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Foucault As an Ethical Philosopher: the Genealogical Discussion of Antiquity and the Present

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Foucault As an Ethical Philosopher: the Genealogical Discussion of Antiquity and the Present © Dimitrios Lais ISSN: 1832-5203 DOI: https://doi.org/10.22439/fs.v27i27.5892 Foucault Studies, No. 27, 69-95, DecEmbEr 2019 ARTICLE Foucault as an Ethical Philosopher: The Genealogical Discussion of Antiquity and the Present DIMITRIOS LAIS UnivErsity of York, UK ABSTRACT. The paper further rEalisEs Foucault’s gEnealogy of Ethics to grasp gEnealogy as the totality of thrEE aXEs – powEr, truth, and Ethics – driven by the Ethical aXis. The paper demonstratEs that Foucault’s discussion of antiquity is gEnEalogical. ThE main focus is Foucault’s latE work and, in particular, his final lecturEs on The Courage of Truth. ThE papEr highlights thE gEnEalogical func- tion of thE distinction bEtwEEn ‘LachEs’ and ‘AlcibiadEs’. ‘LachEs’ providEs a hEuristic sourcE for self-care in the present in thE form of practicEs of living tied to thE ‘LachEs’ parrhEsia. But, it is also a critique of the present applied to democratic theories that have used the neo-platonic line of the ‘AlcibiadEs’ parrhEsia – of which Foucault disapproves – as their source in creating traceable tech- nologiEs of the sElf tiEd to structurEs of domination. Such tEchnologiEs frEEzE gamEs of powEr and governmentalise the problematisation of how to govern the self. Hence, the genealogical discus- sion of antiquity in connection with an undErstanding of gEnEalogy as problematisation should bE percEived as a heuristic sourcE of sElf-creation with critical implications for evaluating power re- gimes in the present. The paper introduces the link between the ancient past and the present with respEct to Foucault vis-à-vis cErtain democratic theoriEs. The cEntral aim is to consider on what grounds placing the problematisation of the self at the centre of a new politics can be also linked to govErnmEntality. In this conteXt, thE papEr also clarifies the wider implication of its core premise for Foucauldian studies and thE EmErging discussion of parrhEsia. Keywords: Foucault, genealogy, parrhesia, (neo) governmentality INTRODUCTION This paper argues that Foucault’s discussion of antiquity is gEnealogical and that this ge- nealogical reading is instructive in contemporary discussions of power relations. The first section discusses the nature and development of Foucault’s account of genealogy in rela- tion to his overall work. The next explains how Foucault’s engagement of antiquity is ge- nealogical. The third establishes in a more concrete manner the importance of linking Fou- cault’s engagement with antiquity to two distinct forms of truth-telling/philosophical Foucault as an Ethical Philosopher lines and the governmental connotations of such a distinction. The final section builds upon the previous sections to navigate the present by discussing Foucault in opposition to a certain type of literature that leads to a governmentalisation of, and/or that govern- mentalisEs, thE problEmatisation of the self. FOUCAULT, GENEALOGY AND ETHICS The paper argues for an underlying unity in Foucault as an Ethical philosopher. This is not to say that Foucault was executing a master plan with no loose ends. Rather, it is to agree with Elden that there is a continuity in Foucault’s writings in that each new project incorporated Foucault’s reaction to problems that had arisen in his analysis.1 Similarly, Koopman argues that Foucault’s work is tied to an overall aim whilst acknowledging the different, but not incompatible, methodologies Foucault used.2 Thus, Each period of Foucault’s work cannot bE rEspectively attached to knowlEdgE, power, or ethics. It is not that he was initially solely concerned with knowledge; then un- derstood that power produces knowledge; and then attempted to provide ethical guid- ance. His archaeological concern with knowledge did entail an understanding of power albeit one that presented knowledge as a form of power. However, archaeology lacks the necessary historicity to move from studying immobile accounts of knowing, that are only transformed through major shifts, to envisioning historically contingent assumptions of how the interaction between knowledge and power progressively influences the present.3 With rEspEct to Foucault’s genealogy, we can identify two phases. Foucault’s early ge- nealogy elevated power to an autonomous force that interacts with knowledge for the purpose of moving beyond contemporary forms of domination. This involved the core methodological charactEristic of genealogy, which is to study the past as a means to find connections with the present by unmasking the hidden contingency of the positivist his- torian. Foucault’s late account of genealogy – tied to his excursions into antiquity – has been recently perceived as an ethical attempt to resolve the problems that his earlier use of genealogy unveiled. Foucault speaks of a history of thought whose scope is much broader than the history of scientific disciplines or philosophic systems: It posits all forms of experience as potential objects of thought, and thus of thE history of thought. The task of the history of thought is to identify and delimit the development and transformation of these domains of experience; as these domains and these experi- ences are diverse, it follows that so, too, are modes of thought.4 1 SeE Stuart Elden, Foucault’s Last Decade (2016). 2 SeE Colin Koopman, Genealogy as Critique: Foucault and the Problems of Modernity (2013), 52. 3 Ibid, 36-37. 4 Paul Rabinow, “Introduction: The History of SystEms of Thought,” in MichEl Foucault, Ethics: Subjectivity and Truth Vol. 1, Ed. Paul Rabinow (1997), XXXIV. Foucault Studies, No. 27, 68-94. 70 DIMITRIOS LAIS Foucault suggests that the thought of wanting to think critically about one’s experiences allows one to presume that the present could be the sum of one’s observations of how one and others think about the present: Thought is not what inhabits a cErtain conduct and gives it its mEaning; rather, it is what allows one to step back from this way of acting or reacting, to present it to oneself as an object of thought and to question it as to its mEaning, its conditions, and its goals. Thought is frEEdom in rElation to what one does, the motion by which one detaches oneself from it, establishes it as an object, and reflects on it as a problem.5 TherEforE: PrEcisEly becausE thought is not a given, thought is an action; and actions arising from experience and formed by thought are ethical ones.6 Critique is meaningful in Foucault only in relation to such work on the self. Foucault’s late genealogy continues tracing the power-knowledge dynamic at the level of problematising our own formation. As Koopman argues, problematisation is not a third methodology, but a morE prominEnt dEvElopment of thE Ethical aXis.7 Foucault’s aim was to contemplate how one can become different in the present by means of sElf-formation and/or self-transformation. Genealogy not only shows us that things could be other than they are but how exactly we could consciously transform them by transforming ourselves in connection with understanding the contingencies that surround our present formation.8 Problematisation puts into perspective Foucault’s earlier blend of archaeology with gene- alogy and it becomes the nodal point of Foucault’s late genealogical discussions. Veyne suggests that Foucault's overall aim was to 'problematizE' an object, find out how a human bEing was EnvisagEd in a particular epoch...and describe the various social practices - scientific, ethical, punitive, medical and so on - that dEterminEd how a human bEing was envisagEd’.9 In the end, Foucault’s archaeology does not attempt to be universalistic but to show why nothing can be universalised while ‘genealogy traces everything back to an empirical oc- currence: contingency has always made us be what we were or are’.10 Thus, as Gutting notEs, Foucault did not abandon archaeology in favour of genealogy,11 but rather: Foucault's development of a genealogical approach to history is a matter of (1) returning archaeology to its role of describing both discursive and nondiscursive practices, (2) thEreby Exhibiting an essential tie between knowledge and power, and (3) exploiting 5 MichEl Foucault, Ethics. Subjectivity and Truth, Vol. 1, ed. Paul Rabinow (1997), 117. 6 Rabinow, “Introduction: The History of Systems of Thought”, XXXV. 7 SeE Colin Koopman, Genealogy as Critique, 46. 8 Ibid, 44. 9 Paul VEyne, Foucault. His Thought, His Character (2010), 107. 10 Ibid. 11 Gary Gutting, Michel Foucault’s Archaeology of Scientific Reason (1989), 265-272. Foucault Studies, No. 27, 68-94. 71 Foucault as an Ethical Philosopher this tie to providE a causal EXplanation of changEs in discursivE formations and Epis- temEs. Accordingly, gEnEalogy doEs not replacE or EvEn sEriously revisE Foucault's ar- chaeological mEthod. It rathEr combinEs it with a complemEntary techniquE of causal analysis. If the above account is essentially correct, then archaeology continues to hold a central place even in Foucault's genealogical work. This would strongly support our claim that archaeology is compatible with Foucault's later formulation of his philosoph- ical project.12 Gutting’s analysis of Foucault’s overall methodology is compatible with Foucault’s own arrangement of his work with respect to genealogy in the following passage: ‘ThreE domains of gEnEalogy are possible. First, a historical ontology of oursElvEs in relation to truth through which we constitute ourselves as subjects of knowledge; sec- ond, a historical ontology of ourselves in relation to a field of power through which we constitute ourselves as subjects acting on others; third, a historical ontology in relation to Ethics through which wE constitute oursElvEs as moral agEnts. So, threE aXEs are pos- sible for genealogy. All three were present, albeit in a somewhat confusEd fashion, in Madness and Civilization. ThE truth aXis was studied in The Birth of the Clinic and The Order of Things. ThE powEr axis was studied in Discipline and Punish, and thE Ethical aXis in The History of Sexuality.13 Foucault does not claim that all axes had to work together.
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