South African Journal of Philosophy 2016, 35(1): 37–53 Copyright © South African Journal of Philosophy Printed in South Africa — All rights reserved SOUTH AFRICAN JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY ISSN 0258-0136 EISSN 2073-4867 http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/02580136.2015.1118610 Reconsidering Foucault’s dialogue with Buddhism Adrian Konik Department of Journalism, Media and Philosophy, School of Language, Media and Culture, Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University, Port Elizabeth, South Africa
[email protected] Against the backdrop of various interpretations and criticisms of Michel Foucault’s engagement with Buddhism, the focus of this article falls on the specific type of Zen Buddhism which he studied during his 1978 trip to Japan, and the possible relationship between its dynamics and those of his own research trajectory following the publication of The Will to Knowledge. In this regard, Foucault’s eschewal of the Engaged Buddhism of Thich Nhat Hanh and the Zen Buddhism of Taisen Deshimaru—both of which had risen to prominence in France by the late 1970s— which Zen and the samurai code of bushid Moreover, it will be argued that such preference on Foucault’s part was indicative of his eminently practical, rather than general philosophical, interest in Buddhism as a technology for the adversarial repositioning of subjectivity in relation to discourse. Finally, the implications of this for the abovementioned various interpretations and criticisms of Foucault’s engagement with Buddhism, will be considered. Introduction David Macey in The Lives of Michel Foucault (1993) recalls how in 1970 and 1978 Foucault travelled to Japan, on the first occasion at the invitation of Moriaki Watanabe, the French Literature professor who translated The Will to Knowledge: The History of Sexuality, Volume 1 into Japanese, and on the second occasion with the support of the French Ministry of Culture, for the purposes not only of lecturing on his work but also of learning more about Zen Buddhism (Macey 1993: pp.