975), and finally subjectivity in History of Sexuality (1976–84). Although it appears as though these are all independently focused enquiries, Foucault himself retrospectively reconstructs the aims and objectives of his publications.3 This is made explicit in an interview where he claims ‘when I think back now, I ask myself what else was it that I was talking about in Madness and Civilization . . . but power?’ (2001b: 117). However, rather than being primarily concerned with power, Foucault claims that the underlying theme of his academic output has been the subject. In his own mind, he locates continuity in the overarching aim ‘to create a history of the different modes by which, in our culture, human beings are made subjects’ (2001b: 326).
Should we, however, trust Foucault that this is indeed what he has been doing and that he has not simply constructed this narrative to grant continuity to an otherwise disconnected research output? Foucault’s claim to continuity is supported by Amy Allen, who argues that his later work presents an ‘extension rather than a radical departure from his earlier work on disciplinary power and subjection’ (2013: 347). This is further reinforced by Colin Koopman, who also claims that there is no decisive break in Foucault’s genealogical thought on modernity. As Koopman states, ‘Foucault’s writings on ethics in antiquity pick up right where his prior writings on power and knowledge in modernity left off’ (2013: 527). In order to make this apparent, Koopman claims that this can be illustrated in two ways: first, we can understand Foucault to be constructing a genealogical enquiry into the emergence of modern ethical problems through the problematization of classical ethics; secondly, we can understand his later work on classical ethics as an ethical response to the problems diagnosed in his work on modern morality. Thus, on Koopman’s reading, ‘Foucault’s genealogies taken together move from ancient self-care through self-knowledge and self-decipherment down to modern self-surveillance and finally self-discipline’ (2013: 527–8). By offering a genealogical development of how the modern subject came to be subjected, Foucault’s later work can then be seen as developing this perspective so that it may be overcome.
We have argued that there is continuity between Foucault’s publications, and that he sees the subjection of individuals as a problem to be resolved, and one which he attempts to address in his later work. How does he overcome the problem of subjection? An explanation for this is provided by Steven Lukes who claims that the account of power which Foucault depicts within his diagnosis of modernity is best described as ‘ultra-radical’. Lukes’s reason for demarcating Foucault’s concept of power as such is because it is presented as seeping into every aspect of individual existence, reducing subjectivity to delusion. As Lukes attests, ‘there is no escaping domination, that it is ‘everywhere’ and there is no freedom from it or reasoning independent of it’ (2005: 12). This account is then at odds with that against which concepts of authenticity contend.
Heidegger’s concept of inauthenticity, for example, presents a view of domination within which subjects are subjected in terms of social conformity. As Heidegger puts it, ‘we take pleasure and enjoy ourselves as das Man take pleasure, we read, see and judge about literature and art as das Man see and judge’ (2010: 164). However, upon discovering one’s existential condition, on the aforementioned Heideggarian approach, one is able to reject this externally imposed image and determine one’s life for oneself. On the Foucauldian approach, on the other hand, the consequence of one’s identity being constituted by none other than discourses of power can only lead to awareness of the futility of one’s existence and the realization that there is no sense of transcendence beyond this condition. However, in order for Foucault to proceed and address the subjection of the self, it is necessary for the subject to be an object for itself. That is, one must be able to objectify oneself in order to cultivate oneself. As Colin Koopman explains, ‘practices of self-transformation take place at the point of intersection between our being a subject for ourselves and our being an object to ourselves’ (2013: 530).
Thus, on this current view of power, it is impossible for Foucauldian subjects to engage in any form of self-transformative practice which would free them from subjection. The reason is because, as produced by discourses of power, they lack the necessary freedom to choose for themselves. Upon realization that they are the result of discourses of power, they can simply recognize that every decision is not their own but a further extension of the power exercised upon them. Although this is the approach which Foucault presents within his early work, one explanation as to why he himself turns from this and instead focuses on ancient Greek ethics is because he recognized that his previous view of power was an untenable position. This approach is advocated by Steven Lukes who claims, ‘Foucault came to disown this ultra-radical view, which would, in any case, both render resistance to domination unintelligible and undermine Foucault’s own critical standpoint and political positions’ (2005: 123). Thus, in order to address the problem of freedom, Foucault’s concept of power has shifted from an ultra-radical account to a softer account which enables the individual to challenge institutional domination.
A more congenial concept of power, and one which Foucault can be understood to advocate, in order to permit an ethic of care, is proposed by Lukes. Building upon existing literature, which claims that power can be held by either decision-makers or those who set the agenda for decisions, Lukes suggests that power ought to be conceived of as ‘ideology’.4 Rather than an overtly applied force, his claim is that subjects can be manipulated through the construction of false consciousness. That is, we ought to conceive of the manifestation of power as the ability to coerce subjects into advocating beliefs and desires which are opposed to their own self-interest. For example, we can conceive of a working-class voter who opts to elect a conservative political party because they believe that society is best run by members of the upper class, or a woman who not only accepts but also advocates patriarchy, believing that women are indeed naturally inferior to men. In each of these examples, we can claim that the beliefs and actions of the individuals in question are a consequence of ideological power exercised upon them.
On the ultra-radical view, which was present in Foucault’s earlier work, the concept of power produced the subject, and as such, it could not be challenged. On Lukes’s account, on the other hand, ideological power does not produce the subject but a false consciousness which alienates the subject from self-interest. In this latter concept of power, upon discovering that the standards and norms which one values are detrimental to one’s well-being, it is in the subject’s interest to challenge these. In order for Foucault to present a response to the excessive exercise of power, he must also advocate an ideological concept of power. This concept can also be used to explain inauthenticity. By thinking in terms of power relations, we have also been provided with a platform to better understand that which constitutes inauthentic existence. That is, rather than simply understanding inauthentic existence as that which is contrary to an authentic existence, we can claim that it is inauthentic because it portrays a false consciousness. This, however, is not the right place to develop this line of argument, but rather will be reserved until and returned to in Chapter 7. Having established the concept of power which Foucault employs, and illustrated how he may proceed to posit a response to the concept of subjection, we will now turn to explicating his account, where it will be possible to determine the manner in which he addresses the problems of modernity.
5.3 Technologies of the self
Within his later work, Foucault turns his attention to providing a genealogical analysis of pre-modern ethics. In The History of Sexuality, he focuses on explicating the practices characteristic of Hellenic and Imperial Roman ethics. Although the Delphic oracle’s maxim ‘know thyself’ is often taken to epitomize Hellenic ethics, Foucault suggests an alternative ethic existed and which was more important. In his account, it is rather care for oneself (curia sui/epimeleia heautou) that is the ultimate ethical aim of classical philosophy. He does not, however, dismiss ‘knowing-oneself’, but suggests that it was supplementary and a means to ‘caring for oneself’ (1990: 64). In the modern era, the emergence of individuality was believed to be in reaction to the decrease of freedom; according to Foucault, in ancient Greece,
it was not a strengthening of public authority that accounted for the development of that rigorous ethics, but rather a weakening of the political and social framework within which the lives of individuals used to unfold. Being less firmly attached to the city, more isolated, from one another, and more reliant on themselves, they sought in philosophy rules of conduct that were more personal. (1990: 41)
Although Foucault emphasizes the importance of self-care over self-knowledge, he claims that ‘know thyself’ came to obscure ‘care for oneself’ in modern philosophical discourse, and it is for this reason that we associate it with classical thought. He provides two explanations for this role reversal. First, the transformation of the moral principles of Western society distorted the practice of caring for oneself in the modern era, and there occurred a shift from care of the self to knowledge of the self. In Christian morality, knowing oneself becomes a means of self-renunciation, and it is this tradition which underpins modern philosophical thought. Furthermore, in the secular tradition, external laws provide the basis for morality. So rather than looking inwards, individuals look outside of themselves for moral absolutes. Secondly, in theoretical philosophy ‘knowledge-of-self’ became the first step in the theory of knowledge. This is exemplified through the likes of Descartes, whose epistemological aim was to determine that which he could be certain of and whose starting point was subjectivity. As a consequence of these two social transformations, Foucault claims that an inversion of ‘know thyself’ and ‘care for oneself’ occurred. By taking this line of argument, Foucault can be seen to be attacking the philosophy of consciousness, like Habermas.
According to Foucault, the concept ‘care of self’ first emerged within the Platonic dialogue Alcibiades (2000b: 95). Here Alcibiades is portrayed as desiring to advance his political career. However, Socrates makes the argument that in order to be a successful politician it is necessary to care for others. Furthermore, in order to care for others, one must first be able to care for oneself. The concept of care is also expounded in the Apology, where Socrates makes the claim that he has been sent by the gods to remind his fellow man that rather than their riches and honour, they ought to concern themselves with themselves and their souls (and rather than punishment he ought to be rewarded for his service to society). The means by which Socrates conducts this practice is through question and answer, enabling one to determine what one is (the object of one’s care) and what one needs (how to be cared for). This is made explicit through Socrates’s role as a midwife, to help those who are pregnant with thought to conceive of truth. By his method of question and answer, one can thus determine whether one possesses expertise, or true knowledge of something. Thus, according to Foucault, within the Platonic dialogues, ‘care’ has a pedagogical role; in other words, it is a form of education (2000b: 97). In the Platonic tradition, caring for oneself enables one to know oneself. Furthermore, ‘knowing oneself becomes the object of the quest of concern for self’ (2000d: 231). For fifth-century Greeks, within the Platonic tradition, dialogue was the means of discovering truth in the soul.
Although Foucault locates this practice within Socratic dialectic, he notes that it reached maturity with the Epicurean and Stoic schools which gained prominence in the Roman Empire. In his own words, ‘the first two centuries of the imperial epoch can be seen as the summit of a curve: a kind of golden age in the cultivation of the self’ (1990: 45). It was the Epicureans, however, who first put a spin on the dialectic practice initiated by Plato. Rather than preparing one for political life, for Epicurus, care of the self becomes an end in itself. Turning to Epicurus’ ethical approach, which is preserved within his Letter to Menoeceus, Foucault illustrates that Epicurus took self-development seriously. This is evident in his famous quadrip artite cure: do not fear the gods, do not worry about death, what is good is easy to get, and what is terrible is easy to endure. Mentally, this maxim enables one to instil an optimistic disposition. Physically, it allows one to gain satisfaction in elementary needs as opposed to luxury. Epicureans also practised physical exercises in abstinence, despite being commonly mistaken for philosophers of indulgence. What Epicurus actually taught was that one could acquire a greater appreciation by reducing the quantity of that which one indulges in.
It is with the Stoics, however, that Foucault believed this practice reached its peak. Unlike the Epicureans who deprived themselves in order to enrich their appreciation, the Stoics did so in order ‘to convince oneself that the worst misfortune will not deprive one of the things one absolutely needs, and therefore will always be able to tolerate what one is capable of enduring at times’ (1990: 60). This practice is termed praemeditatio mororum and is utilized through three primary techne. The first is disclosure of self, which is achieved through the exercise of letter writing. This is exemplified by Seneca’s letters, through which he gives council to Lucilius, and simultaneously asks him for advice in return. It thus ought to be understood as a form of ‘soul service’ through social relations. The second techne is examination of self, which is demonstrated through Marcus Aurelius’s description of everyday life. This is important because what this disclosed was oneself – what one thought, and what one felt – but more than this, these examinations provide an account of what was done and what should have been done. Thus the second form, of examination, is achieved through self-reflection. As Foucault explains, ‘to come back inside oneself and examine the “riches” that one has deposited there; one must have within oneself a kind of book that one rereads from time to time’ (1990: 101). Thus, unlike the modern concept of examination, which is an instrument of power, the ancient form of examination is utilized by the subject as a form of self-cultivation.
The third technology, áskēsis, or remembering, is the most important for Foucault. Unlike modern moral theories, such as deontology and utilitarianism, he tells us, ‘moral conceptions in Greek and Greco-Roman antiquity were much more orientated towards practices of the self and the question of áskēsis than towards codifications of conducts and the strict definition of what is permitted and what is forbidden’ (1992: 30). As Foucault further elucidates, ‘áskēsis means not renunciation but the progressive consideration of self, or mastery over oneself, obtained not through the renunciation of reality but through the acquisition and assimilation of truth’ (1992: 238). Whilst Plato located truth in oneself, and which was derived through dialogue, the Stoics obtained truth from the master, whom they listened to. The master imparted truth which one appropriated, ‘a truth imparted by a teaching, a reading, or a piece of advice; and one assimilates it so thoroughly that it becomes a part of oneself, an abiding, always-active, inner principle of action’ (2000b: 100–101).
There are two poles of askēsis, and it is these which are commonly associated with Stoicism. First, meditation, which takes the form of a thought experiment, to reveal what one must accept. One is asked to imagine the worst that can happen and that it is already present and occurring. The purpose of this practice is not to endure pain, but to convince oneself that which one is contemplating is not real misfortune.5 Secondly, self-training, which is employed to ‘establish and test the independence of the individual with regard to the external world’ (2000d: 240). This took the form of sexual abstinence and physical privation. Plutarch gives the example of acquiring an appetite through physical exercise, sitting at a table laden with delicacies, but rather than indulging oneself, to present the food to one’s servants and instead content oneself with an elementary substitute (1990: 59).
Epictetus offers a middle ground between these two poles – suggesting one watches and verifies one’s own representations and thoughts like a night watchman who does not permit anyone to enter the town at night, or a moneychanger who weighs and verifies the legitimacy of currency (2000d: 240). Seneca likewise proposes an ‘administrative review, where it is a matter of evaluating a performed activity in order to reactivate its principles and ensure their correct application in the future’ (2000d: 61). However, Epictetus’s school was regarded not merely as a place of education but also as a medical clinic. ‘One can see that this control of representations is not aimed at uncovering, beneath appearances, a hidden truth that would be that of the subject itself; rather, it finds in these representations, as they present themselves, the occasion for recalling to mind a certain number of true principles’ (2000b: 104). For this reason, Foucault claims ‘it is in Epictetus no doubt that one finds the highest philosophical development of this theme’ (1990: 47).
Beginning with Alcibiades, the care of oneself was advocated as a means to care for others within a political role. Socrates teaches Alcibiades that it is necessary to care for the city in order to be a good politician, and in order to care for the city one must care for oneself. However, with Epicurus, care for oneself becomes an end in itself. The Stoics then perfected this through the development of áskēsis. Thus, whilst Plato emphasized techne of life which has care for the city as its end, for Seneca, techne of self is upheld, which advocates care for oneself as the end. In Foucault’s own words, ‘a Greek citizen of the fifth or fourth century would have felt that his techne for life was to take care of the city, of his companions. But for Seneca, for instance, the problem is to take care of himself’ (1990: 260).
In providing a genealogical account of care, what does Foucault hope to achieve? Considering the focus of his early work, and the criticisms it faced, it can be read as a response to the oppressive discourses of power, as an ethical approach to life. In Hegel’s a ccount, Stoicism is a forced turn inwards in reaction to the oppressive power of the Roman Empire. As he himself claims, ‘as a universal form of the World Spirit, Stoicism could only appear on the scene in a time of universal fear and bondage’ (2008b: 100). Foucault, likewise, can be seen to propose the Stoic-inspired ethic of care in response to the oppressive discourses of power, to which one is subjected. Is this, however, an adequate response? The consequence of decreased public freedom in the Roman Empire, for Hegel, is inwardness and subjectivity, ‘rendering the soul absolutely indifferent to everything which the real world had to offer’ (20: 318). By cutting rational thought off from the phenomenal world the Stoics gained a sense of independence because their thought was not dependent upon the world. However, because their mind has no content of its own but must take its content from the phenomenal world, their thought cannot be truly independent. One consequence of this, according to Hegel, is that the freedom of thought which the Stoics propose is purely formal. How does Foucault propose to circumvent this concern and present an approach which is capable of addressing the problem of subjection?
Influenced by the Stoics, it seems that Foucault’s ethical approach is to re-implement this classical concept of care. However, when asked in an interview whether the Greeks provide an attractive alternative, Foucault replied, ‘I am not looking for an alternative; you can’t find the resolution of a problem in the solution of another problem raised at another moment by other people’ (2000a: 256). As Koopman makes explicit, ‘Foucault is not telling us that we ought to transform ourselves, but is rather telling us that the work of ethics today stands in need of a structuring tendency towards transformativity’ (2013: 530). Foucault further claims that ‘there is no exemplary value in a period that is not our own period . . . . It is not anything to get back to’ (1977: 259). Thus, Foucault makes it explicit that he is advocating neither nouveau-Stoicism nor a return to a Stoic way of life. This is further elucidated by Amy Allen who argues that ‘Foucault is not suggesting a simple return to the precepts of Greek or Stoic ethics as a cure for what ails us. . . . . Ancient Greek and Stoic ethics seems a promising resource precisely because it is not bound up with juridical and disciplinary forms of subjection and normalization’ (2013: 348).
It thus seems that Foucault’s intention is to discover a way of being which has not been subjected to discourse and which offers the means to autonomy under the conditions of modernity. Separated from Stoicism, Foucault understands ‘care’ to entail ‘those reflective and voluntary practices by which men not only set themselves rules of conduct, but seek to transform themselves, to change themselves in their singular being, and to make of their life into an oeuvre that carries certain aesthetic values and meets certain stylistic criteria’ (1992: 10–11). It is thus through an aesthetic approach which we can understand Foucault’s endorsement of ‘care’ as providing a response to the problem of freedom caused by the subjection of the individual. Modelling his approach on Nietzsche’s claim that one ought to ‘give style to one’s character’ (1991: §290), Foucault elaborates, ‘art has become something that is related to objects and not to individuals or to life. [. . .] But couldn’t everyone’s life become a work of art?’ (2000c: 261). Foucauldian care thus involves utilizing Stoic based practices, as opposed to Stoicism proper, and in this sense he also follows from Nietzsche.6
From this, we have determined that Foucauldian ‘care’ offers a means to overcome the restriction of freedom imposed upon us by rational institutions. We will now turn to evaluating the success of his theory to do so. To further elucidate his theory, Foucault contrasts his own position with the concept of authenticity espoused by Sartre. As Foucault explains, ‘through the moral notion of authenticity, [Sartre] turns back to the idea that we have to be ourselves – to be truly our true self’ (2000c: 262). Foucault suggests that the only practical resolution is to link Sartre’s insight to creativity, instead of authenticity. This is made explicit in his understanding of Baudelaire, for whom modern man ‘is not the man who goes off to discover himself, his secrets and his hidden truth; he is the man who tries to invent himself’ (2000b: 312). Contrary to his understanding of Sartre, Foucault claims, ‘we should not have to refer the creative activity of somebody to the kind of relation he has to himself, but should relate the kind of relation one has to oneself to a creative activity’ (2000c: 262). That is, rather than creative activity determining oneself, Foucault suggests that one’s relation to oneself determines one’s creative activity. This, however, seems to make the same normative claim as the existential concept of authenticity, namely to reject socially imposed standards and create oneself. How does this differ to the account of authenticity which we have constructed?
Within our socio-existential approach, it was claimed that our possibilities are provided by our social context. In the Foucauldian account, however, if we are to reject externally imposed power, from where do we derive our values? Foucault himself states that for the subject who attempts to develop technologies of self that one does so through ‘patterns that one finds in the culture and which are proposed, suggested and imposed on one by one’s culture, one’s society and own’s social group’ (2000a: 11). Although this comes close to Taylor’s horizon of significance, which emphasizes dialogical development of the self, Foucault’s approach is nevertheless a subjective endeavour. The reason is because it merely internalizes and shapes that which is external to it, and as such, there is no self beyond this.
In the essay ‘Moral Identity and Private Autonomy’, Richard Rorty discusses and defends Foucault’s position which is associated with the possibility of ‘being oneself’. More specifically, he interprets Foucault’s approach to be analogous with individual uniqueness, that is, to be oneself is to be unique or original in such a way that one is distinct from others. In Rorty’s own words, ‘what is more important is one’s rapport à soi, one’s private search for autonomy, one’s refusal to be exhaustively describable in words which apply to anyone other than oneself’ (1991: 193). However, as Rahel Jaeggi points out, ‘what makes Rorty’s [and subsequently Foucault’s] description of individuality thin, among other things, is his neglect of the fact that individuality develops only in relation to, or in engaging with, something and that for this reason individuals can realize themselves only in relating to the world’ (2014: 211). Thus, the attempt to be oneself by being unique is problematic because it requires one to only associate with others negatively, to see other subjects as objects which we must distance ourselves from in order to be unique.
A further concern is that Foucault’s account of care cannot provide an account of ethical commitment. What one is to become is nothing other than personal choice. It is ‘a choice about existence made by the individual. People decide for themselves whether or not to care for themselves’ (2000a: 361). However, since there is no ethical framework outside of oneself to appeal to, one’s choice appears entirely arbitrary. This very critique is made by Julian Young, who quite rightly notes that ‘groundless choice cannot provide a basis of commitment. No one dies for ungrounded choices’ (2007: 186). Thus despite distinguishing his account from that of Sartre, Foucault appears to make the same mistake, as discussed earlier; namely, that there is no authority which he can appeal to in order to ground his ethical ideal. Furthermore, with nothing to ethically ground self-creation, there is nothing to prevent one from cultivating a morally undesirable ideal.
Foucault’s ethic of care thus lacks several of the dimensions which make our concept of authenticity an ethically sound theory, and as such it appears as an inferior ideal. Thus, whilst our theory of authenticity, which was determined in Chapter 3, avoids the problem of authority by establishing itself as an intersubjective ethic, Foucault’s account is unable to extricate itself from this issue. And although he claims that we derive our choices from society, these appear entirely arbitrary. As a purely subjective endeavour, Foucault’s form of self-creation is not grounded in an ethical authority which is capable of overcoming this problem. Foucault’s account, rather, focuses on the loss of freedom and the means by which to take back our lives, to put our own stamp upon our existence, as opposed to being subjected by institutions. What he offers, therefore, is an empty aesthetic which simply provides the subject with the means to express their individuality.
5.4 Foucault’s Nietzsche
Despite being unable to provide a foundation for choice, and offering a thin ethical account, Foucault nevertheless offers a response to the loss of freedom. Can he, however, be said to simultaneously respond to the problem of meaning? One way in which he could be considered to address this problem is if his ethical injunction, to turn one’s life into a work of art, could be said to unify the various aspects of the individual. In order to determine whether this is possible, we will consider his account in relation to Nietzsche’s. Our reason for doing so is because there are two competing interpretations of Nietzsche’s position. On the one hand, the existential interpretation, heralded by Walter Kaufmann, which our account of authenticity is premised on, emphasizes the acquisition of unity in response to the cultural death of God.7 The postmodern account, on the other hand, rejects the notion of fixed substance and de-centres the subject, which dismisses the possibility of unity. Thus, whilst both interpretations accept that unity is not pre-given, the existentialist response is to engage in self-creation under a unifying will, whereas the postmodernist approach out-rightly rejects unity as a goal.
Within The Genealogy of Morals, Nietzsche makes a claim which divides existentialist and postmodernist interpreters. Here he states that ‘there is no “being” behind doing, effecting, becoming; “the doer” is merely a fiction added to the deed – the deed is everything’ (2000a: §1.13). Whilst postmodernists take this to infer that Nietzsche is suggesting a rejection, or de-centring, of subjectivity, the existentialists interpret this to suggest that one simply is what one achieves. That is, for the existentialist, the individual is constituted by a bundle of competing wills, which are constantly vying to overcome one another, and which are to be tamed by one unifying will. As Sartre puts it, ‘man is nothing else than his project. He exists only to the extent that he realizes himself, therefore he is nothing more than the sum of his actions, nothing more than his life’ (2007: 37). Thus, depending on whether Foucault adheres to a postmodern or existentialist interpretation of Nietzsche, it can be determined whether his approach possesses the capacity to address the problem of meaning. Within this section, we will initially argue that Foucault’s early work conforms to a postmodern interpretation, and as such, rejects unity. However, it will also be demonstrated that his turn from radical power in his later work leads him to endorse the unity of existence through his injunction to turn one’s life into a work of art.
In order to determine Nietzsche’s influence upon Foucault, attention will be turned to the concepts of power and ethics. These are the major themes within Foucault’s oeuvre and both of which are indebted to Nietzsche. With regards to the former, Schrift claims, ‘Foucault took from Nietzsche a number of insights concerning how to think about power and power relations’ (1995: 39). Nietzsche expresses the application of power through ‘the herd’, by which he means clans, communities, tribes, people, states, churches. Within each of these groups the individual ‘accepts whatever is shouted into its ears by someone who issues commands – parents, teachers, laws, class prejudices, public opinions’ (2000a: §199). The herd are the refore those who are coerced and manipulated by others in positions of authority. Thus far, Nietzsche and Foucault’s concepts of power seem synonymous. However, whilst Foucault looked at the institutions of asylums and prisons, and the application of power within society in general, Nietzsche fixes his gaze upon Christian morality.
What he determines is that Christianity is a herd-animal morality insofar as it is controlled and conditioned by the ascetic priest. In Nietzsche’s account, ‘by prescribing “love of the neighbour,” the ascetic priest prescribes fundamentally an excitement of the strongest, most life-affirming drive, even if in the most cautious doses – namely, of the will to power’ (2000a: III §18). However, although the priests acknowledge that there is suffering in the world, rather than accepting it for what it is, their approach is to preach that it is not in vain, but a means of redemption. Thus, although they furnish a life-affirming attitude towards suffering, they do so through negative means. The consequence of this is ‘the general muting of the feeling of life, mechanical activity, the petty pleasure, above all “love of one’s neighbour,” herd organisation, the awakening of the communal feeling of power through which the individual’s discontent with himself is drowned in his pleasure in the prosperity of the community’ (2000a: III §19). Thus, although Christianity effects a strong force, it is ultimately a negative one for Nietzsche. Through its doctrinal desire for redemption, Christianity rejects the physical world which it replaces with a transcendent hope for heaven. In this sense, it is fundamentally life denying in Nietzsche’s account. Furthermore, in dismissing the world, Christianity rejects unity, resulting in nihilism, or what Nietzsche on occasion refers to as ‘European Buddhism’ (2000a: §202).
Nietzschean will to power is, therefore, composed of a dual structure, insofar as it can either be healthy or be decadent. Power is affirmative when exercised as a creative force which brings unity. For Nietzsche, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe is exemplary of this: ‘what he aspired to was totality; he strove against the separation of reason, sensuality, feeling, will; he disciplined himself to a whole, he created himself’ (1971: §49). In The Birth of Tragedy, Nietzsche also hails Dionysus as providing unity to life through the acceptance and embrace of tragedy. Although Nietzsche also attributes the will to power to Socrates for challenging the Athenian youth, and devotion to his ideal, he sees him as a nihilistic force insofar as his optimism led to the rejection of tragedy and subsequent fracturing of unity. This negative, nihilistic form of power is also exercised by the likes of Arthur Schopenhauer, who despite accepting the tragedy of existence, reacts with pessimism, advocating a form of passive nihilism. Although Schopenhauer accepts the modern condition, rather than an affirmative approach, his is one of pessimism and resignation. Whilst Schopenhauer is the philosopher of decadence, Nietzsche dubs Richard Wagner the artist of decadence, for ‘he flatters every nihilistic instinct and disguises it in music; he flatters everything Christian, every religious expression of decadence’ (2000: §7).
This dichotomy of power is also present in Foucault’s account, within which power is both productive and repressive. That is, although it creates docile bodies through discipline, it also produces them, determining what they are. Thus, despite focusing on two distinct aspects, their concepts of power seem to be the same. However, there is one fundamental difference between their accounts; whilst Nietzsche insisted that the individual’s will determines that which is powerful, Foucault claimed that it is instead social institutions. This led him to claim that ‘the problem is not changing people’s consciousness – or what’s in their heads – but the political, economic, institutional regime of the production of truth’ (1977: 133). Thus, upon this understanding, individuals are the results of discourses of power. In this sense there are no autonomous agents, since our mode of thought and limits of behaviour are determined by institutions which govern us. In light of this, Foucault’s account suggests that there are no individuals, only ‘subjects’ in the sense that they are ‘subjected’ by ideologically motivated discourses of power, which dominate our society.
The postmodern rejection of subjectivity, however, makes unity impossible and exacerbates the problem of nihilism, whilst the existentialists attempted to exorcise this predicament. Thus, although both sides agree with Nietzsche’s claim that there is no substantial individual, they each present alternative sides of the will to power. Whilst it is the aim of the positive conception to create and unify, the existentialists represent this in their attempt to re-imbue human life with meaning. The postmodern understanding, on the other hand, which rejects unity, is none other than the decadent, nihilistic, negative concept of power. Insofar as the Overman is exemplary of the former, and the Last Man, the latter, Ken Gemes cleverly claims, ‘Postmodernists are nearer Nietzsche’s idea of the Last Man than his idea of the Overman’ (2001: 337–60). That is, whilst the postmodernists reject unity, the attainment of which Nietzsche associates the Overman, and instead advocate the fragmentation of identity, which Nietzsche takes to be indicative of the Last Man, the postmodernists can be understood to be closer to the Last Man than Nietzsche’s ideal of the Overman.
Is this, however, an accurate description of the position which Foucault himself advocates? His understanding of subjectivity is evident in his interpretation of Nietzsche’s death of God as not so much a beckoning for the Overman, but as the end of man. As he, himself puts it, ‘rather than the death of God – or, rather, in the wake of that death and in a profound correlation with it – what Nietzsche’s thought heralds is the end of his murderer’ (2011: 385). This particular passage seems to allude to a de-centring of subjectivity, as the end of man as a subject. Thus, whilst the existentialists respond to the cultural death of God in terms of self-creation, it seems that Foucault’s approach is to reject subjectivity, rather than striving for unity. In general, postmodern thinkers take Nietzsche to reject any sense of substantial self. They draw their interpretation from the untimely meditation On the Use and Abuse of History for Life, and in this respect, Foucault is no different.
In ‘Nietzsche, Genealogy, History’, Foucault focuses on the aforementioned essay and makes the argument that Nietzsche employs genealogy to disrupt the notion of a unified self. In his own words, ‘the search for descent is not the erecting of foundations: on the contrary, it disturbs what was previously considered immobile; it fragments what w as thought unified; it shows the heterogeneity of what was imagined consistent with itself’ (1991c: 82). Not only does Foucault believe that this is what Nietzsche intended to achieve through genealogy, but he also makes explicit that it is for this very end that he employs it within his own thought. ‘History becomes “effective” to the degree that it introduces discontinuity into our very being – as it divides our emotions, dramatizes our instincts, multiplies our body and sets it against itself. “Effective” history deprives the self of the reassuring stability of life and nature. . . . It will uproot its traditional foundation and relentlessly disrupt its pretended continuity’ (1991c: 88). From these two analyses of Foucault’s interpretation of Nietzsche, it seems to suggest that Foucault shares his understanding with the postmodernists.
Modern life is considered meaningless because the individual was fragmented, thus in order to address this problem, a response must be capable of unifying the individual. Foucault’s account, however, has been shown to be incapable of providing a response which unifies the individual in totality. Thus, as a result of endorsing a postmodern interpretation of Nietzsche, Foucault’s perspective is incapable of unifying the individual substantially and therefore of addressing the problem of meaning. That is, through de-centring the subject, Foucault denies there is an individual to be unified. However, rather than completely writing off Foucault’s account, we ought to recall that this rejection of subjectivity, that the subject is produced by discourses of power, belongs to his early work, and which is altered in his later thinking. Thus, perhaps by turning to his later work we can find a more congenial account.
In the previous section, it was demonstrated that Foucault alters his account of power. As a consequence of reconfiguring the manner in which he conceives of power relations, he was enabled to avoid radical subjection and engage in care of the self. A further aspect of the technologies of self involved in his ethics of care is that Foucault entreats us to turn our lives into a work of art. Our socio-existential approach to authenticity has been shown to provide purpose through forming one’s characteristics and traits into a unified whole. Perhaps Foucault’s injunction, to turn one’s life into a work of art, could likewise lead to a unified existence and meaningful life? Through this practice of care, Foucault can be understood to be suggesting that the individual can become a work of art, bringing together those aspects which one conceives to be constitutive of the self. Hence Foucault’s imperative, ‘to make of their life into an oeuvre that carries certain aesthetic values and meets certain stylistic criteria’ (1992: 10–11). Through forming such an oeuvre, one’s existence can thus be retrospectively interpreted as leading to and culminating in an end project. In this way, we can thus understand Foucault to advocate a form of unity in his later thinking.
Although we initially concluded that Foucault rejected unity in his early work, this was determined to be tied up with his radical conception of power. However, it was also shown that as with his approach to freedom, a further consequence of denouncing this radical conception of power, is that his understanding of unity is altered alongside his account of subjectivity. What transpired was that his ethical approach, to turn one’s life into a work of art, was shown to offer a sense of unity. However, as discussed in the preceding section, on Foucault’s account there can be no grounds to one’s choice. A consequence is that if the reason for one’s choice cannot be validated, then one’s choice is fundamentally meaningless. Moreover, if one’s choice cannot be justified, then to cultivate oneself into a work of art retains no merit beyond narcissistic self-indulgence. Thus, despite being shown to advocate a form of unity, and offering a potential response to the meaninglessness of modernity, Foucault’s ethic falls short in its ability to adequately respond to the problems of freedom and meaning.
5.5 Summary
We began this chapter with Foucault’s analysis of modernity. Here it was shown that individuals are subjected by institutions through discourses of power. The effect of rationalization upon individuals, which the Enlightenment had championed, was that they came to be subjected by discourses of power. After considering the implications of this theory, that individuals could not exist in any genuine sense, we then questioned the continuity of Foucault’s oeuvre. Having determined that Foucault presents the subjection thesis as a problem to be overcome, it was illustrated that this was not possible in accordance with his radical conception of power. It was then suggested, following Lukes, that Foucault’s concept of power, which he engages with in his later work, refers to ‘ideology’ and that we could develop our own account by thinking of inauthenticity in terms of power relations. Attention was then turned to Foucault’s proposed response, which he derived from the Stoic concept of care.
Focusing upon technologies of the self, it was shown that Foucault’s intention was to utilize these techniques as they had not been subjected to discourse. Although this was shown to address the problem of freedom, it was argued that one’s choice still remained entirely arbitrary. We then turned our attention to whether Foucault addressed the problem of meaning, and it was inferred that his ethical injunction, to turn one’s life into a work of art, could offer a sense of unity, and potentially meaning. To determine if this was possible, we considered Foucault’s relation to Nietzsche and questioned whether he adhered to a postmodern interpretation, which rejects any sense of unity. Although Foucault advocates such a position within his early work, it was shown that he moves away from this interpretation when he proposes turning oneself into a work of art. However, despite being able to offer a response to the problem of meaning, as a consequence of one’s choice being ultimately groundless, that which one cultivates oneself into was shown to be devoid of meaning. Although our concept of authenticity has been upheld, there remains one further challenge to our approach, and it is to this which our enquiry will now turn.
Notes
1 Although Foucault and Habermas both derive inspiration from Kant, their approaches vary significantly. Whilst Habermas sought to continue what Kant started, Foucault writes off the project of modernity as untenable.
2 The Arcades Project, trans. Howard Eiland and Kevin McLaughlin (Harvard: Harvard University Press, 2002). A more recent example of this is evident through ‘hostile architecture’, which includes anti-homeless spikes and park benches in London and other cities.
3 A similar move is made by Nietzsche, who retrospectively wrote prefaces to each of his books, in an attempt to articulate the manner in which the text in question anticipated concepts or ideas which would be explicated in succeeding publications. This practice was also employed within his autobiographical Ecce Homo, where he reinterprets his entire oeuvre to illustrate how each of his books was ultimately concerned with the same problem.
4 Within Lukes’s analysis there are three faces, or dimensions, of power, these are (i) decision-making power, (ii) non-decision-making power and (iii) ideological power. In the first face, Lukes discusses the classical pluralist approach to power, that it is a behavioural attitude. Here whoever prevails within a decision-making process is considered to be powerful, that is when a parent wins an argument against a child, they gain the upper hand. The second face is based on the realization that it is possible to shape the argument by setting the agenda. This offers a further dimension of power because if one is capable of determining the limits of debate then one can prevent oneself from being challenged.
5 For the Stoics, real misfortune would be constituted by such a condition as one has been bereft of the means to procure food or shelter.
6 See Michael Ure, ‘Nietzsche’s Free Spirit Trilogy and Stoic Therapy’, Journal of Nietzsche Studies, no. 38 (Fall 2009): 60–84.
7 Kauffman places a great emphasis on the importance of nihilism within Nietzsche’s thought and it is this position which advocates of existentialism adhere to. See Nietzsche: Philosopher, Psychologist, Antichrist (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1968) in particular, chapter 3. Karl Jaspers, on the other hand, argued that Nietzschean thought is self-contradictory and that any position which appears to be advocated will also be accompanied by its opposite, which closely resembles the postmodern approach. See Nietzsche: An Introduction to the Understanding of His Philosophical Activity, trans. Charles F. Wallraff and Frederick J. Schmitz (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1965). For an analysis of the debates between Kauffman and Jaspers, see David Pickus, ‘Wishes of the Heart: Walter Kaufmann, Karl Jaspers, and Disposition in Nietzsche Scholarship’, The Journal of Nietzsche Studies, no. 33 (Spring 2007): 5–24.