Ethics, politics and the transformative possibilities of the self in Arendt and Foucault
Lenka Ucnik
A thesis in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy
School of Humanities and Languages Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences
24th March 2017 THE UNIVERSITY OF NEW SOUTH WALES
Thesis/Dissertation Sheet
Surname or Family name: Ucnik
First name: Lenka Other name/s:
Abbreviation for degree as given in the University calendar: HUML9050
School: School of Humanities and Faculty: Arts and Social Sciences Languages
Title: Ethics, politics and the transformative possibilities of the self in Arendt and Foucault
The publication of Georgio Agamben’s Homo Sacer initiated a wave of interest in Hannah Arendt and Michel Foucault as bio-political thinkers. The intellectual connection of these two figures is however broader than their bio-political considerations. Arendt and Foucault both offer detailed accounts of an ethico-political self. By comparing their respective attempts to develop a dynamic account of ethics and politics through processes of self-critique this thesis hopes to contribute to the further appreciation of the depth of their shared concerns.
In this thesis, I explore Arendt’s work on the life of the mind and Foucault’s description of the care of the self. Both Arendt’s and Foucault’s later work explores the meaning of living ethically and politically. By examining the relationship between self, ethics and politics, I suggest there are two general points of convergence in Arendt and Foucault regarding the ethico-political self: (1) a shared suspicion of universal ethical or political systems, (2) the attempt to undermine prescriptive moral and political models by fostering a dynamic and critical self-relationship.
Arendt and Foucault stress the importance of developing a critical attitude that questions the connection between structures of normativity, individuals’ judgment and action. In the shared attempt to develop a dynamic ethico-political attitude Arendt and Foucault present their respective alternatives to universally applicable moral and political structures, which both consider to be potentially dangerous.
This thesis contributes to the examination of this underappreciated, yet critically important aspect of their work in the following ways: (1) by elaborating their shared vision of a dynamic ethical relationship with the self and exploring its political implications, (2) analysing the role of transformative events or actions in their thought, (3) comparing their use of the figure of Socrates — in the embodiment of the thinking activity in Arendt, and in care of the self in Foucault, (4) comparing their respective accounts of freedom and action, and (5) examining the importance of public expression as a synthesis between words and deeds in both these thinkers.
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Signed...Lenka Ucnik......
Date...... 18 Nov 2016...... Contents
Acknowledgements ...... iii Introduction ...... iv Chapter One: The consistent thought of Hannah Arendt...... 15 1.1 Politics and freedom ...... 16 1.2 Political action and the public space ...... 23 1.3 The influence of the Eichmann trial on Arendt’s political action ...... 26 1.4 Vita contemplativa - The life of the mind ...... 28 Chapter Two: Hannah Arendt’s Alleged Withdrawal ...... 33 The Role of the Vita Contemplativa in Moral Judgment and Political Agency ...... 33 2.1 Thinking...... 34 2.1.1 Socrates ...... 40 2.1.2 Two-in-one ...... 43 2.1.3 Conscience ...... 45 2.2 Willing ...... 52 2.2.1 The discovery of the will ...... 54 2.2.2 The key features of the will ...... 57 2.2.3 The will to bring about the new ...... 61 2.3 Judging ...... 64 2.3.1 Actor-based judgment ...... 67 2.3.2 Spectator-based judgment ...... 69 2.4 Conclusion ...... 72 Chapter Three: Michel Foucault’s exploration of the care of the self (epimeleia heautou) ... 74 3.1 Foucault’s interest in self-constitution ...... 78 3.1.2 The question of the subject ...... 84 3.2 Epimeleia Heautou / Gnothi Seauton (Care of the Self/Know Yourself)...... 87 3.2.1 Appearance of the Care of the Self...... 88 3.3 Three Models of Practices of the Self ...... 90 3.3.1 The Socratic-Platonic (Ancient Greek) Model ...... 91 3.3.2 The Roman-Hellenistic Model ...... 101 3.3.3 The Christian Model ...... 107 3.4 Conclusion ...... 110 Chapter Four: Foucault and the art of ethico-political engagement ...... 112
i
4.1 The subject of ethics ...... 113 4.2 Pierre Hadot’s philosophy as a way of life ...... 115 4.3 Askesis - practices of the self ...... 118 4.3.1 Is self-care selfishness?...... 120 4.3.2 Art as process ...... 125 4.4 Aesthetics of existence - a never-ending practice ...... 126 4.4.1 Dietetics ...... 131 4.5 Parrhesia and the care of the self ...... 134 4.6 Freedom, political thought and the ethical subject ...... 138 4.7 Conclusion ...... 140 Chapter Five: Arendt and Foucault: The transformative possibilities of the ethico-political self ...... 144 5.1 Freedom and transformation ...... 145 5.2 The figure of Socrates ...... 151 5.2.1 A Foucauldian “corrective” of Arendt’s two accounts of Socrates ...... 156 5.3 Critical self-creation ...... 158 5.4 Dynamic ethical and political engagement ...... 160 5.5 Conclusion ...... 162 Conclusion ...... 164 Bibliography ...... 169
ii Acknowledgements
I would like to thank my supervisor Simon Lumsden for his endless patience, support and guidance. The few words typed on this page cannot begin to capture his amazing effort, and my gratitude for all of his hard work. I would also like to thank my co-supervisor Rosalyn Diprose for her detailed and knowledgeable feedback. Finally, I say a big thank you to Andrew Piskun for his amazing effort in curbing my creative comma use in the final stages, as well as his ongoing support and encouragement throughout.
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Introduction
The publication of Giorgio Agamben’s Homo Sacer initiated a wave of interest in Hannah Arendt and Michel Foucault as bio-political thinkers. However, in this thesis I argue that the intellectual connection between these two figures is broader than their bio-political considerations. Arendt and Foucault both offer detailed accounts of an ethico-political self that challenges conventional conceptions of moral and political systems. Arendt and Foucault oppose universally applicable moral and political systems that are defined according to particular ends (e.g. utilitarianism, liberalism, Kantian duty). Each investigates the relationships between normative principles, independent judgment and the transformative potential of action. Each develops an ethico-political account of dynamic, lived practice that they understand as an end in itself. In this thesis, I will discuss Arendt’s and Foucault’s differing approaches to the development of such a critical attitude, and compare their respective approaches to ethical and political engagement. I will examine the relationship between Arendt’s and Foucault’s accounts of the self, ethics and politics, and explore their respective attempts to undermine prescriptive moral and political models through a dynamic and critical self-relationship.
Commentators often compare Arendt and Foucault in terms of their respective views on bio-politics. These comparisons usually focus on the both thinkers concerns with the ways in which state sanctioned controls modify individuals’ behaviour, as well as presenting the possibilities both authors provide for resisting such normalising systems. Some, like Neve Gordon, argue that Arendt’s account of freedom and natality offers greater possibility for overcoming such normalising practices than Foucault’s account of resistance, which Gordon takes to be limited by Foucault’s conception of the subject as merely an effect of power and knowledge forces. Such approaches interpret Foucault’s transformation and resistance as simply revealing systems of power and knowledge, and then compare this with Arendt’s claims for the necessity of a forum for political action and speech.1 However, commentaries such as this ignore Arendt’s and Foucault’s later works—where Arendt departs from the political, public forum, and Foucault explores self-constitutive practices that exist within systems of power and knowledge. The difference between Arendt and Foucault is not so much whether it is possible to transcend
1 Gordon, 2002
iv or destroy normalising practices, but rather how to go about it.2
Arendt and Foucault are critical of normalisation and conformity, yet it is generally Arendt who is regarded as the supporter of action and freedom. My contention is that comparisons of Arendt’s and Foucault’s accounts of agency and resistance fail to recognise that Arendt and Foucault converge on the possibility of resistance and change in later works, where they provide accounts of transformation (Foucault), and the ability to bring about the never before seen (Arendt), when the space for action has been usurped. Even when commentaries acknowledge that Foucault’s account of the subject does not deny the existence of subjectivity altogether, they still regard his account of resistance and action to be limited by his depiction of controlling forces. In this thesis, I will demonstrate that Arendt and Foucault share more than an opposition to normalising practices, and that Foucault presents an account of self-care to equal Arendt’s version of freedom, action and resistance.
Amy Allen’s analysis of Arendt’s and Foucault’s models of agency and resistance is an example of one such suggestion—i.e. that Arendt’s account of resistance is better than Foucault’s. Although Allen accepts that Foucault presents an account of agency that has some similarities to Arendt, in the end she concludes that the Arendtian idea of the constitution of subjects through the positive, reciprocal, communicative power that emerges out of action in concert, offers more possibilities for resistance than Foucault’s account of subjects constituted through strategic and dangerous relations of power.3 Despite engaging with some often- overlooked features of Foucault’s conceptions of agency and resistance, Allen nonetheless uses Arendt’s approach as a supplement to Foucault, to counter what is commonly viewed as Foucault’s thoroughly passive subject, totally constituted by external systems. Ultimately, Allen combines Arendt’s account of the role that power plays in the constitution of the subject with Foucault’s, in order to offer what she terms, “a fruitful analysis of the constitution of subjectivity through power relations in which the subject retains the critical capacities necessary for moral and political agency”.4
2 Allen, 2002 3 Allen acknowledges similarities in both thinkers’ concerns and rejects suggestions that Foucault reduces the existence of subjectivity or agency to effects of power and knowledge forces altogether - Allen claims Foucault uses them interchangeably. (Allen, 2002, p. 135); Allen develops this further in “The Anti- Subjective Hypothesis: Michel Foucault and the Death of the Subject”. 4 Allen, 2002, p. 145
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Foucault’s work on the care of the self presents a version of dynamic self-constitution that complements Arendt’s, and makes Allen’s reliance on Arendt, to “rescue” Foucault’s vision of moral and political agency, unnecessary. Despite an apparent conflict in themes—between Arendt’s revised version of agonistic politics, and Foucault’s regulating systems of knowledge and power— each shares a common approach in their conception of the relationship between ethics, politics and the self. Both argue that the self cannot be understood separately to ethics, and that ethics is not separable from politics. Yet, as Foucault points out in an interview in 1984, the general impression is that the political subject is essentially a subject of law (natural or positive), and there is little consideration in contemporary political thought for the question of the ethical subject.5 The recognition that ethics, politics and self-constitution necessarily coexist is important for both thinkers’ accounts of action. Yet this aspect of their work has been largely overlooked in comparisons of their respective projects.
To date, little has been written on the similarities in Arendt’s and Foucault’s later work on the constitution of the ethical and political self.6 That there are few sustained comparisons of these two thinkers is perhaps no great surprise, since Arendt and Foucault were not contemporaries and their work was not taken up by shared intellectual movements. Regardless of these biographical differences, they share a number of key intellectual influences and concerns. Additionally, both are often considered to have had distinct phases in their intellectual development—viz. earlier and later. In different ways, later Arendt and later Foucault find themselves embarking on projects that seem to diverge significantly from earlier concerns, so much so that some critics consider their respective shifts to conflict with their previous works. As I will demonstrate throughout the thesis, these apparent “shifts” in both thinkers’ works do not run counter to their earlier interests. The mature writings of both thinkers explore the themes present in earlier projects, only from different perspectives. Moreover, both thinkers develop ideas in their later writings that had previously been implicit.
There are several key features that Arendt’s and Foucault’s analysis of the ethico- political subject share. First, under the influence of Nietzsche and Heidegger, both Arendt and Foucault consider the search for meaning to be a continual attempt to make manifest the material conditions inherent to society, or to reveal the power and knowledge relations that
5 “The Ethics of Concern for Self as a Practice of Freedom”, p.294 6 Allen, 2002; Barder & Debrix, 2011; Gordon, 2002; Tamboukou, 2012; Taylor, Spring 2011; Sharpe, 2007; Boven, n.d.; Nojang Khatami, n.d.
vi constitute dominant truths and narratives.7 Each recognises the contingency of knowledge claims and world-views, and opposes grand narratives explaining social and political events— neither, for example, appeal to notion of human nature or world historical progress. Second, Arendt and Foucault both stress the importance of developing a critical relationship to truth. Both see truth as being historically contingent, and conceptualise it as something that is neglected, obscured and distorted. Third, both promote a personal, critical relationship to truth, and understand this relationship as a form of practice that is a potential source of resistance to the unquestioned acceptance of externally posited rules. As an underpinning principle of this relationship, both Arendt and Foucault regard the synthesis between words and deeds to be central to the public expression of truths and opinions. Fourth, both thinkers present accounts of freedom and action directed towards transformative events and modes of resistance. All four of these key elements combine to create a shared vision for developing a dynamic, ethical relationship with the self; a relationship that has political implications. Each thinker offers a distinctive alternative to universally applicable moral and political structures—which both consider to be potentially dangerous—and encourage the development of a dynamic ethico- political attitude. To this end, Arendt looks to the life of the mind, and Foucault investigates practices of the care of the self.
Arendt begins exploring the meaning of thinking and contemplative withdrawal after attending the Adolf Eichmann trial in Jerusalem. After witnessing the trial, Arendt notes Eichmann possesses an “almost total inability ever to look at anything from the other fellow’s point of view”.8 The meaning of this accusation is fairly self-evident—it can be taken literally. Eichmann never once, from all accounts, displayed the ability to put himself in the place of another, imagine the situation from a different perspective, or think critically about the time and place in which he found himself. Eichmann’s abstinence from any critical reflection results in Arendt referring to his actions in terms of a “banality of evil”, because it seemed to require
7 “My whole philosophical development was determined by my reading of Heidegger. But I recognize that Nietzsche prevailed over him… My knowledge of Nietzsche is much greater. Nevertheless, these were my two fundamental experiences… Nietzsche by himself said nothing to me. Whereas Nietzsche and Heidegger – that was the philosophical shock! But I’ve never written anything on Heidegger and only a very short article on Nietzsche.” (The Return to Morality, p.236); “Arendt’s idiosyncratic theory of action ‘goes through’ Nietzsche and Heidegger…in order to reach a place from which action can be sought qua action – which is to say, a place apart from the alien metaphorics imposed upon it by philosophical conceptualization. This ‘place’ is not a return to the political philosophy of Aristotle. One arrives at it, instead, only via the overcoming of the tradition performed by the Nietzschean / Heideggerian critique of metaphysics.” (Villa, 2001, p. 266) 8 Eichmann in Jerusalem, p.47-48
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neither exceptional wickedness nor depravity, but only a profound thoughtlessness. 9 Arendt concludes that Eichmann committed the crimes he did because of his profound inability to think about and judge autonomously the particular situations of his time.
Refusing to assert that Eichmann is fundamentally evil, Arendt faces a complex philosophical problem relating to the very nature of moral judgment. Yet Arendt cannot address her concerns through her work on public space and political actors alone. As a result she becomes preoccupied with the role of thinking and autonomous judgment as they relate to moral and political concerns. She asks the question, ‘why is it that during the unprecedented situation of Nazism some people are still able to say, “I cannot, this is wrong!” even when everything around them suggests otherwise?’ This question—about this ability to judge independently, even while at odds with the political and social views of the time—is a question Arendt repeatedly asks throughout her later work.
Arendt is confronted with questions on moral judgment and independent thought, and theses lead her to her final work, The Life of the Mind. In this final, unfinished work, Arendt develops an account of the mind that comprises of three mental faculties: thinking, willing and judging. For Arendt, the internal freedom of each faculty is a precondition for mental harmony, and good mental governance exists when all three faculties check and balance each other, without any being denigrated. Thinking, willing and judging each have different concerns, though they are all interrelated. In brief—thinking is a dialogic withdrawal from the world, re- presenting things that are absent; willing is future-directed, with the capacity to bring about the unexpected; and judging concerns evaluative decisions about particular events, without subsuming these events under pre-established, universal standards. Together, these faculties constitute Arendt’s life of the mind and prepare the ground for action which, despite her shift in focus, continues to be a primary concern.
Thinking, willing and judging offer the possibility of critique, freedom and consideration. Thinking looks for the meaning in everyday assumptions, and reveals that no idea should be accepted with absolute certainty. Willing creates the possibility of the completely new coming into existence, and shows a person’s character in the moment of action. Judgment assesses particular moments, rather than relying on overarching narratives to guide decisions. Arendt considers this third faculty of judgment to be the most political of all three faculties, because
9 Beiner, 1992, p. 97
viii when the thinking ego returns to the world of appearances it is the faculty to judge “particulars without subsuming them under general rules which are taught and learned until they grow into habits that can be replaced by other habits and rules”.10 Yet, Arendt believes, it is common in both educated and uneducated people equally for this faculty of judgment to be lacking, because people too readily follow prescriptive codes and external dictates without reflection.
Arendt’s later work on contemplation explores possibilities for thinking critically—her reflections are directed at dissolving accepted rules of conduct, and destroying or laying bare unexamined assumptions.11 She argues that it is crucial to develop “an independent human faculty, unsupported by law and public opinion, that judges anew in full spontaneity every deed and intent whenever the need arises”.12 She believes that by nurturing the critical faculty of thinking, people would be less likely to blindly following a set of values or norms, or to be swept along with a dangerous consensus. The crucial point is a connection between thinking and judging. Arendt writes:
Human beings be capable of telling right from wrong, even when all they have to guide them is their own judgment, which, moreover, happens to be completely at odds with what they must regard as the unanimous opinion of all those around them… Those few who were still able to tell right from wrong went really only by their own judgment, and they did so freely; there were no rules to be abided by, under which the particular cases with which they were confronted could be subsumed. They had to decide each instance as it arose, because no rules existed for the unprecedented.13
In her account, thinking draws out the undercurrent of unexamined opinions and challenges them. The destructive nature of thought, in times when people get swept away unthinkingly, has a liberating effect on the faculty of judgment.
Arendt claims in one of her lectures on Kant:
By loosening the grip of the universal on the particular, thinking releases the political potency of the faculty of judgment—the potency that inheres in its capacity to perceive things as they are, that is, as they are phenomenally manifest.14
In her discussions on the importance of contemplative withdrawal in The Life of the Mind, Arendt seeks to develop an independent, critical attitude without recourse to universal principles. In her discussions of each of the three faculties, the public political realm and the importance of action remain front and centre. Despite accusations that this later work contradicts her earlier
10 Thinking and Moral Consideration, pp.36-37 11 Lectures on Kant, pp.115-116 12 Eichmann, p. 294 13 Eichmann, pp.294-295 14 Lectures on Kant, p.112
ix political material, she continues to argue that the work of philosophers cannot, and should not, be regarded as separate from the political domain of action—plurality, action and politics are never far from sight. There is a need for withdrawal, just as there is need for action, yet the two affect one another continually. Arendt’s discussions on action or withdrawal both explore possibilities for creating a political and ethical self that exists in multiplicity, and independent of externally posited principles.
Foucault, on the other hand, develops his interest in ethico-political practices of self- constitution while writing The History of Sexuality. He comes to realise that his historical account of sexuality and the sexual subject includes three modes of objectification that affect the constitution of subjectivity, and can only be understood relationally: truth, power and ethics (or individual conduct).15 The first mode—truth—concerns the scientific formations that refer to sexuality. The second mode—power—deals with regulating systems of power and concerns practices of manipulation and examination. The third mode—ethics—concerns ways in which individuals establish a relationship to the self, to facilitate self-understanding and recognise themselves as subjects of sexuality.1 Foucault recognises that he has explored the first two modes in detail in previous works, but the third mode on the self-constituting subject is noticeably lacking among the theoretical “tools” at Foucault’s disposal. Acknowledging that any account of the experience of sexuality is incomplete without a critical and historical analysis of the desiring subject, Foucault turns his attention to this third mode of objectification—ethics.
Inspired by his work on the desiring subject, Foucault’s interest expands to look more broadly at the idea of self-constitution. Through a detailed examination of practices of the self in antiquity, Foucault begins to explore the ethical and political implications of self-care for modern day concerns. He presents an account of self-care that centres on developing an attitude that questions the personal relationship to truth, and puts to test those ideas and truths held most dearly. Processes of self-care evaluate the consistency between those truths a person regards as necessary and a person’s actions in the world. Furthermore, these truths, although functioning as guidelines for action and judgment, are not fixed. As a consequence, Foucault’s aesthetics of existence is a never-ending work directed towards on-going transformation.
15 “I tried to mark out three types of problems: that of truth, that of power, and that of individual conduct. These three domains of experience can be understood only in relation to each other and only with each other.” (“The Return to morality”, p.318)
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Foucault considers such techniques of self-care to offer possibilities to shape and transform life, behaviour and relationships, rather than passively subscribing to predetermined definitions of the self-subject. The constant work of questioning and critique undermines the historically determined, rigid, object-like forms of subjectivity to create space for transformative events. Crucial to this process is recognition that the self is not given and does not have ontological precedence—and that subjectivity is transformable. As Foucault says in an interview, by finding the lines and fractures, it helps to “open up the space of freedom… [and] of possible transformation”.16 The political task of working out forms of control and management, articulated in his writing on systems of power and knowledge, are not separate to the ethical task—formulating an ethos—that he presents in his work of practices of the self.17
The critical task of self-care is to question and challenge forms of domination, at whatever level. However, the difficulty is in identifying the precise forms of domination that determine and restrict actions. In the late 1970s, Foucault clarifies the distinction between power and domination, a distinction that previously was only made implicitly. In summary, he argues that power and power relations are characterised by the interplay between strategic games and liberties. Domination is characterised by the shrinking space for freedom of action. Unlike power relations, which cannot exist without freedom of action, domination is a perversion that restricts power relations to such a degree that individual freedom is impossible. This distinction between power and domination is central to Foucault’s discussion of the ethical subject and political thought.
Freedom, for Foucault, lies in the attempt to identify discourses as alternatives to those that constitute subjectivity, and to shape life in the continual response to forms of government and self-government. It is the basis for challenging effects of power and domination and, although there is no end, freedom is most certainly a revolt within practices. As he says:
Nothing is more inconsistent than a political regime that is indifferent to truth; but nothing is more dangerous than a political system that claims to prescribe the truth. The function of “free speech” doesn’t have to take legal form, just as it would be in vain to believe that it resides by right in spontaneous exchanges of communication. The task of speaking the truth is an infinite labor: to respect it in its complexity is an obligation that no power can afford to short-change, unless it would impose the silence of slavery.18
16 The Return of Morality, p.36 17 O'Leary, 2002, p. 158 18 The Concern for Truth”, p.308
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Foucault’s freedom, including free speech, simultaneously affects and is affected by varying power relations. Freedom is not a transcendent idea but something that is historically changeable, and exists in relation to forms of knowledge and power. Freedom as personal agency manifests in a lack of complicity rather than as essential autonomy. It is the concrete capacity to say ‘No!’.19 This capacity to refuse is no different to Arendt’s interest in the ability of some people to say, ‘I cannot, this is wrong’ even if everything around them says otherwise.
Both thinkers are critical of the tendency to reduce all social and political problems according to predetermined ends and verifiable procedures. For Arendt, it is important to develop an approach that allows for an understanding of others’ opinions, to see the world from another’s perspective, and to judge particular circumstances without appeals to universal dictates. In questioning the relationship between self and truth, and in putting opinions to the public test of others, Arendt demonstrates that the world—as a common object of human understanding—reveals itself differently to each individual. On the other hand, Foucault values thinking about an event in terms of its meaning. For Foucault, philosophical activity is a condition of possibility for the articulation of the question of the self. For him, every judgment or evaluation is a particular historical event, which leads to the possible re-imaginings of current configurations. Transformative possibilities open up in the recognition of the historicity of the question itself. Foucault believes that criticism should be conducted as a historical investigation into “a way of thinking and feeling; a way, too, of acting and behaving”.20 It is what Foucault claims the Greeks called ethos and it is what he terms a care of the self.21 Just like Arendt’s “thinking”, self-care is not an abstract conception, or a guide for action, but rather it is what he refers to as a critical attitude.
Arendt and Foucault see in the alignment of the moral and political subject a possibility for change. As with Arendt, ethics and politics are intertwined in Foucault’s conception of the care of the self—presenting a dynamic, critical relationship as a way to think differently about ethical and political engagement. By changing one’s comportment in the world in relation to the self and others, both Arendt and Foucault want to change the nature of ethical and political thought. Despite the difference between the a-historical nature of Arendt’s theory of thinking, and Foucault’s continual grounding within a historical a-priori, both understand the ethico-
19 O'Leary, 2002, p. 159 20 What is Enlightenment, p.309 21 Also an “aesthetics of existence” and “technologies of the self”.
xii political self as a process of continual, critical development with no origin and no end, but which nonetheless questions consistently and purposefully.
In Chapter One, I give an account of Arendt’s final phase of her intellectual explorations concerning a life of contemplation. I describe the intellectual and personal effects of Arendt’s attendance at the Adolf Eichmann trial, which lead to her exploration of the faculties of the mind in The Life of the Mind. The main aim of this chapter is to provide context for Arendt’s contemplative turn and to demonstrate that, despite the contrary claims of many critics, her later interest in contemplative withdrawal is not antithetical to earlier insights concerning political action and the public realm. The overarching narratives of political engagement, multiplicity and the importance of words and deeds, remain constant themes throughout her entire oeuvre. Additionally, I highlight that reference to the thinking activity is already present in earlier work, such as The Human Condition and The Origins of Totalitarianism.
In Chapter Two, I expand on the general overview presented in the previous chapter and present Arendt’s three faculties of the mind. In discussing thinking, willing and judging, I demonstrate the central features of each faculty and link these to earlier ideas regarding political actors and the public realm—to show that multiplicity and the political realm remain crucial aspects of the vita contemplativa. As Arendt grapples, in her exploration of the life of the mind, with the problems of personal responsibility and judgment, action and politics are never far from sight. At the heart of Arendt’s work on the three mental faculties is an attempt to develop an account of a personal relationship to ethics and politics independent of prescriptive codes.
In Chapter Three, I continue with the theme of the development of an ethico-political self, now by looking at Foucault’s explorations of the idea of the care of the self in relation to three models of the self-care presented in antiquity: Platonic-Socratic, Roman-Hellenistic and Christian. Foucault sees practices of self-care as offering alternatives to self-constitution within pre-existing power and knowledge structures. At the heart of this aesthetics of existence— understood as self-care—lies the idea of a self-constituting subject that acts ethico-politically, independent of prescriptive moral codes of behaviour. Most notably, he is intrigued by the way in which such an aesthetic of existence could have broader ethical and political ramifications. Similar to Arendt’s later interest in the life of the mind, Foucault’s work on the self-constituting subject is regarded by some to be incongruous with his earlier endeavours. In later works on self-constitution, the subject remains culturally, socially and historically constituted. However,
xiii this does not necessarily mean the subject is passive, or defined solely by external systems of power and control.
In Chapter Four, I look at Foucault’s discussion of how such practices of self-care reformulate the relationship to the self and to others, and shape a person’s comportment toward the world. I argue this notion of self-care reframes what it means to live and act in the world, and offers possibilities for a more dynamic understanding of ethics. Finally, I suggest that the care of the self not only influences how a person engages with the world, but that these practices open up alternatives for different approaches to ethical and political action.
In Chapter Five, I continue exploring the relationship between practices of the self, ethics and politics by comparing Arendt’s and Foucault’s respective accounts of the ethico- political self. I argue that Arendt and Foucault present an uncertain and complex present, and recognise that world-views and reigning “truths” are always shaped by complex sets of socially and historically contingent circumstances. Yet this does not mean it is impossible to upset current configurations. Resistance and transformation is possible by becoming aware of prevailing conditions, and by refusing to accept the necessity of present circumstances. By questioning the connection between structures of normativity, judgment and action, both Arendt and Foucault develop alternatives to dominant ethical and political approaches, and stress the importance of developing a non-essentialist account of self and world.
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Chapter 1
The consistent thought of Hannah Arendt
In the Introduction, I outlined Arendt and Foucault’s shared concerns with ethical and political systems that are universally applicable to all people and all situations. Arendt and Foucault stress the importance for developing a critical relationship with self, world and others, as each attempts to develop an account of ethico-political engagement independent of prescriptive codes. In this chapter, I present Arendt’s account of political action and connect it to her later work on contemplative life. I suggest that, despite Arendt’s criticism of those she calls “professional thinkers” or her early dismissal of a knowledge of an “inner self”, her later focus on the life of the mind does not represent a change in view on action and political agency. Instead, her account of the life of the mind, which is made up of three faculties—thinking, willing and judging—contributes to the performance and meaningfulness of action.22 I will look at Arendt’s three faculties in detail in Chapter 2. The main aim of this chapter is to provide context for Arendt’s contemplative turn, and demonstrate that her later interest in the life of the mind is not antithetical to her earlier insights concerning political action and the public realm.
The overarching narratives of political engagement, plurality and the importance of words and deeds remain constant themes throughout her entire oeuvre. I contend that many key issues addressed in The Life of the Mind are also central to earlier concerns with political actors and the public realm, and that the significance of the thinking activity is already present, although not fully elaborated, in earlier works such as The Human Condition and The Origins of Totalitarianism.23 The reason for the apparent disjuncture in her work is that it is only after the Eichmann trial that Arendt overtly explores these earlier insights on contemplation. To support my claim, I first present Arendt’s account of politics and the freedom of action. I then demonstrate that public performance is central to Arendt’s understanding of political engagement, and cannot be reduced to Aristotelean praxis alone. Thirdly, I elaborate on Arendt’s coverage of the Eichmann trial to show how this experience influences her later work. Arendt’s contemplative turn does not conflict with earlier, overtly political themes, and her shift from action and political agency to the faculties of the mind must be understood in this light. Her later preoccupation with thinking and contemplative withdrawal stems from the recognition of the important role independent judgment plays in shaping political space. Furthermore,
22 Honig, 1988, p. 78-79 23 The Human Condition; The Origins of Totalitarianism 15
Arendt’s contemplative turn reflects her realisation that political action and judgment can manifest in ways other than public performance. This is particularly apparent in times when the public space is so distorted that the expression of words and deeds takes on a different meaning. It is precisely then that the refusal to publicly participate can become a form of political action.
1.1 Politics and freedom
Arendt uses the term “politics” in a very specific sense. It must be understood separately to economic or managerial models, which reduce politics to specific ends. Political action, according to Arendt, must be understood as an end in itself. This idea of action for its own sake is central to her account of political engagement and rests on her appropriation of Aristotle’s idea of praxis. Arendt uses Aristotelean praxis to develop her theory on the distinction between action and fabrication as presented in The Human Condition. Action is an end in itself through which a person publicly reveals who they are through words and deeds, and presents themselves to the judgment of others. Yet Arendt claims that, post-Plato, praxis becomes conflated with poiesis and the idea of action takes on a different form.
The substitution of making for acting is the central moment in the genealogy Arendt establishes in The Human Condition. Arendt contends that Plato attempts to curb the chaos of the political realm, in response to the trial and condemnation of Socrates, by making the wisdom of the few dominate the perspectivism of the demos. The thrust is, if people are convinced of the existence of immutable standards necessary for governing the human realm, then the wisdom of the few could have priority over the conflicting opinions of the many. The philosopher’s truth replaces chaotic multiplicity and unity prevails. With the instigation of atemporal standards Plato subsumes Aristotelean praxis (action) with poiesis (making). In incorporating praxis into poiesis Arendt argues that theory is placed in a hegemonic relation to action. Theoretical analysis firstly identifies the ideal end and then demonstrates how this will be produced. By reducing everything to its use value, the intrinsic and independent value of action is lost. With the “generalization of the fabrication experience” as means-end, usefulness- utility becomes regarded as the highest goal.24
Arendt’s contention is that the political realm becomes devalued when action is framed as the means through which an end, conceived by reason, is realised. In the transformation of ideas into atemporal standards for action, the philosopher’s truth, produced through solitary thought and reasoning, has unquestioned validity in the realm of human affairs. Arendt finds
24 The Human Condition, p. 157-157; Villa, 1999, p. 92-5 16 the transformation of the public, political realm through the application of universal standards troubling, because when an end precedes deliberation, the quality of deliberative speech is lost. Debate still occurs between protagonists, but Arendt no longer considers it political because discussion becomes limited by specific guidelines, and the possibility for something completely unexpected to emerge is lost. 25 The deferral to authority provides an overarching structure to organise the messy, public realm and steer political interests in the “right” direction. Competing perspectives expressed by political actors are transformed when universal standards, posited as the ultimate end, govern political engagement. For example, utilitarianism claims that the good is characterised by seeking the greatest happiness for the greatest number; the ethical deontologist believes the highest good is served by the application of duties (to the right of others) and acknowledges those institutions that best serve the employment of duties; and the ethical objectivist condemns those that are seen to be lacking a universally moral purpose (those that support certain inalienable rights). Each of these examples prescribes and pursues an envisioned good for which politics is the means of attaining that end.
Arendt regards the rise of the “expert” as producing a devaluation of plurality and opinion. Her main issue with this is that experts are presented as having privileged access to knowledge—that allows them to see the correct course of action, prescribe solutions, posit principles, and enforce these onto the messy, disorganised masses so as to best establish the true or ideal state of things. Politics, for Arendt, is independent of any prescribed order and centres on public debate. Action is not limited to the privileged few, which today are known as “public figures”, that include activists, intellectuals, and writers to name a few. For Arendt, action should be part of the life of every person.26 For her, political engagement is an end in itself, expressed in the exchange of competing ideas in the public sphere. Politics concerns multiple perspectives, and difference should not be curbed through the application of predefined duties or ideals. Arendt hopes to restore politics by returning it the integrity and dignity that, she considers, has been denied it by the modern liberal tradition—where politics, as Barber puts it, is “the chambermaid of private interests”.27 This argument on the devaluation of the political realm is much more ambitious than a clash with liberalism or the fear of bureaucratic expansion; at stake is a reformulation of the understanding of politics altogether.
25 Attributing inherent value to deliberative speech can be traced to Arendt’s reappropriation of Aristotle and his account of phronesis. Interestingly, her use of phronesis becomes a source of critique when she draws on Kant’s enlarged mentality and the sensus communis in her later account of judgment because of the view the two are largely incompatible. I will address this issue later. 26 Taminiaux, 1997, p. 84-87 27 Barber, 1984, p. 2, 13; Jürgen Habermas, Seyla Benhabib, Richard Bernstein and Albrecht Wellmer along with other “social theorists” argue along similar lines. 17
In her refusal to see politics as a means to an end, Arendt departs from philosophical attempts after Plato to limit the plurality of the public arena to the views of “experts”.
Arendt understands the impulse to limit the plurality of the public realm because multiplicity can be dangerous. It is precisely because of such danger that philosophical thought, inaugurated by Plato, eliminates the negative possibilities that can arise from such “mob rule”. The “professional thinker”, to use Arendt’s term, is occupied with questions of Being, Ideas, or Spirit, and regards the phenomenal realm with contempt. For this reason, the “professional thinker” wants to disengage from the conflicting and competing doxa amongst the plurality of political actors. Philosophy is concerned with truth; politics is concerned with opinion. Philosophy is the realm of the few; politics the realm of the many. Philosophers from Plato to Heidegger consistently regard the plurality of the public realm with derision, referring to the multiplicity as the hoi polloi, the herd, das Man or the “they”, to name a well-known few. By withdrawing into the realm of thought, a permanent and unnecessary split occurs between the concerns of philosophy and events in the political domain. Arendt does not think it is wrong to withdraw into thought. In fact, contemplative withdrawal becomes the focus of her later work. However, Arendt’s withdrawal is not intended to separate thinking from (or to reject) the public domain. Arendt does not deny the distinction between thinking and doing; in fact she asserts the distinction is necessary. The problem is with the professional thinker’s privileging of the contemplative life over the political.
Arendt argues that political action should not be reduced to objective processes that silence, eradicate, demonise or force differences into prescriptive moulds. When political action is reduced to manifesting pre-established ends, the possibility for novelty is diminished. Arendt’s political arena allows for the free public expression of different ideas and beliefs. Rather than homogenising difference according to particular ideals Arendt argues a space is needed for the revelatory capacity of political action to bring about something new. Action is given the quality of uniqueness, singularity and the potential to instigate the unexpected. As she writes,
To act, in its most general sense, means to take initiative, to begin (as in the Greek word archein, “to begin”, “to lead”, and eventually “to rule” indicates), to set something in motion (which is the original meaning of the Latin agree). Because they are initium, newcomers and beginners by virtue of birth, men take initiative, are prompted into action.28 Freedom and action are synonymous for Arendt, and people are free only in so far as they act. Action as freedom opens the possibility for political actors to bring about the new and novel by
28 The Human Condition, p. 177 18 doing other than has previously been. Politics as human action rather than politics as a means to an end presents possibilities for bringing about the entirely unpredictable.29
Novelty is central to Arendt’s notion of political freedom. The devaluation of competing perspectives in favour of the views of experts troubles her. Firstly, as already mentioned, she thinks it presumptuous to claim that experts have privileged access to a universally applicable state of affairs. Secondly, a means-end driven politics guided by ends posited by experts reduces all political engagement to pre-established ideas. Lastly, Arendt is concerned that the prevention of multiple perspectives stifles the possibility for the unprecedented to occur and erodes the public, political space. Arendt regards the public, political sphere as important for both her conception of political engagement and for democracy. Without such a space, the possibility for people to express differing views and hold authority to account vanishes.30 A public, political space is very important in Arendt’s thought, and as I will show in chapter two, she continues to explore notions of multiplicity and uniqueness in her account of the three faculties of the mind: thinking, willing and judging. Due to what she considers as the erosion of the public, political realm Arendt tries to develop a way to account for different perspectives—even when there is no longer the possibility for public, political action. However, before moving onto Arendt’s later work, it will be helpful to better understand her account of political action and its relation to freedom and speech.
Following Aristotle, Arendt suggests that speech and political action are intrinsically connected, because without speech action loses its revelatory character.31 Only when people are with others does the revelatory quality of speech and action come to the fore and the human condition of plurality actualise. Through speech people insert themselves into the world and appear to others through words and deeds. This insertion is not forced by necessity like labour or prompted by utility as with work. A life without speech and action, for Arendt, is “literally dead to the world”. As Arendt writes,
Speechless action would no longer be action because there would no longer be an actor, and the actor, the doer of deeds, is possible only if he is at the same time the speaker of words. The action he begins is humanly disclosed by the word, and though his deed can be perceived in its brute physical appearance without verbal accompaniment, it becomes relevant only through the spoken word in which he identifies himself as the actor, announcing what he does, has done, and intends to do.32
29 Interestingly the ability to bring about the unexpected and new is also a key feature of the faculty of the will. 30 See Giroux, Aug 2009, for an account of the erosion of Arendt’s public sphere and the modern university. 31 The Human Condition, p. 176-178 32 The Human Condition, p. 178-179 19
No other human performance requires speech to the same extent as action. The “who” of a person is unique identity, and not the same as “what” a person is, which would be personal gifts, talents, and qualities. Without self-disclosure through speech, action loses its specific character and becomes just one achievement among others.
Arendt equates politics with speech and action, which for her are synonymous with freedom. Although acknowledging that politics may be based on limited domination, she strongly opposes the Weberian position that all politics is finally domination. Domination is not political in the Arendtian sense because it destroys plurality by monopolising speech and action.33 Additionally, representative government is also not political in Arendt’s sense because the relationship between the representatives and those being represented is purely instrumental. With representative government, the public realm vanishes and no space remains for the expression of opinions or noble acts.34 When speech turns into “mere talk” the words reveal nothing and disclosure only comes from the deed itself. The unique identity of the agent disappears and action is again reduced to mere production.35 For Arendt a life without speech and action ceases to be a human life because “it is no longer lived among men”.36
Genuine deliberation takes place when certain necessary preconditions are established: (1) plurality is essential—without the diversity of opinions, action would be impossible; (2) deliberative and political speech only occur among equals approaching one another as friends. This notion of speaking with a friend also comes into play in Arendt’s discussions on thinking and the silent dialogue of the two-in-one that I will look at in chapter two. Without equality- friendship there is the threat of coercion, making the free exchange of opinions false; (3) deliberative speech presupposes commonality. A shared world is needed in order to view the same thing from different perspectives. To highlight the importance of shared consensus Arendt insists on the “worldly character” of political action, and; (4) public speech and political action require the ability to judge. Although Arendt believes everyone should be allowed to participate in action, she also recognises that not everyone would be interested or able to do so. Not all speakers need to be heard, and not all opinions are worth sharing. For people to come together and exchange differing opinions requires political actors to be interested, informed, and willing to judge and accept the merits of other perspectives. Relevant to this requirement, in Chapter 4
33 See On Violence for a detailed account. 34 See “Truth and Politics” for a detailed account. 35 The Human Condition, p. 180 36 The Human Condition, p. 176 20
I discuss Foucault’s understanding of free speech as parrhesia and its distinction from doxa (opinion) and rhetoric.
The structure of political action for Arendt is one where debate and disagreement occur freely and openly between multiple perspectives. Beyond this there is no fixed notion of political action—it is generated through the course of its performance.37 In Arendt’s political realm, everyone is both actor and audience, and it is in the revelatory capacity of the public performance that the possibility arises for something never before seen to occur. Arendt identifies the initiatory dimension of action as the main criteria of freedom, with the virtuosity of the performance as the primary manifestation of this freedom. Arendt’s view is that an action’s freedom must be conceived solely in terms of the performance, rather than being determined by any telos. In contrast, although Aristotle emphasises the performative aspect of action, performance alone does not provide sufficient criteria for good action. In Aristotle, it is important to distinguish between a genuinely virtuous act and one that simply gives the appearance of virtue, because virtues are what allows one to pursue the ultimate end—the good life. The performance of virtuous actions characterise the active life, and the unity of performance, virtue, good action and character is crucial. For Aristotle, the end, understood as the good life, retains priority.
From one angle, praxis has intrinsic value and is not at the service of externally posited goals, and from another perspective action is always subservient to the highest goal of the good life, which is grounded in a telos. Arendt’s account of action as performance should be read as her attempt to think beyond such a teleological structure. The main thrust of her account is that a teleological account of action is irreconcilable with the freedom that arises from the plurality of the public sphere. Arendt’s description gives action a specific autonomy where freedom, and not the good life, is the reason of politics. There is no distinction between a genuinely virtuous act and one that simply appears so; the unity of action and character is of no consequence. For Arendt, virtuosity lies solely in the performance, it does not aim, as per Aristotle, for the good life.
For Arendt, the self is not an innate, unified essence—but that which is revealed through action. Identity is not given, but is only attained through action. A person may assert many claims and beliefs, but it is only at the point of acting that the “who” is publicly disclosed. Prior to acting it is possible to describe personal attributes and qualities (the “what”), but only at the point of action is the “who” revealed. Arendt’s “who” can be equated to Nietzsche’s assertion
37 Villa, 1996, p. 39; Kateb, 1984, p. 19 21 that there is no doer behind the deed because the deed is everything. Regardless of claims affirming personal beliefs, visions and values, it is in the moment of action that the “who” is demonstrated. Self-assertions and claims about character are irrelevant in establishing the “who” because the “who” is only revealed to the multitude through actions and words. There is no meaning in the proclamation, “that is out of character” or “I was not myself” because the act and self are one. Quite simply, to talk of having a virtuous character is one thing but, as Billy Bragg once sang, “virtue never tested is no virtue at all”.38
The “who” occurs at the moment of action and results from the public witnessing and judgment of others. In Arendt, a person is not the creator of her own story, it is the spectators that decide. As I will discuss in Chapter 2, just as Arendt’s later spectator-based judgment gives meaning, through narration, to the events played out in the public realm, so too does the judgment of other actors give meaning to the “who” of a person. Optimal political action exists in plurality as a continual, dynamic process—rather than a means to an end—which only becomes meaningful when witnessed, and narrated, by others. Replacing the idea of an innate essence or self, Arendt establishes the “who” as necessary to her political and philosophical concerns. This “who” is not timeless, but rather is a continual process without which action would be meaningless. Rejecting the solitary reflection of her “professional thinkers” Arendt anchors her account of the “who” in the plurality of the world and publicly revelatory acts of words and deeds. Referencing Arendt, Julia Kristeva says,
…”who” manifests itself as being dynamic actuality…that transcends [particular] deeds and actions and is in opposition to any attempt at reification or objectification: ‘its disclosure can almost never be achieved as a willful purpose, as though one possessed and could dispose of this “who” in the same manner as he has and can dispose of his qualities.39 Expanding on the importance of the “who” for Arendt’s account of action, Kristeva claims that “Arendt sets up…a transcendence in action and word with others”.40 The transcendence Kristeva references aligns Arendt’s idea of the “who” with the notion of a transcendent “essence” that exists only in plurality. Note that Kristeva does not argue that there is an essentialist foundation to Arendt’s account of the acting self, but loosely uses the terms “transcendence” and “essence” to highlight the fundamental role of the “who” for Arendt’s conception of meaningful activity. I will return to this idea of the “who” in the following chapter and show that, for Arendt, it is in the moment of action when the “who” is publicly revealed that the possibility for novelty and
38 Line from Billy Bragg’s “Must I paint you a picture” from Workers Playtime; See Villa, 1996, p. 44-79 for an interesting account of the relationship between Arendt and Aristotle’s accounts of action. 39 Kristeva, 2001, p. 58; The Human Condition, p.211 40 Kristeva, 2001, p.57 22 uniqueness opens up. To manifest the never before seen is extremely important for Arendt because it allows for the possibility of unforeseen, transformative world-events to take shape.
To recap, Arendt opposes political action as a means to some desired end, and notions of plurality, public action and meaning established through the narration of others, are central to her vision of a dynamic, political realm. To strive towards an ideal state of things is dangerous and devalues the inherent multiplicity of the public realm. Through the imposition of prescriptive rules the constitutive features of political action, where debate and opinion are fundamental, are depreciated and consequently eliminated. The imposition of a specific vision of the good is taken to be desirable for all, and the multiplicity of competing (and incompatible) doxa is silenced. Judgment is reduced to subsuming particulars under theoretically derived universal standards and the “open space” necessary for deliberation is eradicated. So, now that I have provided a brief overview of Arendt’s concerns pre-Eichmann, I return to the explorations that arose after the trial.
1.2 Political action and the public space
Commentators simultaneously recognise the importance and originality of Arendt’s idea of political action, while questioning its relevance to modern politics—because of what some believe to be Arendt’s nostalgia for the ancient Greek polis. As a result, Arendt’s theory of political action is often regarded as useful only insofar as it concerns what Jürgen Habermas refers to as, “the systematic renewal of the Aristotelian concept of praxis”, with the public, performative aspects of Arendt’s work disregarded or ignored.41 According to Villa, this tendency by political theorists to “save” Arendt’s nostalgic theory of political action from itself by means of a selective reading, leads at times to an over-emphasis on the Aristotelian elements present in her earlier work, which are thought to be inured through nostalgia for the Greek polis.
Villa identifies three appropriations of Arendt’s theory of political action that focus on her “recovery” of Aristotelian praxis. (1) The Participatory Democrat, such as Sheldon Wolin and Benjamin Barber, who regard Arendt’s theory of action as reformulating politics in term of constant and direct civic involvement. The approach here is that Arendt’s recovery of the notion of citizenship presented in the third book of the Politics and Aristotle’s identification of action and politics offer new possibilities to contemporary theories on civic participation. (2) The Critical Theorist—such as Wellmer, Habermas, Bernstein and Benhabib—who is concerned with the threat from the universalisation of technical rationality. As increasing areas of social
41 Habermas, 1983, p. 174 23 existence are subjected to the dictates of instrumental reasoning and the prerogatives of rational administration, the space left for the exercise of political action, where open debate between conflicting doxa (opinion) is permitted, continually diminishes. Arendt’s “renewal” of Aristotelian agency and creation are regarded as important because each allows for the possibility of a comprehensive theory of consensual rationality and communicative action. (3) The Communitarian, such as Michael Sandel, Charles Taylor and Alasdair MacIntyre, who questions the Enlightenment effort to derive notions of political right and practical judgement without some concrete vision of the good. Without “community”, justice becomes mere legality. As such, community is placed at the centre of politics, and Arendt’s theory of action through her “recovery” of Aristotle claims that shared purpose is central to political association. Here, the insight of book three of the Politics, is that to experience the “existential and moral enrichment” that politics can provide citizens politics must be united by more than mutual benefit.42
Rather than simply reviving Aristotelian praxis, Arendt attempts a radical reconceptualization of political action through its transformation and critique. Aristotle plays an important role in Arendt’s thought concerning politics and action, but to reduce her discussions to a “renewal” of praxis truncates her thought. Arendt’s project is not the rediscovery and renewal of a pre-existing idea as Habermas suggests, but rather is an attempt to question and overcome the Western philosophical tradition’s tendency to repeatedly condemn and subjugate politics and action. Her concern is not with reviving ancient concepts and categories so as to restore some past political glory. Arendt uses past ideas to question the reifications of a tradition she believes to be at an end. In appropriating Aristotelean praxis to explore the notion of political action Arendt is not reinstating some past ideal. Her interest in looking to the past is to highlight changes that have occurred within the Western tradition’s understanding of action and political engagement, and allude to different possibilities.
Arendt critiques what she sees as the Western tradition’s denigration of the political realm, and opens a dialogue where, as in the arena of political actors, novelty may arise through the vigorous exchange of competing ideas. Arendt’s project is in part one of reacquainting with past ideas, but not in the sense of bringing them back to “life”. She is critical of notions present in modern political language that have become empty—such as justice, freedom, authority, power and virtue. As I will discuss in the next chapter, this idea of questioning notions of justice,
42 Villa, 1996, p. 3-14; I suggest that perhaps the Communitarian’s belief in the need to have some concrete vision of the good conflicts with Arendt’s reservations about politics positing an idea of the “good” in advance or her opposition to any normative morality or universal ideals. Also, it is Arendt’s use of Aristotle in earlier work and her later discussion of the Kantian notion of enlarged mentality as it relates to spectator-based judgment that becomes a point of contention for some critics. 24 virtue and so on is central to her later account concerning the faculty of thinking. In looking to the past, Arendt hopes to “discover the real origins of traditional concepts in order to distil from them anew their original spirit”.43 However, given her use of words like “real origins” and “original spirit”, it is understandable that Arendt is accused of romanticising the past since she suggests, intentionally or not, some view of an “authentic” relationship. Although her phrasing does lend itself to this attack, Arendt’s fundamental aim is not to bring back a conceptual framework but to break with the current tradition. Perhaps, Arendt expresses her relationship to the past best when describing Walter Benjamin’s “poetic” thinking:
Like a pearl diver who descends to the bottom of the sea, not to excavate the bottom and bring to light but to pry loose the rich and the strange…and carry them to the surface, this thinking delves into the past – but not in order to resuscitate it the way it was and to contribute to the renewal of extinct ages. What guides this thinking is the conviction that although the living is subject to the ruin of time, the process of decay is at the same time a process of crystallization…some things “suffer a sea-change” and survive in new crystallized forms and shapes that remain immune to the elements…as “thought fragments,” as something “rich and strange,” and perhaps as everlasting phanomene.44 Villa argues this passage is equally applicable to Arendt’s thought. Just as with Benjamin’s pearl diver metaphor, Arendt is not retrieving Aristotelean praxis in its exact formulation; she looks to the past to find remnants of thought that can offer new possibilities to current arrangements.
Although approaching the past in the spirit of creative exploration—rather than as an attempt at the “renewal of extinct” ideas—the notion of an “everlasting phanomene” at least hints at the possibility of something long forgotten and timeless. In Chapter 3 I will discuss Foucault’s looking to the past to question the present and show that, despite sharing a similar impulse, he never indicates “real origins” or an “everlasting phanomene” in his critique of supposedly timeless ideas. However, I want to clarify that I do not believe Arendt intentionally suggests the existence of some timeless or real origin. As I will show, she opposes universal notions of truth. Yet, at times, due to the language used, there are suggestions to the contrary— and critics can be forgiven for regarding her work as looking back to some golden age of thought and politics. Indeed, as I argue in Chapter 2, despite her opposition to universal standards, Arendt in some ways “smuggles” such standards into her discussion on the faculty of thought. For now, let me describe the impact the Adolf Eichmann trial has on Arendt work and her change in focus from public performance to the life of the mind.
43 Between Past and Future, p. 14 44 Men in Dark Times, p. 205-206 25
1.3 The influence of the Eichmann trial on Arendt’s political action
In 1961, after official confirmation that Adolf Eichmann would be tried in Jerusalem, Arendt approaches the editor of The New Yorker, William Shaw, and asks to write a complete report of the proceedings. The trial is of great significance because it is the first time a person accused of Nazi war crimes is judged in Israel. This request is granted, leads to a series of articles, and provides material for her later book, Eichmann in Jerusalem. However, the articles and the book are not all that come from Arendt’s attendance at the trial. What eventuates goes beyond immediate publications, and causes Arendt to reframe her previous approach to questions on judgment and political agency. The Eichmann trial has a profound personal and philosophical effect on Arendt, and provides inspiration for her final and unfinished work, The Life of the Mind.
In a letter to Samuel Grafton, Arendt writes that she identifies three motives for wanting to attend the Eichmann trial: (1) she is interested in knowing who Eichmann is in real life, and how he matches up to the totalitarian mentality she studied in On Totalitarianism; (2) she wants to analyse the capacity of legal institutions to handle the possibility of a new type of crime and criminal and (3) she wants to expose herself to the “evil-doer” because, “for many years or, to be specific, for thirty years, [she has been thinking] about the nature of evil”.45 She then goes on to say, this desire to personally confront the evil-doer is the most powerful motive in her decision to go to Jerusalem. It is the third point that most illuminates the coming discussion on Arendt’s later interest in the contemplative life, and her supposed move away from political action.
Throughout the Eichmann trial, Arendt is struck with the realisation that Eichmann is not the embodiment of radical evil but something more insidious. Eichmann the man, as opposed to the perpetrator of atrocious deeds, seems neither demonic nor monstrous. Instead, he appears to be someone displaying a profound inability to reflect on the occurrences of the time and to judge the particular circumstance he found himself in. In Arendt’s words,
Eichmann was not Iago and not Macbeth, and nothing would have been further from his mind than to determine with Richard III “to prove a villain” ... He merely, to put the matter colloquially, never realized what he was doing. It was precisely this lack of imagination which enabled him to sit for months on end facing a German Jew who was conducting the police investigation, pouring out his heart to the man and explaining again and again how he had reached only the rank of lieutenant colonel in the S.S. ... In principle he knew quite well what it was all about, and in his final statement to the court he spoke of the “revaluation of values prescribed by the [Nazi] government”. He was by no means stupid. It was sheer thoughtlessness – something by no means
45 Assy, 2008, footnote 15 “(RE to a letter, Grafton-Arendt 01, September 19, 1963) draft, Manuscript division, Library of Congress… This draft comprised Arendt’s answers to Samuel Grafton’s questions for an interview with Look Magazine. However, Arendt refused when she learned the interviewer would be a Jew. Commentary made by letter to Jaspers, October 20, 1963…” (Arendt & Jaspers, 1992). 26
identical with stupidity – that predisposed him to become one of the greatest criminals of that period.46
Taken from the postscript to Eichmann in Jerusalem this description results with Arendt coining the phrase “the banality of evil”. In using the phrase “banality of evil”, Arendt intentionally positions herself in opposition to the conventional Western-Christian understanding of evil, still present in today’s language,47 which uses evil in metaphysical terms to describe ultimate corruption or sinfulness.48 The trouble with using evil in this way is that it positions such acts beyond that of “good, regular people”, and discussions as to how such acts come about are thereby foreclosed. People can remain unreflective about Eichmann’s character and mind, because the reason for his participation is already clarified in no uncertain terms: he is evil! The use of evil as ultimate depravity closes off the possibility of questioning how Eichmann, and so many other people, became willing participants in the Nazi regime and seemingly without moral conflict.49
For Arendt, it is clearly Eichmann’s abstinence from any critical reflection that results in her referencing the “banality of evil”.50 The “banality of evil” requires neither exceptional wickedness nor depravity. In Arendt’s account, Eichmann does not appear to have shown prior ideological commitment to violent anti-Semitism. It would be easier to comprehend how he sent millions of Jews and other “pariahs” of the Nazi state to death if he had done.51 Instead, what leads Eichmann to commit the crimes he commits is something far more frightening—an inability to autonomously think about and judge the particular situations of his time. It is “a manifest shallowness in the doer”, resulting from a lack of independent thought and judgment.52 Arendt determines that the ability to think critically and independently depends upon the possession of a particular skill, rather than a particular set of physical and mental capacities.53
46 Eichmann in Jerusalem, p. 287-288 (original emphasis) 47 A more recent example of such language is George W. Bush’s terminology in describing countries that threaten the safety of the U.S. as being a part of the “axis of evil” or describing terrorists as evil. 48 The Life of the Mind – Thinking, p. 3-4; Banhabib, 1996, p. 46 49 Arendt uses Stalinist Russia as another example of such participation. 50 Beiner, 1992, p. 97 51 This is the angle the prosecution took. 52 The Life of the Mind – Thinking, p. 4; Villa, 1999, p. 41 53 After the publication of Eichmann in Jerusalem the term the “banality of evil” causes controversy and leads to numerous public attacks on Arendt, many from members of the Jewish community. The outrage stems from the belief that the word “banal” belittles the holocaust. I want to clarify that Arendt never suggests Eichmann’s actions are banal; she is not minimising the horror of sending millions of Jews to death. The “banality of evil” refers to the specific quality of his character and mind, not the deeds or principles behind them. To accuse Arendt of trivialising the events of the holocaust by the term, “banality of evil” is to completely misunderstand her analysis of Eichmann. The misunderstanding arises by either connecting Eichmann’s acts rather than his character and mind with the “banality of evil”, or by refusing to engage in any discussion that looks at Eichmann outside of the language of ultimate depravity. On this 27
Confronted with the dilemma of thinking and moral judgment, Arendt finds her work on public space and political actors, post-Eichmann, insufficient for understanding how people think and judge. In refusing to see Eichmann as inherently evil, Arendt faces a complex philosophical problem concerning the very nature of moral judgment. The role of thinking and autonomous judgment preoccupy her inquiries, and are highlighted by the question; ‘why is it that during the unprecedented situation of Nazism some people are still able to say, “I cannot, this is wrong!” even when everything around them suggests otherwise?’ This question—about this ability to judge independently, even while at odds with the political and social views of the time—is a question Arendt repeatedly asks throughout her later work. As Bethania Assy argues, the “banality of evil” comes to stand for a whole slew of problems and inquiries regarding morality and the ability to tell right from wrong.54
1.4 Vita contemplativa - The life of the mind
Some commentators see a tension in Arendt’s work post Eichmann in her shift from concerns with political action to contemplative withdrawal. My claim in this section, and the next chapter as well, is that there is a coherence between Arendt’s account of politics and action, and her interest in the life of the mind, that such criticisms ignore. Key concerns with plurality, judgment, and words and deeds remain constant. However, I acknowledge that superficially there appears to be a shift in Arendt’s line of inquiry from the late 1960s onwards. As shown, Arendt is critical of the Western philosophical tradition’s denigration of the political realm in favour of the contemplative withdrawal of the professional thinker, and a focus in works like The Human Condition is reinstating the process of meaning to the plurality of politics, the public realm and political action. Yet her writings in the aftermath of the Eichmann trial appear to set to one side the importance of action and the public realm, in preference for the contemplative life she appeared to have previously criticised, culminating in her final unfinished work, The Life of the Mind.
The main issue with Arendt’s shift is the supposed revelation of a misplaced classicism in her separation of the active and contemplative life. Those wanting to link theory and practice are frustrated by Arendt’s insistence that thinking and acting occupy two entirely different
point I agree with Seyla Benhabib that, although there may be disagreement regarding Arendt’s assessment of Eichmann’s psychology it is either a great hermeneutic blindness and ill will or both to misunderstand her meaning when using this term (Banhabib, 1996, p. 45); Elisabeth Young-Bruehl presents an account of the controversy and attacks Arendt faces after the publication of Eichmann in Chapter 8 (Young-Bruehl, 2004). 54 See chapter 1 “The Deconstruction of Morality by Phenomena” for a more detailed account of Assy’s argument (Assy, 2008, p. 11-24). 28 existential positions.55 Action takes place in the public realm with others, whereas a necessary condition for thinking is withdrawal. It is true that Arendt repeatedly argues against the Western philosophical tradition’s denigration of a life of action in favour of the contemplative life of the professional thinker. Yet it does not necessarily follow that her solution must be a unification of theory and practice. Arendt’s concern is not to bring action and thinking together or elevate the active life over the contemplative. Arendt remains sceptical of any ideal put forward where the goal is a unity between thought and action, or theory and practice, because she sees it as reinforcing a traditional account of thinking and acting—by framing action as the means through which thinking (as reason) is realised. Instead, Arendt moves from instrumental means-end accounts of thought and demonstrates how the Western tradition’s focus on the relationship between theory and practice, the universal and the particular obscures the basic experience of thinking, action and judgment. 56
Despite her insistence that action and thinking remain separate, some commentators regard Arendt’s unfinished work on judgment as the bridge between the two, and see the constitution of the Arendtian self as comprising the relationship between these three features— thinking, judging and acting. Such notions are encouraged by Arendt’s claims that the faculty of thinking has a liberating effect on judgment, and that judgment is “the political faculty par excellence”.57 I will discuss the faculty of judgment and its relation to thinking and action in detail in Chapter 2. For now, I suggest that even if judgment fails in the unification of thinking and action for which as some commentators hope, this does not mean thought and action are inherently in conflict nor does it automatically suggest a misplaced classicism. To occupy distinct positions is not synonymous to existing in opposition, and consequently does not reinforce the classical separation of the vita contemplativa and vita activa. It is not difficult to imagine a situation where there are two existentially separate positions that inform and complement one another rather than existing in tension.
Superficially, post-Eichmann, Arendt puts her criticism of the Western philosophical tradition’s denigration of the political realm aside in favour of the solitude of thought. Her change in the way in which she considers the figure of Socrates appears to suggest an abrupt reversal of her earlier position. Socrates, who once served for her as the ultimate example of someone engaging in public activities, becomes (post-Eichmann) the embodiment of the thinking activity. However, despite appearances to suggest otherwise, no real tension exists in
55 Urabayen, 197, p. 304-305 56 Villa makes a similar claim in, “Thinking and Action” (Villa, 1999, p. 87-106). 57 “Thinking and Moral Consideration: A Lecture”, p. 36 29
Arendt’s overall project. Agreeing with Richard Bernstein and Majid Yar, who regard Arendt as a “systematic thinker”, I posit that the ideas and concepts she presents throughout her work inform and condition one another, and it is impossible to understand a particular issue or theme without referencing others.58 While there is particular shift in focus in her explorations post Eichmann from active engagement, she remains faithful to her earlier focus on the importance of plurality and political engagement.
What concerns Arendt is to reinstate
the vita activa with the importance and dignity she believes it has been denied. In her explorations on thinking and its relation to judgment and action, Arendt contrasts the difference between what she considers philosophical thinking (professional thinkers) and the experience of thinking. I will look at this in detail in Chapter Two but, to put it briefly, the former expresses specific ideas or methods, and the latter is the experience of the act itself. The key difference is that philosophical thinking for Arendt is directed towards the acquisition of knowledge and concern claims to truth, whereas thinking as pure activity involves meaning, without the discovery of inherent truths. Viewed in its entirety what is revealed is Arendt’s attempt, albeit unfinished and perhaps flawed, to create a more complex picture of what it means to be a political agent in the world. Arendt does not replace public, political action with contemplative, solitary withdrawal. Rather she broadens her account of what it means to think, act and judge politically. Her later focus is an attempt to strengthen her overall project and does not contradict her prior position. Additionally, her interest in the importance of thinking as it relates to action and politics predates her contemplative turn post Eichmann. In essays from the 1960’s, such as “Thinking and Politics” and “The Crisis in Culture”,59 Arendt develops an account of political thinking in which she takes great pains to demonstrate how this type of thinking differs from the philosophical thinking she criticises. In brief, the former concerns the formation of opinion by political actors and is contextually grounded in human plurality, whereas the latter aims at establishing truth arising from solitary reasoning independent of the public realm. In these essays Arendt outlines “representative thinking” and an “enlarged mentality”, which aim at political modes of thought directed at plurality and opinion rather than solitude and truth.60 Again, Chapter 2 will elaborate these claims in detail.
58 Yar, 2000; Bernstein, 1996 59 “Truth and Politics” and “The Crisis in Culture. Its Social and its Political Significance” 60 See Villa, 1999, p. 87-89; I will touch on the notions of representative thought and enlarged mentality in the later section on judgment. 30
To further bolster my claim that Arendt’s detour into thinking and the life of the mind does not conflict with her work on action and politics, I turn to the prologue to The Human Condition. In the opening to this book, which is regarded as her treatise on political action, Arendt claims that her aim is very simple, “it is nothing more than to think what we are doing”.61 Her clarification of the importance of thinking in this work echoes much of her later discussions on contemplative withdrawal. She suggests, just as in The Life of the Mind, that thoughtlessness, understood as the complacent repetition of “truths” emptied of meaning, seems to her one of the outstanding characteristics of the present time. She then says, despite regarding thinking as the highest activity of which people are capable, she is unable to deal with this in The Human Condition and will restrict her study to labour, work and action.62
Despite the different objectives between The Human Condition and The Life of the Mind, there are some fundamental concerns present in both that lie at the heart of Arendt’s endeavours. As early as The Human Condition, Arendt says thinking is the “highest and perhaps purest activity of which men are capable”. 63 Yet it is not until her work after Eichmann that she explores these earlier insights in detail—where her concern with thoughtlessness, mentioned in the Prologue to The Human Condition, becomes the major focus. Already believing thoughtlessness to be characteristic of modern times, when confronted with Eichmann’s profound lack of thought, Arendt repositions her inquiry to look at the very notion of evil and moral judgment. In The Human Condition she explores the vita activa, just as in The Life of the Mind she wants to understand the other facet of human experience, the vita contemplativa, as part of an attempt to write a treatise on good mental governance.
Arendt is a systematic thinker whose early work informs her later work. Her concern with thinking, action and judgment is manifested throughout her career and notions of plurality, action and freedom are consistently at the forefront of her arguments. Although Arendt shifts focus in later works to explore the solitude of thought, this does not mean she abandons her pre-Eichmann concerns on political thinking and action. Regardless of focus, whether public performance or solitary withdrawal, a major theme remains constant; plurality of opinion is necessary for political action and it is important to be sceptical of any claims to the true or ideal
61 Emphasis added. 62 The Human Condition, p. 5 63 The Human Condition, p. 5; Peg Birmingham points out, in the opening to, “Hannah Arendt: The spectator’s vision” that the beginning of The Human Condition, where there is a distinction between a life of action and a life of contemplation, unravels at its end, when Arendt recognises thinking as an activity that, moreover, is not essentially solitary. Birmingham then point out that Arendt revisist this sentiment in the Introduction to The Life of the Mind – Thinking (Birmingham, 1999, p.29). 31 state of affairs. Post-Eichmann, in her discussions on speech, action and plurality she confronts the problem of why people act as they do, rather than dealing with action itself. To grasp the issue, Arendt moves from action to contemplation because she understands neither should exist in isolation. As the next chapter will demonstrate, contemplation as considered in Arendt’s later work prepares the grounds for acting. To judge events independently can have political consequences, especially during times when the public space has been eroded and there is no place for the free expression of competing opinions.
32
Chapter 2
Hannah Arendt’s Alleged Withdrawal The Role of the Vita Contemplativa in Moral Judgment and Political Agency
In the introduction to The Life of the Mind, Arendt explains that her preoccupation with mental activities has two different origins. The first comes from her attendance at the Eichmann trial, where she coins the phrase ‘the banality of evil’ to describe what she considers to be Eichmann’s complete absence of thought.64 The second relates to the circumstances under Nazism and in Stalinist Russia where “traditional” ideas of morality no longer seem to apply. 65 In the latter cases, without major contest, beliefs such as “I must not kill” are readily replaced with other guidelines for judging. This frightens Arendt and compels her to investigate what it is that prepares people for making judgments about events in the first place. In a series of analyses and reflections she describes three mental faculties that she considers check and balance one another: thinking, willing and judging.
In Chapter 1, I looked at Hannah Arendt’s supposed shift from political action in the public realm to her interest in contemplative withdrawal and the life of the mind. I argued that the themes of political engagement, independent judgment and the potential to bring forth the never before seen remain constant despite some critics’ suggestions that there is a conflict inherent to Arendt’s earlier and later concerns. In this chapter I outline Arendt’s three faculties of the mind and show that even during her “retreat” into the vita contemplativa, the importance of plurality in the political realm remains central. I expand on the general overview presented in the previous chapter by providing a detailed account of Arendt’s contemplative withdrawal. In discussing thinking, willing and judging, I connect the central features of each faculty to earlier ideas of Arendt’s regarding multiplicity, action and novelty.
In Arendt’s investigation into the life of the mind, where she grapples with the problem of why people come to act as they do, action and politics are never far from sight. To clarify Arendt’s understanding of contemplative withdrawal, and its effect on action and independent judgment, I first discuss the faculty of thinking and explain Arendt’s account of the “two-in-one”
64 The Life of the Mind - Thinking, p. 3-4 65 “…those moral questions, arising from factual experience, and going counter to the wisdom of the ages” (The Life of the Mind - Thinking, p. 6). 33 as it relates to conscience. I argue that, although Arendt’s idea of thinking can lead to a more critical engagement with the world, there are issues with her attempt to make this faculty a safe- guard against wrong-doing. Next I look at her account of willing, paying attention to her discussions on Aristotle, Augustine and Duns Scotus. I suggest that despite being the least fleshed out faculty, Arendt considers the will to be equally important because only with the will is there potential to bring about novelty. Lastly, I outline Arendt’s description of judgment and demonstrate the close connection between it and the faculty of thinking. I argue, much like her earlier and later concerns with action and withdrawal, Arendt’s account of judgment cannot be clearly divided into two separate theories, despite the suggestion of some critics. Actor-centred and spectator-based judgment share common themes of multiplicity, thinking from the standpoint of others, and judging particulars.
Thinking, willing and judging together form what Arendt regards as the life of the mind: thinking is a dialogic withdrawal from the world, re-presenting things that are absent; willing is future directed and has the capacity to bring about the unexpected; and judging concerns making evaluative decisions about particular events without subsuming these events under pre- established, universal standards. Thinking, willing and judging each have different concerns, but are nevertheless interrelated. Although these differing concerns can, at times, conflict, good mental governance demands that never must the relation between the three faculties become one of dominance of one over the other.66 For Arendt, the internal freedom of each faculty is a precondition for mental harmony, and good mental governance exists when all three faculties check and balance each other without any being denigrated.
2.1 Thinking.
The investigation in LM-I begins with the almost naive questions: What are we “doing” when we do nothing but think? Where are we when we are with no one but ourselves?67 At first glance these questions appear to belong to standard questions in metaphysics; however, it soon becomes clear Arendt’s concern is with something different. In her 1971 paper, “Thinking and Moral Considerations”68 she writes,
These modern “deaths” of God, of metaphysics, of philosophy, and, by implication, of positivism may be events of great importance, but they are after all thought events, and though they concern most intimately our ways of thinking, they do not concern our ability to think, the sheer fact that man is a thinking being.
66 Young-Bruehl, 2004, p. 458 67 The Life of the Mind - Thinking, p. 8 68 “Thinking and Moral Consideration” 34
Here Arendt distinguishes between what she terms, “ways of thinking” and the “ability to think”. At first blush it looks as if this is an unnecessary distinction since the ability to think and ways of thinking are connected. The ability to think is necessary for “ways of thinking”—for example, knowledge claims or systems of thought that influence solutions to problems and explanations of underlying truths. Without thinking there can be no claims to knowledge at all. Although the ability to think relates to ways of thinking, in Arendt’s schema these two types of “thinking” have different functions. Most simply, “ways of thinking” concern the nature of knowledge claims, and the “ability to think” involves the phenomenal experience of being in the midst of thought. Arendt often terms ways of thinking (systems/structures) as “knowledge”, and calls the ability to think “thinking”.
Thinking and knowing are two different activities: knowing concerns concrete instances always in need of substantiation, while thinking is the phenomenal experience of withdrawing into the realm of “invisibles”, where things are represented in the mind but no definitive truths are found. “Thought events” or “ways of thinking” differ to the “ability to think” because the former is the expression of specific ideas or methods, whereas the latter is the experience of the act itself. The key difference is that a particular way of thinking is primarily directed towards acquiring knowledge about things and concern claims to truth, whereas thinking as pure activity concerns meaning, without need to discover inherent truths. Most simply, particular “ways of thinking”, such as modes of interpretation or investigative practices are cumulative, purposeful, and directed towards an object.69 “Ways of thinking” acquire knowledge about the world, expand on previous experiences, and set down foundations to guide and govern future knowledge claims. In contrast, thinking, in Arendt’s sense, is never determinate and never lays claim to truth. Unlike knowledge, it is fruitless because it does not discover new creeds or provide ultimate answers. Thoughts are fleeting and ever changing. As theories are disproven, methods replaced, and knowledge about the world changes, the actual ability to think remains.70
For Arendt, to expect truth to arise from thinking is to confuse the need to think with the desire to know. Thinking can (and must) be used in the attempt to know but should not be regarded as the same. To support her knowing-thinking distinction Arendt appeals to Kant’s discussion on the difference between reason and intellect. Arendt suggests her understanding of knowing is more accurately aligned with Kant’s notions of intellect, cognition and truth
69 Young-Bruehl, 2004, p. 449 70 Arendt’s distinction between thinking and knowing echoes her contrast between philosophical thinking and the thinking experience. 35 whereas thinking is more appropriately associated with his use of reason and meaning.71 Throughout this chapter when discussing thinking (non-thinking, thoughtlessness) it is always in light of this particular meaning of “thinking” as developed by Arendt. Additionally, the ability to think or not, in this particular sense has nothing to do with a person’s intelligence. To be thoughtless is not synonymous with being unintelligent. Thinking is not restricted to the solitary withdrawal of “wise people” but something each person has the capability of doing. Thinking does not have cognition, knowledge or an expression of some “truth” about the world as its end. As Arendt elaborates,
... while our thirst for knowledge may be unquenchable because of the immensity of the unknown... the activity itself leaves behind a growing treasure of knowledge that is retained and kept in store by every civilization... The activity of knowing is no less a world-building activity than the building of houses. The inclination or the need to think, on the contrary, even if aroused by none of the time-honored metaphysical, unanswerable “ultimate questions”, leaves nothing tangible behind, nor can it be stilled by allegedly definite insights of “wise men”. The need to think can be satisfied only through thinking, and the thoughts which I had yesterday will be satisfying this need today only to the extent that I can think them anew.72
Thinking exists in abstraction, and despite impacting on the judgments made once returning to the world, the act of thinking is never made manifest, displayed or even adequately described. There is a resemblance between Arendt’s expression of thinking and the performative-creative aspect of freedom she describes in the Human Condition, in that neither produce anything that endures. However, unlike performative freedom, thinking occurs in isolation. There are no actors to experience and judge the moment in which thinking is enacted.
Arendt argues that the history of philosophy says a lot about the objects of thought, but very little about the phenomenal experience of the activity.73 Yet, she believes, the critical
71 The intellect captures what is given to the senses whereas reason discovers its meaning. The highest criterion of cognition is truth derived from the world of appearances attained via sense perception, whose testimony is self-evident and unshakeable by argument, and only replaceable by other evidence. This cannot be said of meaning which is the highest criterion of the faculty of thinking and is concerned not with the truth of something but about what it means for it to be. Put another way, the questions that arise from our need to know come from our curiosity about the world, our desire to investigate what is given to our senses. Alternately, questions raised by thinking are at heart questions concerning meaning and unanswerable by common sense (The Life of the Mind - Thinking, p. 57-90). Arendt argues Kant first made the distinction between knowing and thinking. The old metaphysical questions of God, freedom, and immortality aroused his need to think beyond the limitations of knowledge in order to make room for faith. In doing so Kant found it necessary to deny knowledge based on intellect. Yet, for Arendt, this need to think which Kant articulated and separated from the abilities of the intellect were not limited to a specific subject matter.71 Indeed, the questions his understanding of reason raised are also questions that are known to be unanswerable. Therefore, for Arendt, Kant’s legacy to modern thought is not the denial of knowledge but the separation of knowing from thinking. Rather than Kant making room for faith, as he intended, Arendt suggests that he made room for thought (ibid). 72 “Thinking and Moral Consideration”, p. 163 (Emphasis added). Arendt has much the same discussion in the opening pages of the Introduction to The Life of the Mind - Thinking. 73 The Life of the Mind - Thinking, p. 81 36 capacity of thinking must be demanded of every sane person regardless of intelligence or stupidity, culture or ignorance—because of its profound implications for independent judgments.74 Furthermore, Arendt suggests, despite the importance of the thinking activity, “professional thinkers” never genuinely address the actual experience, and instead conflate the activity of thinking with concerns of gaining knowledge and certainty regarding the public realm. The question becomes limited to professional interests or personal common sense, and focuses on something that is out of order rather than on the activity itself.75 Instead, Arendt’s account of thinking deals with what she calls “invisibles” (or simply abstractions), which are distinguished from particular objects and events in the world. In general, by thinking about “invisibles” such as justice, wisdom or bravery, Arendt’s faculty of thought searches for the meaning of these abstractions rather than providing definitions or precise examples.76
Despite Arendt’s clear distinction between ways of thinking and the ability to think, the two are more closely connected than she acknowledges. Thinking and knowing are different, but the knowledge claims, context and world-view of a particular time also affect how the ability to think manifests. If the idea of thinking is reduced to the phenomenal experience of critical reflection, then such an ability may remain constant. However, the content of these reflections, although perhaps not “a world-building activity” are certainly influenced by, and arise from within the world. Arendt’s thinking aims to critique and question the meaning of the status quo, but the meaning that is uncovered or destroyed will manifest differently in different times. The content of thought, the objects of concern, and the questions posed are still governed by underlying structures that arise from a particular historical, cultural and social framework. When engaging in the act of thinking, what is represented to the mind, and how these representations are interpreted and understood, are not timeless and unchanging.
The search for meaning does not have cognition or the establishment of some fact or “truth” as its end, yet, I believe, it is mistaken to suggest that the manner in which the “invisibles” of thought are taken up and engaged with are unchanging. I agree with Arendt’s assertion that the capacity to think remains unchanged; however, the experience of her invisibles does not remain timeless. “Ways of thinking” not only affect the knowledge accumulated that is deemed as factual or correct, it also affects the reflections upon “thought events” when questioning the meaning of ideas represented to the mind. Even accepting
74 “Thinking and Moral Consideration”, p. 164 75 The only outward sign of thinking is absent-mindedness according to Arendt, and this has an entirely negative connotation and hints at nothing that is occurring internally. 76 In many ways, the faculty of thinking is not much more than the Socratic approach depicted in the earlier Platonic dialogues, a resemblance Arendt overtly acknowledges. 37
Arendt’s account of the timeless, phenomenal experience of thought, fleeting and removed from the world, her account of the unchanging constancy of this experience is questionable. Arendt’s distinction between thinking and knowing is valuable in drawing out the difference between the experience of thinking and methods of thought. However, I disagree that ways of thinking do not concern, or affect, the ability to think because the content of thought is shaped by word views, and particulars. Arendt’s thinking is removed from the realm of appearance to deal with abstraction yet, the interpretation of these abstractions and the meaning that is garnered is influenced by the conceptual framework inherent to a specific time and place. In fairness, I do not think Arendt would disagree with my claim, but her account of thinking and her choice of words does not address this concern clearly.
Despite her urge to nurture the act of thinking because of its connection to independent judgment, she sees something quite different occurring. Although everyone has the capacity to think, thinking is something, she believes, few people engage in. Paul Formosa, in his paper, “Thinking, Willing and Judging” disagrees with Arendt’s assertion that most people fail to engage in the activity of thinking. In opposition, he argues that everyone engages in thinking, but not necessarily in thinking thoughtfully. He makes a distinction between what he terms, thinking as a first order activity (I think, I run, I hit), and thinking as thoughtfulness, which he considers a second order activity. In Formosa’s description, he states that everyone constantly thinks in the first order sense because it “is something we do, like running, swimming and reading are things that we do”. However, not everyone thinks in the second order sense because being thoughtful is to think about thinking.77 Although his distinction between first and second order thinking is neat and not necessarily incorrect his argument misses the point of Arendt’s entire discussion on the importance of this faculty of the mind. Arendt is very clear from the outset that, although there are many ways the term “thinking” can be (and is) used, she uses it in a very specific sense. It is not Formosa’s first order thinking, like running, swimming and reading, that Arendt is interested in, although I am sure she would acknowledge this human capacity. Arendt’s faculty of thinking is a critical, contemplative withdrawal that breaks down pre-given truths, unquestioned assumptions, personal beliefs, and societal norms and constructs in its search for meaning.
Despite Arendt’s stress on the crucial role of independent critical thought, she understands the appeal of normative principles inherent to governing moral and political systems. 78 As she points out in her work on public, political action, since Plato’s denigration of
77 Formosa, 2009, p. 55-56 78 The Life of the Mind - Thinking, p. 177 38 the public realm, personal opinion and multiplicity has been regarded as something to be organised, managed, and ultimately dismissed. If members of a society constantly questioned every particular event there would be too many conflicting opinions to address. Multiplicity is difficult to govern and to direct towards a unified vision or predetermined end.79 However, it is precisely the unifying power of predetermined systems in matters of social governance and moral guidance that Arendt finds worrying, and potentially dangerous. Her primary concern is that the content of governing codes for assessing appropriate actions and judgments becomes secondary to the necessity of having some form of predetermined dictate. Arendt believes that those who rely on pre-established guidelines most vehemently are often the first to take up a new replacement if the situation arises.80 The more firm the reliance on a code the more readily the assimilation to a new one, because it is the role of the system and not the content that is of value.81 In instances where the function of a predetermined system is of primary importance, and not its content, people will not find it difficult or frightening to discard “old” values so long as a replacement is presented to fill the space. Following a set of customs and norms is not enough when it comes to matters of moral and political judgment, because this establishes the possibility of readily accepting a replacement doctrine that states, ‘in this instance it is okay to kill’—like in Nazi Germany or Stalinist Russia—without major contest.
Arendt considers it vital to maintain a critical mind-set when presented with anything offered as a definitive answer or solution to a complex series of problems. She considers thinking, as she conceives it, to be a safeguard against the blind acceptance of any prescriptive system, due to its ability to draw out the undercurrent of unexamined opinions and to investigate, critique and potentially destroy hidden fallacies. Arendt also sees this destructive element in thought as having a liberating effect on the faculty of judgment, which becomes critical in times when people get swept away unthinkingly.82 To understand Arendt’s notion of the thinking activity, its destructive nature and its relationship to judgment requires approaching it in three parts: (1) Arendt’s portrayal of Socrates as someone that uses thinking differently to “professional thinkers”; (2) a discussion of thinking as the silent dialogue of the two-in-one; (3) Arendt’s understanding of conscience, where conscience is the by-product of the actualisation of the silent dialogue between the two-in-one.
79 As she argues repeatedly in her earlier work is what led to the denigration of the public realm in the first place. 80 This idea of thinking independently of outside norms and universals will be explored in the discussion of the two-in-one. 81 The Life of the Mind - Thinking, p. 177 82 The Life of the Mind - Thinking, p. 177) 39
2.1.1 Socrates
Arendt uses the figure of Socrates83 throughout her writings to highlight a particular attitude that reinforces her particular position regarding political engagement and the importance of fostering a perpetually critical mind-set. In her essay, “Philosophy and Politics”, which comes from the third and final parts of a series of lectures at Notre Dame University in 1954, Arendt uses the figure of Socrates to depict someone living with others, moving about the marketplace and engaging with competing doxai. In “Thinking and Moral Consideration” and The Life of the Mind vol.1 he becomes the figure to best encapsulate the thinking experience. Socrates embodies both a thinking that is representative for “everybody”, as well as someone living among others with no aspirations to rule or with claims to superior knowledge or wisdom. Although the emphasis in “Philosophy and Politics” is on Socrates as public figure, both early and late writings articulate similar themes and concerns. Whether interrogating his fellow citizens or himself, a maieutic approach—that is, a conversational approach in which a person’s own ideas are brought to clarity—is central in questioning and bringing forth hidden assumptions of knowledge and truth claims. It is this conversation, insofar as Socrates has it with himself, that Arendt terms the two-in-one, and which I will discuss in the next section.
In “Philosophy and Politics”, Arendt argues that no one understands the importance of nurturing the multiplicity of the public realm more than Socrates. Unlike Plato’s anti-Socratic conclusion about the danger of opinion to the life of the philosopher, Socrates believes each person’s doxa is important and worth investigating. Socrates does not distinguish between philosophical truth and personal opinion. Instead he aims to help others find the truth inherent to their personal doxa. Truth in this sense is not a universal ideal, but the meaning underlying a person’s belief. It is important to stress that Arendt separates what she considers to be the figure of Socrates and Plato’s depiction of him. Arendt considers Socrates’ search for truth to be about meaning rather than the substantiation of ideal forms or any other definitive answer. Rather than spouting opinions with the force of blind certainty, Socrates wants others to reflect on and examine the inconsistencies in their thought. By ““help[ing] others give birth to what they
83 Arendt acknowledges the controversy surrounding Socrates as a historical figure. She writes, “But I must warn you: there is a great deal of controversy about the historical figure of Socrates, about how and to what extent he can be distinguished from Plato, what weight to assign to Xenophon’s Socrates, etc…” (TMC. p.18); “In many instances, Plato himself clearly marked the differences, for example, in the Symposium, in Diotima’s famous speech, which tells us expressly that Socrates does not know anything about the ‘great mysteries’ and may not be able to understand them. In other instances, however, the line is blurred, usually because Plato could still reckon on a reading public that would be aware of certain enormous inconsistencies – as when he lets Socrates say in the Theaetetus that ‘great philosophers...from their youth up have never known the way to the marketplace,’ an anti-Socratic statement if thee ever was one”. (The Life of the Mind - Thinking, p. 168) 40 themselves thought anyhow” Socrates hopes to “make the city more truthful by delivering each of the citizens of their truths”; truth in this respect, being understood as a consistency in meaning, expressed through the synthesis between words and actions.84
In her study of Socrates presented in The Life of the Mind, Arendt mentions three similes used to describe his maieutic approach: Socrates the midwife, gadfly and electric ray. The first alludes to the idea of Socrates working to purge others of unexamined opinions. The second refers to the manner in which he stings those around him to wake them from an otherwise undisturbed sleep. The third simile, the electric ray, describes the paralysing affect thinking has on Socrates and those around him from his knowledge that “we do not know”, and refusing to let it rest at that. At first it seems the simile of the electric ray and gadfly are opposed, in that one paralyses where the other rouses. Yet, what looks like paralysis from the outside is in fact the height of being active and alive. Faced with the uncertainty of what was once certain a person is seemingly frozen by their own perplexity, and in this moment the thinking activity itself is awakened.85 Socrates the midwife, gadfly and electric ray is neither philosopher nor sophist, he teaches nothing and does not profess to make men wise. Furthermore, although he defends himself against charges of corrupting Athenian youth, nowhere does he claim to improve them. Instead, it is revealed that nobody, including himself, is wise, in the sense of knowing all, and that there are no straightforward answers to questions that at first blush appear simple. Yet, Socrates is wise in the sense of “knowing that we do not know”.86
Arendt’s Socrates, unlike Plato’s, aims at developing a critical understanding of individuals’ personal relationships to truth that has nothing to do with the true state of things or Platonic ideals. Socratic thought breaks down that which is taken for granted without providing a “better” definition. Rather than replacing with better definitions the inconsistencies presented in others’ ideas, Socrates encourages people to find the meaning of ideas such as justice, bravery and honour by reflecting on personal views and actions, and striving to attain a synthesis between words and deeds. There is no use in arguing for a particular account of justice, if this in no way mirrors personal behaviour. Furthermore, this coming together of words and deeds must hold true in straightforward and confronting situations alike. Unlike Arendt’s professional thinkers, Socrates is not interested in finding solutions to riddles to then present to others as demonstrations of his wisdom. He wants to discover if his perplexities about particular
84 Philosophy and Politics, p. 81 85 The Life of the Mind - Thinking, p. 172-3 86 The Life of the Mind - Thinking, p. 172 41 problems are shared, and hopes that by discussing the meaning of courage, justice and virtue his fellow citizens might become more courageous, just and virtuous in the process.87
One possibility is that this type of Socratic thinking—thinking that searches for meaning by breaking-down and re-examining accepted codes and doctrines—can easily result in the affirmation of cynicism and nihilism. As Arendt writes in (give text title since you are not referencing LM),
The search for truth in the doxa can lead to the catastrophic result that the doxa is destroyed altogether, or that what had appeared is revealed as an illusion. This, you will remember, is what happened to King Oedipus, whose whole world, the reality of his kingship, went to pieces when he began to look at it… Truth therefore can destroy doxa, it can destroy the specific political reality of the citizens. Similarly, from what we know of Socrates’ influence, it is obvious that many of his listeners must have gone away, not with a more truthful opinion, but with no opinion at all.88
Rather than being content with the lack of results from Socratic thought, these non-results become negative results: if there is no piety let us be impious! Although there is every potential for the lack of definitive answers to lead to negative, amoral results, a useful way to interpret this problem is explained by Dana R. Villa. He says that to genuinely experience the unravelling power of thought, a person must be willing to risk not only paralysis but cynicism or nihilism as well.89 Although there is no denying the possibility of such an outcome, it is not a necessary consequence.90 To fall into this type of nihilism is a failure to grasp the nature of the Socratic enterprise, and what Arendt finds so appealing about it. To proclaim, “if there are no ultimates let there be nothing!” remains within the same structure it purports to negate. 91 It is no different to denying God by embracing Satanism. Although I agree with Villa’s assertion that a person must be open to the risk of nihilism when engaged in the thinking enterprise, to remain in a permanently nihilistic state reaffirms the very structure such a state claims to subvert. To put it simply, a nihilistic outlook can have liberating effects on the blind acceptance of ossified values and beliefs. However, to proclaim this nihilistic state as an end in itself is a misguided conclusion,
87 The Life of the Mind - Thinking, p. 172 88 “Philosophy and Politics”, p. 90-91 89 Villa, 1999, p. 211 90 The Life of the Mind - Thinking, p. 175-177 91 “This leads to... even the greatest danger of this dangerous and profitless enterprise. In the circle around Socrates there were men like Alcibiades and Critias – God knows, by no means the worst among his so called pupils – who had turned out to be the real threat to the polis... What they had been aroused to was license and cynicism. Not content with being taught how to think without being taught a doctrine, they changed the non-results of Socratic thinking examination into negative results: If we cannot define what piety is, let us be impious – which is pretty much the opposite of what Socrates had hoped to achieve by talking about piety” (The Life of the Mind - Thinking, p. 175-176) 42 as it replaces the result-less enterprise of thinking with the certainty of negation or non- existence.
2.1.2 Two-in-one
Until now I have looked at the nature of thought as fundamentally critical, with the capacity to destroy pre-given truths, everyday assumptions, societal norms, and personal beliefs. In this section I will present Arendt’s account of the thinking activity in relation to the importance she places on maintaining inner harmony. To begin, I look at two Socratic insights: (1) the Delphic maxim, “know thyself”, and (2) the statement, “It is better to be in disagreement with the whole world than, being one, to be in disagreement with myself”.92 These two insights form the basis for Arendt’s description of the phenomenal experience of the activity of thinking and her account of conscience, which she regards as thinking’s by-product. For Arendt, both insights rely on the premise that only by knowing what appears to me is it possible to understand my personal relationship to truth. The second insight relates to the first in that there should exist a consistency between ideas that occupy the position of truth and particular actions.
Central to this notion of internal harmony is the idea of inner plurality, and is key to understanding Socrates’—or rather Arendt’s—belief that virtue can be taught and learned without need for positivist codes of conduct. Yet, the plurality Arendt speaks of is not multiplicity but duality, or the two-in-one. Arendt claims,
The faculty of speech and the faculty of human plurality correspond to each other, not only in the sense that I use words for communication with those whom I am together in the world, but in the even more relevant sense that speaking with myself I live together with myself.93
In short, the dialogical approach between people in the public sphere is, according to Arendt, similar to the conversation a person has with herself whilst in thought. One obvious difference is with the term plurality. While in public the competing conversations occur among many, in the solitude of thinking, for Arendt, it is only between two—the self with the self. Furthermore, in the public domain the focus is on the exchange of conflicting doxa, whereas Arendt’s inner multiplicity aims at cohesion. Strictly speaking, both many and two are plural, yet the conversation between many and two are not necessarily the same. With multitudes come differing and conflicting viewpoints and unity is never completely achievable; with the inner duality of Arendt’s thinking, there are only two sides which are either in unity or discord. Arendt
92 Gorgias 93 “Philosophy and Politics”, p. 185-186; Arendt suggests that the axiom of contradiction founded by Aristotle is traceable to this Socratic discovery. 43 does not see this as a problem nor even points out the difference. For her, the importance is in the dialogic approach, the asking and answering of questions.
The inner duality, the silent dialogue between me and myself, forms the experiential ground for Arendt’s idea of conscience, and by extension morality. During this inner dialogue the self divides to become a kind of sparring partner. Arendt writes, “[i]t is this duality of myself with myself that makes thinking a true activity, in which I am both the one who asks and the one who answers”. Thinking becomes critical and dialectical, it is a “travelling through words”.94 Her entire understanding rests on the premise of maintaining inner harmony, which is only possible if the two-in-one remain friends. Throughout her account of the thinking self, Arendt never considers her notion of inner duality as problematic. Yet, if this premise is rejected, Arendt’s notion of conscience, wherein inner unity is key, breaks down. I will look at this in more detail shortly—however, first I discuss inner duality in more detail.
In much the same way as Socrates questions his fellow citizens, for Arendt the two-in- one questions the meaning of commonly held beliefs. In this instance the “I” is both the one who asks and answers. Similar to Socrates the midwife, internal cross-examination serves to break down norms without positing ultimate answers. By talking things through Socrates wants to make others aware of underlying and unexamined truths in their doxa.95 Talking something through is result enough. This type of dialogue, which does not require a conclusion to be meaningful, is something that is only experienced among friends. As Arendt writes,
By talking about what is between them, it becomes ever more common to them. It gains not only its specific articulateness, but develops and expands and finally, in the course of time and life, begins to constitute a little world of its own which is shared in friendship.96
Arendt suggests that Socrates tries to make friends in the Greek polis, where there is a continual contest of all against all. By establishing a common world based on an understanding of friendship where people approach one another as friends rather than opponents, Socrates tries to understand the truth inherent in each person’s doxa.97 It is important to note that in these discussions Socrates’ interlocutors do not consider what they say to be an expression of personal opinion, but a claim to universal truth. However, through this dialogic process Socrates demonstrates what first began as ultimate truth is an expression of opinion. In so doing, the unquestioned assumptions are made manifest, and the work of establishing what a person
94 The Life of the Mind - Thinking, p. 185 95 “Philosophy and Politics”, p. 81 96 “Philosophy and Politics”, p. 82 97 “Philosophy and Politics”, p. 82-84 44 actually believes, and their personal relationship to truth, begins. Similarly, the two-in-one that comes to life in the Arendtian activity of thinking engages in the same maieutic process Socrates uses in dialogue with his fellow citizens.
The notion of friendship is fundamental to both Socrates’ dialogic approach with his fellow citizens, and the internal dialogue of the two-in-one. In the polis, it is as friends that Socrates and his interlocutors engage in open dialogue, and similarly this notion of friendship is a central tenet in Arendt’s account of thinking. However, the friendship between citizens in the polis means listening and accepting others’ conflicting doxai, whereas with thinking the basic rule for maintaining a harmonious relationship between the two-in-one is through the avoidance of internal contradiction. Just as neither faculty of the mind should dominate over another so too should neither sparring partner silence or dominate the other.98 Arendt goes so far as to say that it is a characteristic of “base people” to avoid their own company because the soul is in rebellion against itself. After all, what kind of dialogue can be conducted when the two- in-one are at war?99 With the two-in-one, unity and internal agreement are central because the sparring partner who comes to life when alert and alone is only escapable by stopping the thinking activity and returning to the world. Unlike friendship in the polis where difference is necessary, in the two-in-one difference is negative and produces inner disharmony.
2.1.3 Conscience
Thinking, considered in terms of the two-in-one, forms the basis of Arendt’s conception of conscience. Conscience in Arendt is used in a very specific sense. It is not the divine word of God or the lumina natural. Arendt’s idea of conscience differs from its use in moral and legal matters because it is not ever-present, and only presents in times of solitude when the self divides and the two are in disagreement causing internal contradiction. Arendtian conscience is not the conscience commonly depicted in children’s cartoons, where on one shoulder sits the “bad” self who encourages the satisfaction of desires to the detriment of all else, and on the other sits the “good” self, the voice of conscience, reminding the character about the right course of action. Conscience, for Arendt, is better conceived as an after-thought that is only aroused when the two-in-one are no longer friends.100
98 The Life of the Mind - Thinking, p. 187-188 99 “It is a characteristic of “base people” to be “at variance with themselves”…and of wicked men to avoid their own company; their soul is in rebellion against itself… What kind of dialogue can you conduct with yourself when your soul is not in harmony but at war with itself?” (The Life of the Mind – Thinking, p.189) 100 “Conscience, as we use it in moral and legal matters, supposedly is always present within us, just like consciousness. And this conscience is also supposed to tell us what to do and what to repent of; it was 45
In Arendt’s conception, conscience is not ever-present and only manifests during the activity of thinking when the harmonious relationship of the two-in-one is disrupted. Similarly, once leaving contemplative withdrawal and returning to the world, Arendt’s depiction of conscience disappears because the internal dialogue of the two-in-one is silenced. To highlight this point Arendt uses Shakespeare’s Richard III as an example of just such an inner conversation,
What do I fear? Myself? There’s none else by: Richard loves Richard: that is, I am I. Is there a murderer here? No. Yes, I am: Then fly: what! From myself? Great reason why: Lest I revenge. What! Myself upon myself. Alack! I love myself. Wherefore? For any good That I myself have done unto myself? O! no: alas! I rather hate myself I am a villain. Yet I lie, I am not. Fool, of thyself speak well: fool, do not flatter.101
This dialogue demonstrates Arendt’s claim that conscience is a reflection of the self to the self, whereby personal actions and judgments are interrogated in the moment of contemplative withdrawal. The inescapability of the inner sparring partner that presents itself once immersed in the activity of thought is precisely why Socrates says: “it would be better for me that my lyre or a chorus I direct were out of tune and loud with discord... rather than I, being one, should be out of tune with myself and contradict myself”. Conscience is the, “anticipation of the fellow who awaits you if and when you come home”, and its satisfaction becomes a question of being able to live with yourself when in solitude.102
Richard III’s inner duality presents himself to himself, and the self he faces is one he does not like. He is in inner discord. Believing murder to be wrong and not wanting to be forever in the presence of a murderer proves a great burden for the conscience Richard faces when in the midst of thought. Yet, despite Richard III’s inner turmoil when alone, his words are very different once returning to the public realm. As midnight passes, Richard escapes his solitude to re-join the company of his peers. Now in the public realm the internal cross-examination ceases as the self becomes one again, allowing Richard III to confidently declare, “Conscience is but a word that cowards use, Devis’d at first to keeps the strong in awe”. 103
the voice of God before it became the lumen naturale or Kant’s practical reason. Unlike this conscience, the fellow Socrates is talking about has been left at home; he fears him… as something that is absent. Conscience appears as an afterthought, that thought which is aroused either by crime…or by unexamined opinions,…or as in the anticipated fear of such afterthoughts. This conscience, unlike the voice of God within us or the lumen naturale, gives no positive prescriptions… [conscience] only tells [you] what not to do…” (“Thinking and Moral Consideration”, p. 187); The Life of the Mind - Thinking, p. 190-19 101 The Life of the Mind - Thinking, p. 189 102 Life of the Mind – Thinking, p. 191; For a similar argument see, Kohn, 1996, p. 168-169 103 Life of the Mind – Thinking, p. 189 46
Arendtian conscience is a by-product of the thinking activity that results when the two- in-one are no longer friends. Arendt believes that conscience, characterised in this way, is not dependent on pre-determined codes, or what she refers to as “bannisters”. At the core of her morality is the idea of abstention aimed at the avoidance of inner discord, rather than the cultivation of positive virtues. Just as Arendt’s account of thinking can lead to negative results because it does not discover ultimate truths or establish new creeds, conscience is also negative in that it does not determine a blueprint for morally acceptable behaviour to command personal actions. Arendt considers the inner harmony of the two-in-one to be a protective measure against injustice. In striving to avoid personal contradictions Arendt’s conscience, is intended to be a safeguard against wrong-doing.104 Apart from avoiding inner contradiction there is no other golden rule to follow.
Thinking understood as a critical activity is appealing because it suggests potential liberation from unquestioned dependence on governing principles and pre-established dictates. However, Arendt’s need to make this faculty a safe-guard against evil-doing by connecting thinking to conscience seems to undermine her defence of multiplicity and particulars. Jerome Kohn points out Arendt’s conscience concerns the ability to live with oneself rather than a transcendent claim to what is right.105 Yet, by including a protective feature in her account of thinking that could prevent people from performing atrocities, Arendt creates a picture of conscience that opposes her stress on the importance of judging particular instances without subsuming these under universals. It seems reasonable that thoughtful, critical engagement with the world could make it far less likely for people to get swept away by rhetoric and clichés, and blindly replace one set of bannisters with another. However, to argue that this inner dialogue could be a guarantee against wrong-doing relies on a very specific account of the constitution of a self—one that Arendt does not adequately defend.
In matters of judgment Arendt rejects appeals to universal principles yet, when describing the necessary harmony of the two-in-one she relies heavily on Kant’s categorical imperative. Kohn goes as far as to say that in Kant’s categorical imperative Arendt finds, “the strongest of all explanations of the phenomenon of “conscience”, itself an experience of inner plurality”.106 In “Some Questions of Moral Philosophy”, Arendt argues Kant’s categorical imperative concerns moral conduct rather than moral knowledge, in that it acts as a “compass”
104 Villa, 1999, p. 211 105 Kohn, 1996, p. 169 106 Kohn, 1996, p. 169-170 47 pointing out right and wrong, and is available to everyone.107 Arendt considers Kant one of the greatest modern moral philosophers because like Socrates he does not take recourse to transcendent standards. However, she is critical of what she sees as Kant’s ultimate standard: to be responsible to oneself. Arendt appropriates Kant’s categorical imperative in her account of conscience, but also wants to retain the notion of plurality and extend conscience beyond just a response to oneself.
Arendt’s account of thinking, and the related notion of conscience, rests heavily on the notion of consistency. Applying the Kantian categorical imperative, inner harmony is sustained in the synthesis of a particular act and the idea of elevating that act to a universal. The harmonious unity of the two-in-one relies on the avoidance of internal contradictions. The self that divides during contemplative withdrawal must remain in agreement. Arendt uses murder to highlight the connection between the categorical imperative and her version of the two-in- one. If committing a particular murder, and then deciding that this particular act should not be elevated to a universal standard, the two-in-one that comes to life during the activity of thinking is now in disharmony. As Arendt definitively asserts, and as her example in Richard III demonstrates, “of course” she would not want to be in the company of a murderer, and yet when the self splits in two this is precisely the company she would keep. By equating inner harmony with consistency, Arendt explores the possibility of whether by engaging in the critical activity of thinking a person could abstain from wrong-doing because of the need to maintain a unity with the self.108
Kant’s categorical imperative concerns self-reflection, independent of things that arise from outside of the self. The idea of a personal reason independent of objects of inclination allows Kant to assert that to obey the laws personally given in the categorical imperative it would not be possible to do wrong. Although Arendt’s account of thinking is removed from the world of appearances, and deals with “invisibles”, she also definitively connects this activity with the faculty of judgment, which is always in the world, dealing with plurality and particulars. As such, even when removed from the world of appearances, and dealing with abstractions, thinking is not completely free of the objects outside of it. Arendt’s declaration in “Thinking and Moral Consideration” that, “of course” no one would want to be in the presence of a murderer only holds up if maintaining an autonomy from anything or any person “outside” the self, which Kant
107 “Some Questions of Moral Philosophy”, p. 751-752 108 “Could the activity of thinking as such, the habit of examining whatever happens to come to pass or to attract attention, regardless of results and specific content, could this activity be among the conditions to make men abstain from evil-doing or even actually “condition” them against it?” (Life of the Mind – Thinking, p.5) 48 speaks of, when positing a universal maxim.109 As soon as such autonomy from the outside is compromised it becomes possible to imagine some people, depending on the situation, having no problem being in the company of a particular murderer and maintaining a perfectly harmonious friendship.
To declare a particular act wrong in itself suggests an ultimate boundary that must not be crossed. Yet, as Arendt points out in discussions about political action, nothing is black and white, and the grey holds many possibilities. Just as it is possible to imagine that not all people who steal are necessarily thieves—the popular example of a man stealing medicine for his dying wife for instance—so too is it possible to say not all people who kill are necessarily murderers. Although the dialogic feature of Arendt’s two-in-one may prevent people from unthinkingly performing acts of wrong doing it does not necessarily follow that all those engaged in this activity will reach the same conclusions. Arendt’s likely defence against this criticism is that a person must not make an exception of herself. Just as the thief in Kant’s example makes an exception of himself because he would be unwilling to make “thou shalt steal” a universal maxim, so too a person cannot make herself an exception to avoid inner contradiction. Although this line of defence is reasonable, it contradicts Arendt’s viewpoints about the public-political world, where she advocates judging particular instances rather than subsuming them under universals.
If Arendt’s belief in the liberating effect of thinking on the faculty of judgment holds true, then perhaps it is also possible for judgment to affect thought. I intentionally conflate Arendt’s discussions on moral judgment and the judgment of particulars because in some way I see them as connected. Arendt’s thinking activity searches for the meaning of ideas such as justice and virtue, whereas the faculty of judgment deals with the world of particulars once removed from the ideal realm of thought. Yet, I suggest that just as thinking affects the faculty of judgment in the world of appearances, so too does the world of appearances affect the question of meaning regarding ideas of justice, virtue and so on. The two continuously reinforce one another and as such, at times, I conflate Arendt’s accounts of moral judgment and judgment of particulars. Arendt considers the relationship between the faculties of thought and judgment extremely important because it is through judgment that thought re-enters the public realm. However, her account is unilateral, where effects only occur from thinking to judgment.
109 “Some Questions of Moral Philosophy”, p. 756-758; “It is better for you to suffer than to do wrong because you can remain the friend of a sufferer; who would want to be the friend of and have to live together with a murder? Not even a murderer.” (“Thinking and Moral Consideration, p. 185); See also Kohn, 1996, p. 170 49
Nowhere does she entertain the possibility that the faculty of judgment could in some way also affect thinking. If this were indeed the case perhaps Arendt’s notion of conscience as the avoidance of inner conflict would not be so straight forward and a more complex idea of what a good and just act entails may need to be developed. Her need to identify a feature in thought that conditions people against wrong-doing leads her to insert a universal standpoint independent of the multiplicity of the public realm.
Arendt’s account of thinking and conscience seems to combine contradictory claims. She argues, in no uncertain terms, that thinking has a liberating effect on the ability to independently judge particular circumstances. Yet her incorporation of Kant’s categorical imperative, in her account of conscience and inner harmony, creates a problem because it relies on an idea of self-reflection that is independent of things arising from outside of the self. In fairness, as Seyla Benhabib points out, Arendt successfully unites these two positions in her discussions on reflexive judgment and the public realm. Arendt allows for such a universalist- contextual standpoint by transforming the Kantian maxim from, “act in such a way that the maxim of your actions can be a universal law of nature” to “act in such a way that the maxims of your actions takes into account the perspective of everyone else in such a way that you would be in a position to ‘woo their consent’”.110 However, the key to the success of combining a universal position with particular contexts in Arendt’s reflexive judgment is her stress on the multiplicity of perspectives that need to be “wooed”.
Arendt too readily assumes that the desire for consistency is sufficient for developing a principled moral standpoint. A problem arises when Arendt tries to equate the plurality in the public realm with inner duality—because of the absence of multiple perspectives to be “wooed”. Managing the harmony between the internal two of conscience is not the same as talking among friends and wooing the consent of many. There are no multiple perspectives, there is only agreement or discord. Where Arendt recognises the principle of “enlarged thought” as it relates to multiplicity and judgment in the public-political realm, her account of conscience depends on the avoidance of disagreement.111 All that remains is a tension between the concrete act and the universal maxim needed to be upheld. Furthermore, this idea of inner harmony relies on a particular conception of the self that is not necessarily shared by all. As Walt Whitman famously wrote, “Do I contradict myself? Very well then I contradict myself, I am large, I contain multitudes.”112 Even if one refutes my argument that Arendt’s account of conscience depends
110 Benhabib, 1988, p. 43; This will be looked at in detail in the discussion on judgment. 111 Benhabib, 1988, p. 44 112 Whitman, 1950; stanza 51, 74. Cited in Benhabib, 1988, p. 44 50 on a universalist standpoint, at the very least one must accept that she appeals to some form of humanism. It is presumptuous of Arendt to believe that certain acts would create inner discord in all those who partake in the thinking enterprise. In her desire to make thinking guard against wrong-doing, Arendt anchors her account too heavily on an inner unity dependent on universal notions rather than particular circumstances, and in so doing undermines her outright rejection of universal principles in matters of moral and political judgment. As Mary McCarthy points out to Arendt in one of their correspondences, this humanistic notion may not be sufficient because perhaps some people just would not care if they were in the presence of a murderer.
Jacques Taminiaux, has a different take on the problem of inner harmony. He suggests that the focus needs to be on learning to appear to yourself as you would like to appear to others, and they to you.113 Taminiaux emphasises that inner harmony concerns a person being truthful to his doxa, and that there is no conflict between private and public appearance. This is not dissimilar to the notion of living your truth through actions and deeds, which Arendt discusses in relation to the realm of political actors. In this instance, as long as a person is willing to appear to others as to himself, it seems appeals to inner unity are not necessary. Harmony is the consistency between beliefs and actions, and in its most simple form it is the idea that a person is as he does. The moment public persona differs from private, doxa is no longer truthful. Perhaps, if wishing to retain Arendt’s notion of the inner harmony, it can be argued that discord exists when there is conflict between public acts and private thoughts. The criteria of the two remaining friends is dependent on the willingness to publicly display the conclusions discovered whilst in solitude. I am more inclined to accept this idea of harmony where expressions of personal ideas of right and wrong are still manifest, but there is no need for universal maxims.
Arendt provides a nuanced account of the importance of the critical capacity of the faculty of thinking. Despite failing to provide a convincing account of a feature in thought that would condition people against wrong-doing, Arendt presents a persuasive argument about how such critical thinking would make it far less likely for people to unthinkingly participate in events. Thinking not only develops a critical relationship to the self and truth, it also concerns living and revealing that truth to others. Yet, whether thinking forms the basis for a principled moral standpoint is debatable. Arendt’s need to find a safe-guard in thought overshadows her concerns with multiplicity, and with the judgment of particular circumstances irrespective of universal maxims. The coherence between public acts and private thoughts retains Arendt’s account of thinking without recourse to Kant’s categorical imperative. If there is a synthesis
113 Taminiaux, 1997, p. 176 51 between personal beliefs and public acts the internal harmony of the two-in-one remain, but if there is contradiction in times of contemplative withdrawal the two-in-one will be in conflict. This idea of a lived truth manifest in words and deeds is also something I will revisit in the coming chapters on Foucault’s care of the self. For now, I turn to Arendt’s second faculty of the mind, the will.
2.2 Willing
Arendt’s account of willing is broad in scope, spanning from the ancient Greeks through to the twentieth century. Arendt is very clear that it is the faculty of the will that offers the possibility to bring about the never before seen.114 Like thinking’s two-in-one, the faculty of the will is inherently divided. However, unlike the necessity for unity in the two-in-one, willing exists in permanent tension. The divide is a battle between the pull to will or not will—a tension that only stops in the moment of action. Furthermore, just as the faculty of thinking has a liberating effect on the faculty of judgment, Arendt sees a necessary connection between willing and judging. However, Arendt never systematically fleshes out the connection between willing and the other two faculties, and the role of willing in the life of the mind, at times, lacks clarity. To speculate, perhaps thinking has a liberating effect on judgment because of its critical relationship to modes of prescription. Yet, it is only in the moment of action that anything arrived at in the midst of thought emerges into the world. Prior to any act lies the moment of willing, where the willing ego battles between the will to act or not. The will in Arendt offers the possibility of manifesting novelty. It is future directed and the source of spontaneity. Arendt divides the will into two forms, the first concerns the ability to choose between two options. She considers Aristotle’s discussion of pro-airesis to be the precursor to this first form of the will. I will explain this in detail shortly. The second form of willing Arendt identifies, and the one that interests her the most, is as the necessary precondition for action. The will allows for events to spontaneously begin in time.115 The will’s primary function is to turn attention away from within the self towards the world to prepare the way for action.116
Unlike thinking, which preoccupied Arendt in the period following the Eichmann trial, or judgment, which she explores in various guises throughout her works, willing is a topic she has
114 This idea of novelty is something that features in earlier works in her discussions on natality, which she also mentions towards the end of the willing volume. 115 The Life of the Mind -Willing, p. 158 116 The Life of the Mind –Willing, p. 94-96); Max Deutscher interprets the will as a mode, while also recognising its elusive nature: “Willing is elusive. It is neither an action nor a telling of myself what I am to do…Considered as an activity, willing is superstition (‘From the tarmac, I was willing the plane to land safely)…I interpret it, rather, as a mode – that of being willing” (Deutscher, 2007, p. xiv). 52 not pursued in depth previously and is only systematically developed in The Life of the Mind. Even taking into consideration that the third volume on judgment was never written, the faculty of the will remains the most disjointed. It is the faculty she feels least confident in discussing, and does not link as coherently to the other two. According to Elisabeth Young-Bruehl, the Willing manuscript went very slowly and Arendt claimed that she is not as comfortable with the faculty of the will because, unlike thinking, she could not, “trust [her] instinct and [her] own experience”.117 Agnes Heller goes so far as to say that the volume on willing is obviously written impatiently and in a hurry and includes many inconsistencies.118 Although Arendt plainly outlines the relationship between the faculty of thinking and judging, the will is not as clearly incorporated into her schema.
Due to her inability to clarify the will, the manner in which Arendt’s later work is taken up by commentators inadvertently continues what Arendt sees as the philosophical tradition’s tendency to elevate thinking above the will (if only by the amount of work dedicated to the former). Arendt believes in the Western philosophical tradition the will is rarely explored as a genuine, independent faculty. Although philosophers do not deny experiences that give rise to the notion of a will, these experiences are often dismissed as illusions. Even if appearing to be a central concern of inquiry, philosophers tend to either devalue the will, subsume it under the faculty of thinking or deny its existence altogether.119 That many different philosophers come to similar conclusions concerning the will arouses Arendt’s suspicion and leads her to assert these conclusions are the result of a particular blind spot concerning the elevation of thinking above the faculty of the will. Similarly, Taminiaux suggests, when speculating on willing because of the initial privileging of the thinking activity it is tempting to either negate or stunt the will.120 In opposition to the perceived bias in traditional philosophy towards the will Arendt decides to take “the internal evidence of an I-will as sufficient testimony to the reality of the
117 Young-Bruehl, 2004, p. 454 118 Heller, 1987, p. 281 119 Suzanne Jacobitti believes the problem harks back to a tendency in philosophy to preference a life of contemplation over a life action. Although it may hold true that the Western philosophical tradition elevates thinking over acting, the connection Jacobitti makes between the contemplative life over action and the denigration of the will is not immediately clear since both thinking and willing belong to the life of the mind. Perhaps Jacobitti is finding similarities between the two because for Arendt both action and willing are ends in themselves. Although Jacobitti’s first reason for the denigration of the will is unsatisfactory she provides two additional reasons she terms “basic causes”, for philosophers’ bias towards the will. The first concerns the different states between thinking and willing. Thinking occurs in tranquillity whereas willing is inherently restless and in discord. Secondly, the objects of willing and thinking differ. Thinking deals with generalities and aims at meaning whereas willing is directed towards particular moments through which the utterly novel can occur. Jacobitti, 1988, pp. 54-5 120 Taminiaux, 1997, p. 143 53 phenomenon”.121 How this internal evidence is sufficient to assert the reality of a phenomenon is never clarified, but it provides the basis for Arendt’s assertion of its existence nonetheless. I will now consider this “internal evidence” and the willing ego in three stages: (1) a brief discussion concerning Arendt’s account of the “discovery” of the will, (2) the importance of the faculty of the will along with some common criticisms and, (3) the will’s ability to bring about the new.
2.2.1 The discovery of the will
Arendt’s discussion of the will in The Life of the Mind follows the concept as it is presented throughout the history of Western thought. It is with Christianity that the idea of the will enters philosophy. In Christian doctrine, a person’s afterlife is decided while still on earth, wherein there remains a future beyond that of the necessity of mortal death. It is his preparation for this future life that paves the way for Paul to first “discover” the will and its connection to freedom, where freedom becomes located in a faculty of mind. Prior to Christianity freedom is an objective state of the body, the I-can. Pre-Christian thought describes the constitution of a free citizen, without any account of internal freedom. Unlike Christianity it does not posit freedom as an inner disposition by which a person can be free regardless of worldly circumstance.122 The notion of a mental faculty corresponding to the “idea” of freedom is unknown to the ancient Greeks. Yet, despite Arendt’s claim that the ancient Greeks have no comprehension of such an internal faculty she considers a word coined by Aristotle, pro-airesis, to be the will’s precursor.
Arendt stipulates her attempt to trace an account of the faculty of the will prior to the use of the term should not be confused with following the history of an idea. Rather, Arendt views Aristotle’s pro-airesis as the predecessor to the faculty of the will. According to Arendt, Aristotle’s discussion on pro-airesis begins from the anti-Platonic insight that reason alone cannot move anything. Although Aristotle agrees with Plato that reason commands action because of the antagonistic relationship between reason and desire the decisions arrived at through reason are not necessarily followed. Just as her account of thinking attempts to clarify the phenomenal experience of the thinking enterprise rather than the objects of thought, here she locates the mention of a phenomenal experience that, she claims, would later be termed willing. Arendt’s key point is that, regardless of structural underpinnings, the human phenomenal capacity to choose or not choose exists in pre-Christian thought.
121 The Life of the Mind -Willing, p. 8 122 The Life of the Mind -Willing, p. 5-6 54
Pro-airesis, Arendt says, is the precursor to the will because it opens a small space in which the human mind projects into the future, navigating between the aims of reason and desire.123 She does not provide a detailed discussion of the effects of reason and desire on action, nevertheless she asserts that action in Aristotle is not solely brought about by reason, and neither is it guided purely by desire. She explored this view of action in her earlier work on actor- based judgment in the political realm. Arendt considers action as an end in itself, and desire is not for “what”—an object that can be used as a means to another ends—but for “how”, understood as a way of being seen. Action as appearance needs to be planned ahead in much the same way as the faculty of the will projects into the future, and choice is the mediator between reason and desire.
Nonetheless, a problem arises in Arendt’s attempt in The Life of the Mind to locate the phenomenal experience of the will prior to Christianity. Focusing on her claim that the internal evidence of an I-will is sufficient testimony to the reality of the phenomenon, it is understandable that Arendt would be attracted to Aristotelian pro-airesis. Pro-airesis concerns deciding between two possible actions and choosing one over the other—and it is not a far stretch to equate the choice between two possibilities with the notion of willing or not-willing. 124 Yet, despite the similarity between conflicting choices that, once made, foreclose alternate options, there is a problem with Arendt’s interpretation of Aristotelian pro-airesis as an expression of the experience of willing. The primary issue concerns the different experiences of time inherent to ancient Greek and Christian thought. Arendt repeatedly states that the faculty of the will is future directed, and has the ability to bring about the never before experienced. 125 Arendt does acknowledge that it is with Christian thought, and particularly with Augustine that a linear notion of time is conceived, with which comes the possibility of novelty. However, rather than beginning from this point, Arendt wants to, at least, allude to the possibility of an internal experience akin to willing prior to Christianity. Yet, perhaps the simple internal “evidence” of an I-will as sufficient testimony for its existence is not so simple after all. To accept pro-airesis as the will’s precursor means Arendt limits the will to the moment of choice, which is the first form of the will she identifies. However, the second form concerning novelty, which is where Arendt’s interest actually lies, is omitted.
After discussing an experience akin to willing that was described long before the appearance of the actual concept, Arendt moves to the moment she identifies as the beginning
123 The Life of the Mind -Willing, p. 60-62 124 The Life of the Mind -Willing, p. 14-15 125 The Life of the Mind -Willing, p. 17-18 55 of the modern account of the will. Arendt suggests it is with Saint Paul that there is a shift from freedom as doing to an account of internal freedom. Saint Paul moves from “doing” as living in a world and appearing to others, to an inwardness that never really manifests externally and, which only God can scrutinise. As Arendt writes,
Law itself is understood as the voice of a master demanding obedience; the Thou- shalt of the law demands and expects a voluntary act of submission, an I-will of agreement. The Old Law said: thou shalt do; the New Law says: thou shalt will.126
In actuality, Paul does not talk about will but laws, where the law of the mind is contrasted with the law of community. The law of the mind opens the possibility to take pleasure in the law of God, whereas the law of community commands acts that the inner-self despises.127
The novelty of this discovery, and what sets it apart from pre-Christian thought, is the internal freedom to choose obedience regardless of necessity or obligation. “Thou shalt will” differs from “thou shalt” in that the latter refers to pure obedience whereas the former presupposes a choice to obey.128 This imperative, demanding voluntary submission instead of blind obedience, leads to the development of the notion of the will. Arendt suggests that the awareness that what was done could have been left undone is the “touchstone of a free act”, and allows for the understanding of free agents.129 Regardless of outcome, prior to the act there is always a choice between I-will or I-will-not; or theologically speaking, obey or disobey the demand of God. Inherent to the emergence of this internal choice is a permanent tension between the will to act and its negation. The will is permanently restless prior to the act because of the uncertainty of whether to will or not. The “normal mood of the willing ego” is disquiet, impatience and worry, which is only released in the moment of action.130
Following from Aristotle and early Christian accounts of the will Arendt moves to medieval philosophers’ discussions on the topic, paying particular attention to Augustine, Aquinas and Duns Scotus, then through to German Idealism and finishing with Nietzsche and Heidegger. Unlike the brief account concerning Aristotle and early Christian thought, which serve to highlight Arendt’s belief in the existence of a phenomenal experience akin to willing prior to its conception, I will not discuss these later explorations in any detail. For the purpose of this chapter it is enough to say in most cases Arendt finds herself disappointed by “professional thinkers’” discussions of the will. The main crux of her argument concerning most
126 The Life of the Mind -Willing, p. 68 127 The Life of the Mind -Willing, p. 67-68 128 This understanding of inner freedom is central to later Christian ethics because without an inner personal counter will the notion of sin dwelling within makes no sense. 129 The Life of the Mind -Willing, p. 5 130 The Life of the Mind -Willing, p. 37 56
“philosophers of the will” is that there is always some moment where the will is subsumed under thinking or denied altogether. Furthermore, being a first draft, her critiques of different philosophers’ approaches to the faculty of the will are not equally fleshed out, and neither are some of her claims strictly correct.131
2.2.2 The key features of the will
Despite some issues of clarity and coherence present in Arendt’s account of willing, it is clear she considers this faculty to hold equal importance to thinking and judging. Furthermore, it is with the faculty of the will that Arendt considers that novelty and the never before seen become possible. Central to Arendt’s conception of the will is her reading of St Augustine.132 There is no doubt for Arendt that Augustine is among the great original thinkers. Just as Socrates embodies the ideal model of what it means to think or Kant (as I will later demonstrate) becomes Arendt’s primary philosopher of judgment, Augustine is for her one of the great philosophers of the will. Young-Bruehl claims Arendt finds Augustine’s explorations of the will compelling because it has two key elements that are central to her thought: (1) unlike the ancient Greeks and Romans, Augustine does not think of time as cyclical. For Augustine, the future is experienced in the mind as something coming towards us. This different understanding of time is crucial because in cyclical theories the future cannot be experienced as genuine novelty. The future is something that “comes towards us, unknown and unknowable” and is not fate nor destiny. (2) There is the experience of a disharmonizing moment when making a choice between one path or another because the outcome is unknown. The I-will and I-nill represent the two conflicting sides of the willing ego, where a person’s character and actions are not
131 Taminiaux points out in the final section of The Life of the Mind-I Arendt makes numerous errors in her critique of Heidegger. In brief, Taminiaux claims, Arendt’s arguments on Heidegger in the chapter “Will- not-to-will” are tenuous and based on some incorrect assertions. Firstly, he highlights Arendt’s suggestion that Heidegger never mentions Nietzsche in Being and Time, when section 76 is devoted to him. Secondly, he says Arendt’s inquiry is weakened when claiming Heidegger only truly begins to analyse the will in his lecture course on Nietzsche. It is true that earlier the will plays a marginal role in Heidegger’s writings but it is certainly not absent altogether. Finally, Taminiaux argues, Arendt further compromises her position and causes issues with discrepancies between the original and more limited interpretations of the text by unnecessarily preferring an English-speaking interpreter, J.L. Mehta, despite being able to read in the original German (and no doubt doing so). Taminiaux concludes that the, “very writing of [this] section and its loose articulation show that we are in the presence of a first draft, which Arendt never had—unfortunately—the opportunity to redraft”.131 Just as Heller excuses certain inconsistencies between the first and second volume of The Life of the Mind because “clearly” these would have been eliminated if Arendt had the time to complete all three volumes, so too Taminiaux excuses weaknesses in her arguments for the same reason.131 Nonetheless, the discrepancies Taminiaux identifies prove interesting if only to suggest that perhaps some of Arendt’s other criticisms may also have oversights or loose ends (Taminiaux, 1997, chap 4). 132 James Martel argues Arendt’s earlier work Love and St Augustine and The Life of the Mind -Willing serve as two book ends to her career. See Martel, 2008, p. 228 57 predetermined. This conflict of the will in choosing is a sign of its ultimate human freedom because whatever the choice, it could always have been otherwise.133 James Martel elaborates on Young-Bruehl’s second point, stating that the will’s role in consciousness is central to Arendt’s reading of Augustine, and that every choice involves an endless battle between I-will and I-nill that only ceases in the moment of action.134
Suzanne Jacobitti identifies three further reasons for Arendt’s admiration of Augustine’s account of the will: (1) Augustine’s emphasis on the self-determined nature of the will and his belief that human choice is radically free; (2) claiming the will is able to refuse to obey divine commandments and, (3) the idea that each person is unique and capable of creating something new.135 In every affirmation of the will there is simultaneously a negation (velle-nolle), and therein lies its freedom and the potential for novelty. As Arendt writes:
Nolle is no less actively transitive than velle, no less a faculty of will: if I will what I do not desire, I nill my desires; and in the same way I can nill what reason tells me is right. In every act of the will, there is an I-will and I-nill involved.136
The will is neither unitary nor coherent. In the moment of willing either reason or desire is affirmed, and with the affirmation of reason or desire always lies the negation of the other.137 Augustine calls the paralysing effect the will has upon itself a monstrosity. Citing Augustine, Arendt writes: “Whence is this monstrosity? And why is it?... the mind commands the body, and is obeyed instantly; the mind commands itself and is resisted…”138 The body not having a will of its own by necessity obeys the mind’s commands however, when the mind tries to command itself the willing ego comes into play and a battle between willing and nilling ensues. Importantly it is not a battle between the mind and the will, nor a split between mind and flesh, but rather the split occurs in the will itself. The monstrosity is not the idea that there are two antagonistic wills but that it is the same willing ego that simultaneously wills and resists its commandments. Arendt cites the following passage from Augustine: “It was I who willed, I who nilled, I, I myself; I neither willed totally nor nilled entirely - and this does not mean that I was of ‘two minds, one good, the other evil,’ but that the uproar of two wills on one and the same mind ‘rent me
133 Young-Bruehl, 2006, p. 191-193 134 Martel, 2008, p. 290 135 Jacobitti, 1988, p. 60 136 The Life of the Mind -Willing, p. 89 137 Martel, 2008, p. 289 138 The Life of the Mind -Willing, p. 93; Arendt also talks about Augustine’s monstrosity of the will in “What is Freedom”. 58 asunder’”.139 The problem with a will so divided is, rather than moving a person to act it has the potential to render them impotent due to indecisiveness.
To overcome this problem Augustine connects the will with other mental faculties to question the function of the will as it relates to the life of the mind as a whole. 140 Augustine uses the structure of the holy trinity as the basis for his account of the mind. The three substances to comprise the mind are memory, intellect and will.141 These three substances, as the Christian trinity, are inseparable, distinct, and equal in rank. The unity of the three distinct substances that make up the mind is the product of the will. The will tells the memory what to keep and forget, and the intellect what to understand. Memory and intellect are both contemplative and passive and it is the will that “binds them together”. Only when the three are forced into one (by the will) is it possible to speak of thinking.
The binding force of the will functions both mentally as thinking, and physically in sense perception. Three elements are distinguished in every act of vision: the object seen (this can exist before it is viewed), the vision that is not there prior to the object being seen, and the power that fixes the attention of the mind on the object. Without the third point, there are only sensory impressions without actual perception. The will unites the inwardness of the mind and the outside world by mediating between the two.142 Arendt writes:
We can see without perceiving and hear without listening, as frequently happens when we are absent-minded. The “attention of the mind” is needed to transform sensation into perception; the Will that both “fixes the sense on that thing which we see and binds both together” is essentially different from the seeing eye and the visible object; it is mind and not body.143
Perhaps part of the will’s appeal, for Arendt, is its unifying power to bring together her account of the three faculties of the mind, not in Augustine’s sense of a binding force, but as the “spring of action” between the solitude of thinking and judgment in the world.144 The will is the catalyst for action, and the objects of thought provide the content in the moment of willing. According to Bonnie Honig the will liberates the self from the mental faculties – including itself – and serves as an antecedent or condition for action. In this way, Arendt preserves the spontaneity, novelty
139 The Life of the Mind -Willing, p. 94; Confessions, bk. VIII, chap. viii. 140 In the Confessions Augustine offers no real solution. It is in On the Trinity where he develops his new approach (The Life of the Mind -Willing, p. 95-103). 141 This triad of the mind appears in On the Trinity, in the Confessions Augustine talks of the triad between Being, Willing and Knowing (although Being is not a faculty of the mind). For an interesting discussion on the trinity of memory, intellect and will see, (Taminiaux, 1997, p. 148-151). 142 Martel claims, Arendt along with Augustine considers the will’s power to come from its ability to mediate between the inner life of the mind and sensory perception (Martel, 2008, p. 289). 143 The Life of the Mind -Willing, p. 100; Arendt cites Confessions bk. XI, chap iii, 6 144 The Life of the Mind -Willing, p. 101-104 59 and unpredictability of action she presents in earlier work by developing an account of the will that does not taint or determine its consequent.145
Arendt regards Augustine’s account of the will as the “spring of action” because by directing the senses’ attention to objects, and allowing for understanding by fixing the mind’s attention on the objects, it prepares the ground for action to take place.146 Furthermore, because the will is busy preparing the ground for action, the tension inherent to the faculty is no longer the primary feature. Yet, what really interests Arendt is Augustine’s suggestion that by transforming the will into action a person reveals her uniqueness. Such uniqueness is not a matter of an inner life or interior passions. A thought or feeling is unique by way of how it is expressed in the world at the moment of action, and this expression arises out of the will’s ability to mediate between the life of the mind and the world. This expression through action, where the will directs particular volitions and “creates the self’s character”, is reminiscent of Arendt’s earlier works on the “who” rather than “what” of a person discussed in Chapter 1.147 I should stress that in claiming the will “creates the self’s character” I do not suggest that the self, in Arendt, is constituted through the will. Rather, the will’s primary function is to turn attention away from within the self towards the world and prepare the way for action.148 As an internal mental faculty, the will exists in permanent tension between willing and nilling, and only by publicly manifesting one of the two choices through action is the tension relieved and the will silenced.
According to Arendt, the will is a necessary precondition for action because it precedes the moment when the “who” is publicly revealed to others.149 The public manifestation of either willing or nilling in the moment of action allows for events to spontaneously begin in time.150 Arendt concludes that by recognising that, although the “mental freedom” of willing is in action, what is gained is a shaped self; the “who” that is revealed through action.151 As a result, each
145 Honig, 1988, p. 80-81 146 The other characteristic that Augustine identifies and, which Arendt also likes is the transformation of the will into love. For issues of space I will not be covering this idea of love in this chapter. See The Life of the Mind -Willing, p. 101-104; Taminiaux, 1997, p. 152 147 The Life of the Mind -Willing, p. 195 148 The Life of the Mind –Willing, p. 94-96); Max Deutscher interprets the will as a mode, while also recognising its elusive nature: “Willing is elusive. It is neither an action nor a telling of myself what I am to do…Considered as an activity, willing is superstition (‘From the tarmac, I was willing the plane to land safely)…I interpret it, rather, as a mode – that of being willing” (Deutscher, 2007, p. xiv). 149 Even before writing the second volume of The Life of the Mind Arendt acknowledges a connection between the will and the possible manifestation of a unique self through action. See Origins of Totalitarianism. 150 The Life of the Mind -Willing, p. 158 151 (Young-Bruehl, 2006, p. 193-194 60 person has the capacity (within limits) to shape a unique self—understood as the “who” revealed through action—and possibly initiate the never before seen.152 I will return to this point again later, for now I turn my attention to Arendt’s account of Duns Scotus.
2.2.3 The will to bring about the new
Arendt considers Duns Scotus to be the other great philosopher of the will. Scotus takes up Augustine’s view of the will as mediator and claims the will provides the intellect with its objects and necessary knowledge. 153 He also considers the intellect a subservient faculty because it relies on the will to direct its attention. Only when an object is “confirmed” by the will can the intellect function.154 Arendt claims that Scotus does not subordinate nor deny the will’s existence, and continues the Augustinian themes of freedom, uniqueness, and action.155 Although Augustine shows the original and autonomous power of the will, it is with Scotus that the potential of the will is revealed. In distinguishing between the notion of free will and a spontaneous and unpredictable notion of freedom Scotus saves the will from its impotency in his affirmation that in every I-will is an I-can.156
Arendt’s interest with Scotus’ treatment of the will is its connection to freedom, uniqueness and action. Willing is central to the notion of freedom since it causes volitions, whereby freedom is demonstrated through the basic quality of either willing or nilling. Citing Scotus, Arendt suggests that the test of freedom lies in the knowledge that “a decision actually taken need not have been taken and a choice other than the one actually made might have been made”.157 Neither desire nor intellect measures up to this test of freedom because desire only attracts or repels and intellect affirms or denies. It is the will that affirms or denies objects presented by either the intellect or desire. Although it is possible for the will to both will and nill, Scotus recognises it would take two separate volitions to actually will and nill the same object.
152 Duvall Jacobitti, 1996, p.203 153 Martel, 2008, p. 290-291; Young-Bruehl suggests, Duns Scotus continued with Augustine’s theme of the transformative power of love. See Young-Bruehl, 2006, p. 193; There have been numerous discussions about whether Duns Scotus is an Aristotelian or Augustinian. Arendt tends to agree with Bettoni, an Italian Scotus scholar who claims, “Dun Scotus remains an Augustinian who profited to the utmost degree from Aristotelian method in the exposition of the thoughts and doctrines that form his metaphysical vision of reality”. (cited in The Life of the Mind - Willing, p.126 ) 154 The Life of the Mind - Willing, p. 125-126 155 Jacobitti identifies two main reasons for Arendt’s admiration: (1) Scotus is the only philosopher to follow up on Augustine’s notion of radical freedom of choice and, (2) he shares Augustine’s view concerning the importance of the will as a source of uniqueness (Jacobitti, 1988, p. 60). 156 Assy also claims Nietzsche was the other philosopher whom Arendt regards as encouraging the potentiality of the will in its secularization. Although there is no doubt Nietzsche has a great influence on Arendt thought, because of her disappointment in his proclamation to “will not to will” we will not look at him in any great detail in the willing section (Assy, 2008, p. 84). 157 The Life of the Mind - Willing, p. 130; citing Scotus. Vogt, op. cit., p.34 61
His point is that in every volition caused by the willing ego, the willing ego is aware of the freedom to perform its contrary. Arendt elaborates this point by citing a passage from Bettoni: “the essential characteristic of our volitional act is…the power to choose between opposite things and to revoke the choice once it has been made”.158
Scotus makes a distinction between two sorts of will: the natural will and free will. Natural will is motivated by reason or desire, and guided by natural inclinations. If a person only has natural will, she would use rationality to choose appropriate means to pre-designed ends given by nature, and being, at best, “an enlightened brute”. The freedom of the will, on the other hand, is capable of producing its own acts to become the source of pure spontaneity and uniqueness. Unlike natural will, the free will pursues ends for their own sake.159 Just as Arendt does not believe acts should be reduced to views about history or progress, Scotus disagrees with the reduction of explanation to a causal chain of events. He considers the act of the will is neither caused by the object moving it or by the will moving itself, and nor does he suggest the will is omnipotent since it cannot account for every outcome that follows a volition. Instead, Scotus develops an idea of “partial causes” that coincide independently of, and equal to, one another and on an equal basis, allowing both freedom and necessity to coexist. 160 Change occurs because of a multiplicity of coincidences, and it is precisely such coincidence that forms the basis of human affairs; change and motion are ruled by contingency. I should note that although Arendt sees the will as necessary for freedom, understood as action, she consistently opposes the idea of inner free will. Freedom for Arendt is always inherently tied to public action.
Freedom and necessity are different dimensions of the mind that are often in conflict and they do not require reconciliation.161 It is because of Scotus’ arguments for contingency that
158 The Life of the Mind – Willing, p. 130 (emphasis in original); citing Bettoni, Duns Scotus, p.76 159 The Life of the Mind - Willing, p. 132 (emphasis in original). Martel suggests, Arendt actually makes a distinction between two notions of freedom, one “false”, the other “real”. The false notion, he claims, is based on what we usually call “free will” or liberum arbitrium (also translated as free choice or free decision) and the other is the true, unpredictable sense of freedom, which interestingly enough, Arendt also calls free will. Although Martel is not strictly incorrect in the sense that the qualities he attributes to the “false” sense of freedom are in line with natural will and the traits of “real” freedom match Arendt’s account of the free, spontaneity of the free will, he turns Arendt’s discussion concerning Scotus’ two kinds of will (natural will and free will) into a discussion concerning false and real freedom. This claim seems to be supported by the fact that the traits Martel gives false and real freedom are much the same as those of natural and free will (Martel, 2008, p. 291). 160 The Life of the Mind - Willing, p. 137 161 If there is a conflict between the two it would amount to an internal conflict between the willing and thinking ego, and manifest with the question “why?” (why did I do that?; what caused this volition?). As Nietzsche later points out, the will is incapable of willing backwards. Once a volition is in play it cannot be undone. This means the will causes particular volitions, which cause specific effects. The will, not having omnipotence cannot control the results of its volitions, and at times may not like or agree with what follows. In such instances, wishing to undo what has been done or rationalise the situation the 62
Arendt suggests his freedom could have radical implications. Arendt embraces Scotus’ understanding of the will, where multiplicity rather than a single cause forms the basis of human affairs. Objecting to the reduction of the world according to a particular perspective, Arendt rejects singular explanatory devices like history or the progress of man.162 If everything is explained by progress or history there is no room for something to come about from outside of this causal structure. Contingency and multiplicity allow for the possibility of something new. The freedom of spontaneity and contingency bring into the world the never before seen, and opens a space for the completely novel. Contingency is of great significance to Arendt because Scotus is one of the few philosophers who gives higher ontological status to contingency and the particular than to the universal and necessary. The key point is each particular event must be explained in terms of plurality and not as a causal chain. By regarding events as contingent instead of necessary, the possibility opens up for the new and unpredictable.163 Scotus admits there is no real answer to reconciling freedom and necessity, and neither does he think it necessary. Yet, for Arendt, Scotus never manages to fully connect his thoughts concerning free choice of the will and action and as such, never explores the implications of the radical freedom he embraces.164
The power of the will to bring about the completely novel, and its relation to action, in Augustine and Scotus, can be linked to Arendt’s discussions on political actors, as well as her notion of natality. Political actors reveal “who” they are through speech and action, and for Augustine and Scotus, it is the faculty of the will that directs particular volitions and “creates the self’s character”.165 Although the “mental freedom” of willing is lost once we act, what is gained is a shaped self; the “who” shown to the world through action.166 Willing is by no means acting, for it is a faculty of the mind, but it is essential for Arendt’s understanding of the basis for free and unique acts. The capacity for human beings to engage in these “free and unique acts” is a key theme in Arendt’s work, and one that structures her understanding of the most basic aspects of experience. Arendt believes that death is not the only thing that all human beings have in common—she argues that birth (or ‘natality’) is also something shared.167 ‘Natality’ references
will “allows” the intellect to try and discover what happened. As such, the intellect assists by providing an explicatory cause to quieten the will’s resentment at its own helplessness. The intellect provides explanations post-event, and the data of cause and effect fall into place. Yet, without the assumption of necessity the coherence of the explanation falls apart (The Life of the Mind - Willing, p. 140). 162 The Life of the Mind - Thinking, p. 216; Taminiaux, 1997, p. 169 163 Jacobitti, 1988, p. 60 164 Jacobitti, 1988, p. 61 165 The Life of the Mind - Willing, p. 195 166 Young-Bruehl, 2006, p. 193-194 167 Natality is originally posed as a reaction towards Heidegger’s idea of being toward death. 63 the view that with every birth a new and unique opportunity opens up. It links to the ideas of spontaneity, multiplicity and uniqueness that are present throughout her work in different ways. Similarly, novelty is explored in her discussions on political actors, the multiplicity of the public realm, action and even judgment. Rather than as a deviation, her explorations of the faculty of the will are best understood as a further expansion upon these pre-existing themes.
2.3 Judging
The final mental faculty of the mind Arendt examines in The Life of the Mind is judgment. It is this third faculty that some consider as the potential link between Arendt’s life of thought and public action. Arendt’s distinction between thinking and acting has attracted some criticism, with some going as far as to suggest she undermines her advocacy of action and the public realm in favour of solitary withdrawal from public life. Earlier I argued that Arendt’s later work expands on prior political concerns. By looking at the necessary conditions for ethical and political action and judgment, Arendt emphasises that thinking and acting occupy fundamentally different spaces. Thinking happens during solitary withdrawal, whereas acting occurs in the world with others. It is because of the apparent tension between solitude and the public realm that many supporters of Arendt look to the unfinished work on judgment as a possible bridge between the life of the citizen and the life of the mind.168 Arendt refers to judgment in her Lectures on Kant as the most political of the mental faculties and “the political faculty par excellence”. Thinking is central to judgment in that it opens up a space for moral or aesthetic judgments by drawing out the undercurrent of unexamined opinions to destroy them. The destructive nature of thought, in times when people get swept away unthinkingly, has a liberating effect on the faculty of judgment in that through thinking, judgment “breaks free” from publicly held opinion to judge particular instances without recourse to externally enforced dictates.169
Conversely, it is with judgment that thinking leaves its solitude and re-enters the public realm. As Arendt repeatedly stresses: unless whatever is discovered in solitude is somehow communicated and exposed to the test of others—either orally, in writing or through action— anything “discovered” during contemplative withdrawal disappears.170 Although thinking is not political in itself, by virtue of its relationship to judgment, it assumes a political relevance.171 As Arendt claims in her lecture on Kant:
168 Villa, 1999, pp. 87-91; Villa provides an account of this in the introduction to his paper, “Thinking and Judging”. 169 Villa, 1999, pp. 87-91 170 Lectures on Kant’s Political Philosophy, p. 40 171 Lectures on Kant’s Political Philosophy, p. 112 64
By loosening the grip of the universal on the particular, thinking releases the political potency of the faculty of judgment—the potency that inheres in its capacity to perceive things as they are, that is, as they are phenomenally manifest.172
Thinking, in so far as it returns to the world of appearances to reflect on particulars within it, becomes judging. This critical approach paves the way for the faculty of judgment to deal with particulars as they manifest in the world, and can become political in moments of crisis. 173 Thought liberates judgment from the dependence on external bannisters, and judgment gives thinking political relevance by returning it to the public realm.
Although it is evident Arendt holds judgment in great regard, because she died before writing this final instalment there is no single, coherent explanation of this faculty. In Ronald Beiner’s “Interpretative Essay,” which appears in Arendt’s Lectures on Kant, he claims Arendt offers two distinct theories of judgment. He suggests there is a noticeable shift in Arendt’s approach to judgment from her 1971 essay, “Thinking and Moral Consideration” to the later vita contemplativa. Prior to her interest in the vita contemplativa, judgment is usually discussed from the perspective of the vita activa. According to Beiner, Arendt moves from the representative thinking and enlarged mentality of political agents to the spectator-based judgments of storytellers and historians.174 Accordingly, although acknowledging problems with doing so, he divides Arendt’s work into two phases: the early practical stage and the later contemplative one. The main difference between the two accounts of judgement is that in earlier writings judgment is not a mental faculty but more a feature of political life. Only relatively late in her work does judgment become a distinct mental faculty and an entirely different concern. Beiner goes on to say that if anyone wants to refute his conclusion about Arendt’s two accounts of judgment they need to show why in later writings she focuses exclusively on the activity of judgment as part of the life of the mind instead of giving it a more equal status. Beiner argues:
In order to challenge the conclusion that Arendt offers two distinct conceptions of judgment (the first relating to the world of praxis, the second to that of contemplation), one would need to give an account of precisely why, in her last writings, judging as an activity is placed exclusively within the life of the mind instead of being assigned a more equivocal status. The only explanation I myself can conceive of is that judgment had become for her a part of a concern very different from the original one, which had been a concern with vita activa, the life of politics. 175
There is no disputing Beiner’s assertion that Arendt shifts emphasis in her discussions on judgment. However, this should not come as a surprise since she clearly states her intention
172 Lectures on Kant’s Political Philosophy, p. 112 173 Beiner, 1989, p. 154 174 Beiner, 1989, p. 91 175 Beiner, 1989, p. 92 65 post Eichmann; The Life of the Mind is explicitly intended to explore the vita contemplativa so as to understand how and why people choose to act as they do. This problem seemed unanswerable from the perspective of political action alone. An active life is not all that constitutes a person’s engagement with the world and as such, it is necessary to understand the role of contemplation. Beiner is correct when asserting that Arendt’s description of judgment as a distinct mental faculty does not occur until late in her career. Yet, judgment and action, regardless of whether that of political actors or the disinterested spectator, is not synonymous with action and does not need be limited to the vita activa. In later works, Arendt is interested in the meaning of independent judgment rather than the public display of the act. To judge as part of the public performance of political action is one element of judgment, but Arendt’s concern was with the constitution of judgment in moments of crisis when the public, political space has been eroded. As I claimed in the first chapter, in instances such as these when things break down, it is precisely the refusal to participate that takes on political significance. I contend that Arendt’s later work does not abandon politics and action, but expands her account for possibilities of political engagement and resistance when the public expression of opinions is no longer possible.
Following the publication of Arendt’s report on the Eichmann trial, she is heavily criticised by some significant figures in the Jewish community for her account of the role the Nazi appointed Jewish Councils plays in the holocaust.176 Arendt realises there is a reluctance to look back and judge the past and confront what had occurred. Yet understanding and judging past events is the only way to come to terms with what has taken place. By refusing to reflect on such events genuine, open debate cannot occur. Although Beiner is not incorrect in claiming that Arendt puts forward two different theories of judgment there is little, if any, tension between the early and late because the fundamental features of judgment, which I will discuss, remain the same in both actor and spectator-based accounts. This suggests Arendt broadens her idea of judgment rather than presenting two distinct theories. In fact, Beiner admits at times that there is overlap with Arendt’s “earlier” and “later” accounts of judgment, and that there is no clear delineation between the two theories.177
Majid Yar, makes similar assertions to Beiner, arguing that Arendt has two theories of judgment. While also acknowledging Arendt’s accounts of judgment do not constitute two distinct expositions but intertwine throughout her work, Yar, with Beiner, separates Arendt’s
176 This is what Seyla Benhabib calls the councils in “Arendt’s Eichmann in Jerusalem” (Benhabib, 2000) 177 Beiner, 1989, p. 92 66 accounts into two categories nonetheless.178 However, he points out that any discussion about Arendt’s idea of judgment is all the more difficult because she never wrote the final volume of The Life of the Mind. Any descriptions of Arendtian judgment are found in fragments, sub- sections and asides, or her Lectures on Kant. With this in mind it seems the claim that Arendt presents two theories of judgment is not so straight forward. A shift in emphasis does not necessarily mean judgment becomes an entirely different idea. At most, there is a gradual “evolution” in Arendt’s account of judgment.179 The simpler and more likely interpretation is that Arendt thinks it necessary to explore other facets that stretch beyond public, political agency and the active life.180 To better understand the role of judgment in Arendt’s work, along with these criticisms, I will look at the supposedly different accounts of judgment in more detail.
2.3.1 Actor-based judgment
Arendt’s response to the apparent impoverishment of the faculty of judgment (along with thought and action) is to focus on the different phenomenological grounds for acting and judging.181 To separate herself from her understanding of the Western philosophical tradition of thought she contrasts philosophical thought, which aims at “truth”, with political thought and judgment, plurality and the exchange of opinions. In the context of human plurality and political action Arendt regards actor-centred judgment as a necessary part of political debate.182 To highlight the difference between the professional thinker and the political actor Arendt draws on Kant’s notions of “enlarged mentality” and Aristotle’s phronesis—“representative thinking”—when developing her account of judgment and political thinking. To think from another’s standpoint liberates the activity of judgment from a reliance on pre-established, a priori rules and laws to create a space for open, public debate and deliberation. Judgment, for Arendt, is a necessary part of genuine political debate. Through open, public debate and persuasion a person expresses who she is and calls upon others to judge her opinions, while
178 Yar, 2000, p. 3 179 Annelies Degryse argues that Arendt does not have two theories of judgment but that an evolution, which characterises her work in general is also present in her work on judgment (Degryse, 2011). 180 Bernstein, Benhabib, Kateb, d’Entreves, Ferrara, Norris, and Steinberger have also commented that Arendt has two theories of judgment. These criticisms not only point to a tension between the two models but also suggest Arendt does not clarify the status of judgment effectively enough with respect to the two sources she draws on, Aristotle and Kant. Often it is pointed out, her attempt to bring together Aristotle’s phronesis and Kant’s representative thought in her description of judgment is flawed. 181 See Villa “Thinking and Judging” for an interesting account of this. 182 “The Crisis in Culture”; “Truth and Politics” 67 simultaneously putting the opinions of others to the test. Political judgment is exercised when listening to the multiplicity of (often) conflicting viewpoints to form political opinions.183
Arendt uses parts of Kant’s Critique of Judgment concerning matters of taste when formulating her account of political judgment, and applies his description of the universalisability of subjective, aesthetic judgments to the formation of valid political judgments about particular opinions. She also employs the third critique in order to develop her later version of spectator-based judgment, presented in detail during her 1970 Kant lectures. The important point Arendt takes from Kant’s discussion is what she terms “enlarged mentality”, or the ability to think from the standpoint of others. In the judgment of political actors “enlarged mentality” is intended to free a person from private, subjective conditions. Again, this feature of “enlarged mentality” is also present in her account of the disinterested judgment of the spectator.
The ability to judge from the standpoint of others is central to Arendt’s understanding of political action because of her belief that individual actions are meaningless if there are no witnesses. Similarly, this idea of giving actors meaning is central to Arendt’s later accounts of spectator-based judgment. It is the disinterested gaze of the spectator that imbues the world of political actors with meaning. Although in both accounts action is only meaningful if it is seen, there is a fundamental difference between the two. In actor-based judgment a person always judges from within the proceedings (even if trying to think from the standpoint of others), is always a part of the action, and never able to view events in their entirety.
Arendt hopes to break the monopoly of rational thought on political thought by stressing the importance of public opinion. In opposition to concerns of “professional thinkers” Arendt situates plurality of personal opinions (or doxa) as the phenomenological ground for action and freedom, as well as judgment.184 The process of political thought and judgment is not the logical unfolding of an argument or the application of an ideal that is then strived towards. Rather, political thought and judgment exercise the capacity to represent different perspectives in the formation of opinions. Furthermore, these opinions and judgments must themselves be submitted to public exposure and test through public dialogue. At times it sounds as if Arendt’s advocacy of opinion is in opposition to reason, but this is not the case. In fact, to make this division would be to invite Arendt’s criticism of the dominant Western philosophical tradition’s denigration of opinion. Public dialogue can be messy, disruptive and conflictual, but this does
183 The Crisis in Culture 184 Villa, 1999, p. 95-98 68 not mean it is necessarily irrational and uninformed. To judge is to engage in rational, public debate and deliberate with others to come to a shared decision or agreement. Despite Arendt’s discussion of public opinion’s often lacking some nuance, she regards reasoned, public debate as central to political engagement. To preserve plurality, opinion, and genuine political action through such unforced public dialogue, Arendt’s account of judgment relies on the ideas of “enlarged mentality” and “representative thinking” discussed earlier in this section.185 In the coming chapters I will show how Foucault’s discussion of parrhesia explains Arendt’s account of public opinion more effectively by further distinguishing between different accounts of public speech, as expression of opinion as either rhetoric, doxa or parrhesia.
2.3.2 Spectator-based judgment
A central thread throughout Arendt’s work concerns the loss or decline of the public realm in the modern age. This loss is what she advocates against in earlier accounts of public action, where she calls for an open space for people to exchange competing doxa, and it is a narrative she explores in detail throughout The Human Condition. However, Arendt’s appeal to some form of public, community-based judgment becomes extremely complicated when she recognises underlying notions of community and publicness have become eroded or eliminated altogether. Ultimately, when there is no longer a sense of community based on friendship and openness (as outlined in the sections on Socrates), Arendt believes ideology, subjectivism and moral objectivism fill the space. Unlike earlier appeals for a public space to exercise “common sense” (communal rather than sensible), later works try to account for the existence of impartial judgments when there is no agreed upon criteria for the constitution of good, public argument.186 Arendt still wants to find a way for plurality to exist when exercising independent judgments, even when there is no possibility of recourse to community sense where ideas are publicly put to the test by others. As was discussed in the account of thinking above, Arendt strives to comprehend how some people can say “I cannot, this is wrong” when there are no apparent standards for what is “good” and “right”. Without a public forum to put opinions to the test or sensis communis to appeal to, how is it possible to exercise independent judgment?
There is a shift in focus here from judgment played out in a public performative space to the non-participatory judgment of uninvolved spectators. Arendt’s later account of judgment holds similarities with earlier descriptions in reference to Kant’s aesthetic judgment, the emphasis on judging particulars without subsuming them under universals and the
185 Villa, 1999, p. 98 186 Villa, 1999, p. 98 69 reappropriation of Kant’s “enlarged mentality”.187 Arendt’s earlier accounts of actor-centred judgment are highly conditional on the existence of a shared, public space where judgment is exercised by actors through debate and discussion and where personal views are put to the test of others.188 Yet something that worries Arendt throughout her career is the decline of common sense, the dissolution of a moral groundwork, and the inability to make independent judgments.189 In Arendt’s later work, in the absence of any communal sense or public forum to exchange opinions and garner meaning, it is the reflexive judgment of the spectator that gives the actors’ world significance.
Judgment is approached from the perspective of the disinterested observer, removed from the realm of actors to make informed, instead of naïve, judgments. It is the judgment of historians, poets and storytellers seeking to find meaning in events that have taken place. A crucial point to keep in mind is that the spectator does not exist in isolation, impartiality is gained in the constant attempt to consider other viewpoints. Just as in earlier accounts, where actors need to consider views of fellow participants, so too is there a need to consider others in reflexive judgment. In both instances, Arendt stresses the importance of standing in another’s shoes to see things from a different perspective. In her Kant lectures she asserts that reflexive judgment does not arise from some universal standpoint to resolve the issue at hand—rather, the spectator judges the particular events at play by considering the viewpoints of imagined others.190 As Peg Birmingham claims, “[t]he actor is not autonomous, since the final verdict concerning the event lies with the spectators. The judgment of the event reflects the plurality of spectators, all contributing their views”.191 The meaning of this will become clear in a moment but first I will look at the main source for Arendt’s understanding of reflexive judgment.
At the Eichmann trial, Arendt is simultaneously confronted with Eichmann’s lack of independent judgment, and also her own reflexive judgment of Eichmann the man and of the times in which he lives. As a consequence, she realises that independent judgment is not limited to the public realm. The kind of judgment Arendt engages in during the trial is not the actor- based judgment present in earlier writings but the judgment of someone removed from the situation. Arendt finds herself in the role of a spectator looking at events that have taken place, trying to understand how such atrocities occurred. In her attempt to come to terms with the
187 Villa, 1999, p. 99-100 188 “Understanding and Politics”; “The Crisis in Culture” 189 Arendt talks about this last point as a growth in stupidity, in the Kantian sense of an inability to judge rather than claims to a person’s intelligence or cognitive abilities. 190 Lectures on Kant's Political Philosophy, p. 42 191 Birmingham, 1999, p. 33 70 events in Nazi Germany, Arendt refrains from imposing her opinion onto proceedings. Rather than predetermining Eichmann’s actions as the acts of an anti-Semite or monster, she imagines Eichmann, and the occurrences under totalitarianism, from varying perspectives. In doing so Arendt becomes the historian digging into the past in order to tell a story and shed light onto the present.
During this process Arendt is surprised by the reluctance of the Jewish community, Germans and the public at large to look at the occurrences under totalitarianism from a disinterested standpoint, as if this somehow condones what had occurred. In adopting this approach Arendt confronts accusations of being anti-Jewish, and a traitor to her people. Yet by demonising the past, and banishing attempts at frank and open discussions, she believes the holocaust can never be properly comprehended. In fact, as is arguably still the case, Arendt realises most people are unable to judge the occurrences under Nazism without bringing subjective interests into play—whether cultural, religious, nationalistic or otherwise. Of course, even in disinterested reflexive judgment there will always be elements of subjectivity. Arendt is not suggesting that disinterested judgment occurs from a viewpoint that is independent of a socio-historical context. Spectator-based judgment is as much part of the world, and affected by interpretive frameworks and interests as actor-based judgment. However, the attempt to think from other perspectives opens the possibility for open discussion and a genuine attempt at understanding.
Arendt regards Kant’s third critique as potentially having its greatest legacy in application to political and moral philosophy because of two fundamental aspects: (1) enlarged mentality, the ability to think from another’s perspective, and (2) aesthetics of taste, the ability to say “this is beautiful” or “this is ugly” without recourse to universals. Reappropriating these two Kantian themes, Arendt’s conception of spectator-based judgment provides the basis for moral judgments independent of normative constructs, and continues the importance of plurality, even when withdrawn from the public realm.192 The withdrawn spectator judging the actors in the political arena is never in a position of complete withdrawal with respect to the “common world”. Spectatorship necessitates having distance from the phenomenal world of actors without abolishing plurality. The aim is to reflect upon events in a manner indicative of personal responsibility and concern. Spectatorship differs from the speculative gaze of the professional thinker because it takes account of and exists in plurality, rather than attempting to organise multiplicity according to a singular ideal.
192 See preface to Lectures on Kant's Political Philosophy. 71
2.4 Conclusion
In Arendt’s focus on the contemplative life and her concern with multiplicity, action and politics are never far from sight. Despite accusations of contradicting earlier political concerns, Arendt continues to argue that the work of philosophers cannot, and should not, be regarded as separate from the political domain of action. Such a separation does not exist except by means of force. There is a need for withdrawal, just as there is need for action, yet the two affect one another continually. To suggest Arendt rejects the vita activa in preference for the vita contemplativa misses the thrust of her work entirely. Only in later works does Arendt try to reconcile the role of philosophy and politics. In earlier writing she rejects what she sees at the philosophical tradition’s denial of multiplicity and opinion. In the work on the public domain of actors and the necessity of a space for the exchange of competing doxa, Arendt bypasses the contemplative life altogether. Only later in her career does she try to understand, redefine and reappropriate the contemplative life and integrate this life of necessary withdrawal into her broader thinking.
Thinking, willing and judging each contribute to Arendt’s vision of the contemplative life, and each equally plays a role in her idea of the constitution of the self. Frequently, it is argued that thinking, judging and acting are central to Arendt’s conception of the self because thinking liberates the faculty of judgment and judgment becomes manifest in the world of appearance through action. Although this account of the Arendtian self as action is not incorrect, it too frequently excludes Arendt’s account of the will. As I have demonstrated, Arendt’s idea of the faculty of the will is very specific—although for Arendt willing is by no means acting, it is essential for her understanding of the basis for free and unique acts. The faculty of the will is central to the possibility of bringing about the never before seen, which can lead to transformative world- events. As such, I contend that thinking, willing and judging form the basis of Arendt’s conception of the self because without each of these, action would not be possible—and it is only in action that the self is made manifest.
In each of the three faculties Arendt describes, the public, political realm and importance of action is front and centre. Thinking, willing and judging make up the three faculties of the mind, with each offering the possibility of critique, freedom and consideration. Thinking, which looks for the meaning in everyday assumptions, and reveals that no idea should be accepted with absolute certainty. Willing creates the possibility of the completely new coming into existence, and shows a person’s character in the moment of action. Judgment assesses particular moments rather than relying on an overarching schema to guide decisions.
72
When the thinking ego returns from its withdrawal, it is the faculty of judgment that takes to dealing with the particulars as they appear in the world. Yet, Arendt believes, it is common in both educated and uneducated people equally for this faculty of judgment to be lacking. Returning briefly to the Postscriptum at the end of the first volume of The Life of the Mind, Arendt stipulates judgments are not the result of either inductive or deductive reasoning, and have nothing in common with logical operations. Rather, judgment is something that appears as a special talent that can be practiced but not taught.193
Arendt sees the faculty of judgment to offer the possibility of bridging the problem between theory and practice in arriving at “a halfway plausible theory of ethics”.194 Perhaps Arendt does not develop a vision sufficiently coherent to avoid criticism that there is a tension between her work on politics and contemplation. Yet, regardless of the success of her execution, it is apparent that Arendt’s discussions of action or withdrawal explore ideas for creating a political and ethical self that exists in multiplicity, and independent of externally posited principles. In Chapter 3 and 4 I will explore the themes of politics and ethics independent of prescriptive codes in Foucault’s articulation of a self—this will connect with some of Arendt’s ideas while also offering up some alternate possibilities.
193 The Life of the Mind - Thinking, p.215 194 The Life of the Mind. Volume One: Thinking, p.216 73
Chapter 3
Michel Foucault’s exploration of the care of the self (epimeleia heautou)
In the previous two chapters, I presented Arendt’s attempt to understand the necessary conditions for making independent judgements. In her account of the three faculties of the mind, she develops an ethical foundation separate to externally posited moral systems. Arendt stresses the importance of developing a critical attitude towards prescriptive dictates and dominant worldviews, to prevent (or at least limit) individuals’ dependence on externally posited guidelines. Arendt considers the unquestioned reliance on external codes, which she calls “bannisters”, dangerous—because the content of the codes is secondary to the function the codes serve, to provide ready-made answers regarding necessary actions and judgments. Instead, in the hope of preventing people from “wrong-doing”, Arendt seeks to demonstrate the possibility for moral and political agency independent of external guidelines. The following two chapters continue with the themes of critical self-reflection, and the development of an ethico- political self, in Michel Foucault’s explorations of the care of the self.
Similar to Arendt’s later interest in the life of the mind, Foucault’s work on the self- constituting subject is regarded by some critics as incongruous with his earlier concerns. However, I contend that, as with Arendt, Foucault’s explorations of self-care are an extension of his prior work, and do not contradict earlier arguments on the social and historical constitution of the subject. The subject of self-care remains culturally, socially and historically constituted; however, this does not equate to a passive account of subjectivity that is solely defined by external systems of power and control. While it is true that Foucault tackles the themes of subjectivity, truth and knowledge as products of external systems of knowledge and power, his account leaves open the capacity for resistance and transformation. Foucault’s account of self- constitution, ethics and politics is not an attempt to conceptually rethink subjectivity, truth or knowledge—to jump over the shadow of Western metaphysics.195 Rather, as I demonstrate in this and the next chapter, Foucault’s interest is in the far more personal (and tangible) “art of living” presented in antiquity, that involves practices of personal critique and self- transformation. Specifically, he is engaged with the broader ethical and political ramifications this notion of an aesthetic of existence offers.
195 Heidegger uses the term “to jump over your own shadow” in reference to “overcoming metaphysics” in Section A of What is a Thing. 74
Before considering the broader ramifications of Foucault’s aesthetics of existence, it is necessary to explain Foucault’s earlier archaeological (and genealogical) projects, as well as to develop an account of the self-constituted subject described in Foucault’s work in the 1980s, and to place this in relation to his overarching concerns. To do this, I first provide a brief outline Foucault’s archaeological and genealogical approach to his discussions on knowledge and power relations. Then, having established the background to his general investigative approach I will look at the question of the subject in general and highlight how Foucault’s account of the subject of care does not contradict his account of the subject as constituted by power and/or knowledge. Next, I outline the emergence of Foucault’s care of the self in the second and third volumes of The History of Sexuality. Following this, I elaborate his claim that the idea of the care of the self is generally forgotten in the Western philosophical tradition, despite holding for the Greeks a place of similar importance to the well-known maxim—“to know yourself”. Finally, with primary reference to his 1981-82 lectures at the College de France, The Hermeneutics of the Subject, I examine Foucault’s explanation of three ancient models of care: Socratic-Platonic, Roman-Hellenistic, and early Christian. Foucault presents these models in support of his claim that throughout antiquity, and although now largely neglected, the care of the self has been held in great esteem. Each of these ancient accounts offers a different view of the meaning of self-care and its relation to self-understanding. However, what each model shares is an approach to philosophy as a way of life. These 3 models of self-care inspire Foucault’s ideas on a self- constituting, ethico-political subject.
3.1 Foucault’s archaeological endeavour
In the preface to The Order of Things Foucault writes,
Order is, at one and the same time, that which is given in things as their inner law, the hidden network that determines the way they confront one another, and also that which has no existence except in the grid created by a glance, an examination, a language; and it is only in the blank spaces of this grid that order manifests itself in the depth as though already there, waiting in silence for the moment of its expression.196
Foucault suggests that there is a belief that, in some sense, there is a natural order to things, whether known or not, that at some stage will be uncovered. Existence is ordered and categorised into an apparently coherent whole as scientific theories and philosophical investigations try to discover, describe and formalise things. A particular explanatory horizon orders the world according to a set of criteria that defines what things are and where they belong. Yet, despite the specific assertions of a particular order or its conformity to supposedly
196 Foucault, , 1994, p. xx 75 universal laws, Foucault maintains that ways of understanding the world can be varied, and that any claim to a natural order is the product of representation.
Point of view for Foucault is a positive fact rather than a transcendental horizon —there is no single perspective that goes beyond experience. Knowledge is specific, contingent and continually changing. Yet, to describe experience as simply a perspective is not adequate either. Foucault acknowledges there is a complex interplay of forces such as systems of language, power structures, bodies in space, disciplinary boundaries and structures of organisation, that contribute to modes of understanding.197 To say that perspective is simply an ideology or world- view is not to take account of all of these different elements. There is no single representational condition—instead, representation is an effect of all of these things. Consequently, Foucault rejects the belief in some fundamental order to the world and attempts to critically assess current configurations.
The purpose of Foucault’s archaeological (and later genealogical) enterprise is to demonstrate that there is no ultimate order to things, and that instead order is created through various modes of representation. By comparing the changing force of knowledge and representation between three different epochs—the Renaissance, the Classical episteme and the Modern episteme—Foucault tries to bring to light the structures of modern thought. Concentrating on the specific practices and systems of knowledge that are the products of representation, Foucault demonstrates that current configurations of understanding are just one of many interpretive horizons.
Foucault argues that, across different periods, despite the differences in understanding the world, knowledge is characterised by four key elements. The first is that each epoch (Foucault uses the term episteme) has a different conception of knowledge. Secondly, these differing conceptions of knowledge are grounded in a particular order of things—that is, a particular ways things are related to one another. Thirdly, he establishes that the purpose of knowledge is to formulate truths about the state of things, and that these formulations depend on the underlying presuppositions within a given period. Lastly, that the discursive formations (linguistic signs) used for the formulation of knowledge depend on the conception of language available within a particular epoch.198
197 Foucault’s approach is to focus on something particular such as the human sciences, madness or the prison system in order to highlight, discuss and transform thought in general.
198 Gutting, 1989, p. 139-40 76
The primary characterisation of knowledge in the modern epoch, according to Foucault, is in accordance with the belief that there is a direct correspondence between what is present and its representation. Knowledge becomes viewed as the expression of the “proper” state of things rather than as a complex arrangement of systems of language, power and structures of organisation. The movement from world to knowledge of the world is viewed as a single “correct passage” without alternative. Presence and representation are unified, and the difference between the two is left unquestioned. The problem Foucault identifies with this unifying representational character of knowledge is the correlate belief in the progress of thought— where ideas develop, leading on from one another. If there is no distinction between what is presented and its representation it stands to reason that each new discovery is a step closer to the correct expression of the true state of things.
Foucault terms this belief in the progress of ideas ‘historicism’, and seeks to demonstrate it as unsustainable. Historicism describes the belief that there is a relation between thought and a “correct outside”, that gradually becomes more discoverable with the advent of more appropriate tools and techniques (this is not that dissimilar to Arendt’s normative structures—such as progress or history—mentioned in earlier chapters).199 Faith in the progress of ideas is extremely problematic, for Foucault, because any direct union between presence and representation is historically contingent and artificially created. There is no slow progression towards understanding an originary or true state of things, there are only ever particular understandings governed by particular world-views.
Instead of a gradual progression of ideas, Foucault seeks to demonstrate that there are gaps and ruptures within thought that do not necessarily follow on from one another. It is with this in mind that Foucault distinguishes between what he terms historicism (a progression of thought over time) and the historical a-priori (fundamental principles governing knowledge claims). Unlike historicism, which concerns a continual development of ideas over time, the historical a-priori simultaneously grounds and limits the knowledge claims of differing epistemes. The historical a-priori grounds truth claims and guides inquiry, and is the foundation of a specific world-view. Additionally, the historical a-priori between epochs cannot be understood as a progression of ideas from one period to another since the fundamental principles of thought between epistemes do not necessarily resemble or follow on in any way.
Unlike historicism, where sharp conceptual breaks in knowledge are explained as further developments of previous concepts that provide more accurate and broader
199 Colebrook, 1999, p. 166-7 77 explanations of the world, Foucault suggests that the questioning and answering process itself is governed by the constructs of a particular episteme. Foucault’s archaeology represents an awareness that structures of knowledge and investigation are embedded within the specific discourse of a given period, rather than the expression of the true state of things. However, it is incredibly difficult to identify the historical a-priori of the present epoch, because the very structures in question are also the structures in use. Therefore, in an attempt to shed light on the present constructs of knowledge, Foucault maps out previous modes of understanding to demonstrate how past constructs and operations have changed, and allude to the possibility that current configurations are also not eternal. It is possible to identify the underlying conditions in thought of past epochs because when these conditions become obsolete; what once was invisible becomes visible and available to critique.
By looking at the current concerns with representation—about structure, genesis or origin, and the transcendental—Foucault traces how these questions became possible in the first place. In his discussion of the historical a-priori Foucault intends to undermine the privileged role of the history of ideas in modern thought, and destabilise the normative standpoint of historicism. Foucault’s project ultimately aims at destabilising modern thought by examining the dependence on various concepts of representation, and showing that the current way of understanding the world is not an account of the true state of things, but a mode of representing various sites and differences.200
3.2 An interest in self-constitution
The idea of contingency, and of the constitution of world-views through the complex interplay of normalising forces, preoccupies Foucault throughout his career. The concern with difference, and the rejection of the unifying power of normative systems, runs through his entire body of work, including his apparent “shift” in later works. In his work on systems of knowledge and power, Foucault investigates how normative systems govern and control understanding and constitute subjectivity. Yet, it is only in his final works that Foucault turns his attention to the possibility of self-constitution within the context of such systems of control. Foucault develops his interest in the ways people recognise themselves as subjects while completing the second volume of The History of Sexuality. He realises that, within his historical account of sexuality and the sexual subject, three modes of objectification appear that affect the constitution of subjectivity: truth, power and ethics. The first mode concerns the scientific formations that refer to sexuality, and involves scientific investigations in which human beings are the subjects of
200 Colebrook, 1999, p. 170. 78 scientific study and classification. The second mode deals with regulating systems of power and concerns practices of manipulation and examination that locate, shape and classify bodies in the social field. Foucault calls these “dividing practices” because the subject is either divided from within or externally divided from others. The final mode (ethics) deals with the ways in which individuals establish a relationship to the self that is self-constituted and facilitates personal understanding and the recognition of themselves as subjects of sexuality.1
Foucault has explored the first two modes in detail in his account of the objectification of the speaking subject in general grammar, linguistics and philology; the labouring, productive subject in economics; and the living subject in biology and natural history. The Order of Things is illustrative of this approach. Examples of the second mode, typified in Discipline and Punish, include the division between the mad and the sane, the sick and the healthy or, the criminal and the good. The third mode, concerning the self-constituting subject is noticeably lacking from the theoretical “tools” at Foucault’s disposal. Foucault has looked at the external modes of objectification through systems of knowledge and power, but he has not investigated how people understand (and make) themselves in subjects. In the Introduction to the second volume of the History of Sexuality he writes:
As to the first two points, the work I had undertaken previously – having first to do with medicine and psychiatry, and then with punitive power and disciplinary practices – provided me with the tools I needed [to reject the hypothesis that sexuality was a constant]. The analysis of discursive practices made it possible to trace the formation of disciplines (savoirs) while escaping the dilemma of science versus ideology. And an analysis of power relations and their technologies made it possible to view them as open strategies, while escaping the alternative of a power conceived of as domination or exposed as a simulacrum. But when I came to study the modes according to which individuals are given to recognize themselves as sexual subjects, the problems were much greater.201
Acknowledging any account of the experience of sexuality as incomplete without a critical and historical analysis of the desiring subject, Foucault turns attention to this third mode of objectification—ethics.
As he investigates the ways in which individuals’ see themselves as subjects of sexuality he realises sexuality is not a singular form of experience. Rather than continuing with discussions on the manifestations of power in relation to the history of desire, Foucault reorganises his project to base his study on the hermeneutics of the self, beginning with antiquity. As a consequence of this reorientation of his project, it takes eight years between the publication of the first volume of The History of Sexuality in 1976 and the second and third volumes in 1984.202
201 The Use of Pleasure, p. 4-5 202 In a 1983 interview Foucault says, one of the reasons it takes so long between the first and second volume of The History of Sexuality is because he abandoned the first two attempts. The first turned out 79
He wanted initially to confront the everyday notion of sexuality, a term he claims did not appear until the early 19th century, to investigate the theoretical and practical context in which it makes its first appearance. Commonly in discussions surrounding sexuality, interdiction is the focal point—with desire and the desiring subject removed from the field of inquiry.203
Instead, Foucault wants to understand how the experience of sexuality, which is accessible to different fields of knowledge and linked to an apparently uniform system of rules and constraints, is constituted. In examining the history of sexuality as a singular form of experience rather than a behaviour, Foucault aims to disrupt commonly held conceptions of the sexual subject and the experience of sexuality. He wants to show that there is no single thing that is a “sexual subject” but that the experience of sexuality is an amalgam of external forces affecting the subjective experience, as well as internal forces leading people to recognise themselves as “this” or “that” kind of sexual subject. Foucault says in an interview:
Let it be clearly understood that I am not making a history of mores, of behaviour, a social history of sexual practice, but a history of the manner in which pleasures desires and sexual behaviors have been problematized, reflected upon and thought about in Antiquity in relation to a certain art of living.204 Interested in the ways in which people see themselves as subjects, Foucault directs his attention to the connection between systems of knowledge, power, and practices of the self.205 Foucault clarifies his interest in different “problematizations” does not mean the representation of a pre- existing object or the creation of an object through discourse, but a multitude of discursive and non-discursive practices that, “make something come into the play of the true and false, and constitute an object of thought”.206 These different practices can come in the form of moral reflection, scientific knowledge, political analysis or the care of the self (among many others).
To investigate practices of self-care Foucault draws on the work of the French historian Pierre Hadot’s account of ancient philosophical practices being a way of life. Hadot’s orientation towards ancient philosophical practice emphasises particular ways of living rather than the presentation of logical arguments or the expression of universal truths. This lived philosophy entails a symbiosis between thought, words and action made manifest through mental and physical practices. This is significant for Foucault because it centres on practices by which
to be a book about sex, which he found uninteresting and the second eliminates sex altogether, focusing too much on techniques of the self. It is with the third attempt that he manages to get the equilibrium right. (“The Aesthetics of Existence” p.309-310) 203 The Use of Pleasure, p. 3-4 204 “The Concern with Truth”, p.294 205 The Use of Pleasure, p. 5-7 206 “The Concern with Truth”, p.296 80 individuals turn themselves into subjects of investigation. Inspired by Hadot’s writings on the philosophical life, Foucault, as will be discussed in detail below, is led to explore a whole series of exercises and practices used in the service of self-care as critique and creation, and comes to argue that antiquity presents a form of self-reflection held in equal esteem to the well-known maxim, know thyself. As such, Foucault posits that the care of the self and knowledge of the self are equally fundamental in understanding the philosophically and historically variable link between the subject and truth.207
The apparent redirection of his work from knowledge and power to self-constitution and lived practice required Foucault to defend his interest in the care of the self against criticism that it undermines this earlier work. The crux of such criticism is that self-constitution appears to presuppose an autonomous, self-reflexive subject and this is in conflict with his archaeological critique of humanism, and the genealogy of the production of “docile bodies” via disciplinary power relations.208 The concern is not so much with whether there is, or should be, such a thing as the subject. The conflict arises from the view that an externally constituted subject and an autonomous subject with the capacity for critical transformation are incompatible. If the subject is the result of discourse and power relations, then it cannot critically self-transform—dissent and critique are not possible if subjectivity is the product of external structures and systems of control. In fairness to his critics, until recently much of Foucault’s later work has remained unpublished. Apart from the second and third volume of The History of Sexuality, and some short papers and interviews, there has not been much specific discussion on self-constitution and ethics. As a result, critics can be forgiven for interpreting this “sudden shift” to be antithetical to prior work on technologies of power which, even today, dominate discussions on Foucault— particularly in Anglo-American philosophy.209 Yet, even with the recent publications of early 1980s lectures at the College De France, as well as additional interviews and papers dealing with the theme of the self, some commentators still maintain there is a problematic discontinuity between the constituted subject and the constituting subject.
It is true that in numerous contexts Foucault describes subjectivity as the product of processes of systemisation, categorisation and disciplinary power relations. However, the recognition of these systems of control is intended to be liberating rather than confining. In an
207 Davidson, 2005, p. xxi 208 See The Order of Things and Discipline and Punish. 209 Particularly in Anglo-American commentary. 81 interview Foucault acknowledges that his work on structures of domination is frequently interpreted as oppressive with no real opportunity for resistance:
I think that in the public’s eye I am the one who has said that knowledge has become indistinguishable from power, that it was only a thin mask thrown over structures of domination and that the latter were always oppression and inclosure, etc. On the first point I will respond with a burst of laughter. If I had said that, or wanted to say, that knowledge was power I would have said it, and having said it, I would no longer have anything to say, since in identifying them I would have had no reason to try and show their different relationships. I directed my attention specifically to see how certain forms of power which were of the same type could give place to forms of knowledge extremely different in their object and structure.210
In revealing external modes of objectification, even before his “ethical turn”, Foucault reveals that systems are not innate, timeless and unchanging, but rather something to be questioned and transformed. As he says in the same interview, “[t]he work of the intellectual is not to mould the political will of others, it is…to re-examine evidence and assumptions, to shake up habitual ways of working and thinking”. Instead of “moulding” the will of others Foucault participates in “the formation of a political will” by analysing and re-valuating rules and institutions.211 Similarly, in pointing out that subjectivity is not innate and unchanging, he is not denying the existence of the subject altogether or reducing it to a passive construction governed solely by external forces. By showing the subject is constructed by external forces, Foucault opens new lines of critique about the meaning of subjectivity—but these lines of critique do not preclude freedom and autonomy.
I argue that Foucault does not undermine his archaeological and genealogical projects, nor does he change his fundamental understanding of the subject. Even if only implicit in his archaeological and genealogical projects, Foucault’s subject has always been simultaneously constituted and constituting. Rather than affirming an idea of subjectivity previously denied, Foucault changes perspective. The subject remains constituted in the knowledge/power networks, and the conditions for self-understanding remain historically tied to social and discursive practices. However, these conditions do not eliminate the subject’s capacity for criticism, self-reflection and resistance.212
Foucault presupposes an idea of a subject upon which power is exercised, or that exercises power upon itself. What is in question for Foucault is the dichotomy between a constituted subject determined by external circumstances and a subject that is autonomous and
210 “The Concern for Truth”, p.304 211 “The Concern for Truth”, p.305-306 212 Oksala, 2005, p. 4-7 82 active.213 There is no either/or distinction between Foucault’s earlier and later accounts of subjectivity, and it is mistaken to assume he argues against an intrinsic conception of subjectivity in order to eliminate any meaningful account of the subject altogether.214 Being conditioned by knowledge/power networks does not limit the subject to passive classification and manipulation; there is always capacity for movement and change. Paul Patton, positioning himself against critics such as Jürgen Habermas, Ian Hacking and Nancy Fraser, 215 calls this subject the “human material”. Despite being the product of external forces this subject, or human material, is active and has the capacity to do or become certain things. It amounts to, “a ‘thin’ conception of the subject of thought and action”, which is present in different forms, and whose powers can be exercised in infinite ways.
Foucault’s conception of “thin” subjectivity, to use Patton’s phrase, provides a basis to understand different ways of resisting domination but cannot provide a foundation for normative judgment. This is an ethics, as with that of Arendt, that critics like Habermas find troubling. I will look at this issue in detail in the coming chapters. Additionally, Foucault’s self- care shares some features with Arendt’s idea of thinking without banisters—particularly in the connection between a critical attitude, personal judgment (ethics) and action (politics). In their mutual rejection of the unquestioned authority of externally imposed guidelines, each considers the re-conception of the ethical and political subject as a possibility for change.
Foucault’s work on knowledge, power and sexual ethics aims to affect through critique the understanding of social reality rather than denying the existence of the subject altogether.216 It is possible to draw on fragments from past works on his discussions on the “death of man”, or the formation of docile bodies, or interpret them in isolation, and argue that Foucault presents conflicting accounts of subjectivity.217 However, Foucault’s arguments on systems of knowledge, power, and self-constitution are all different ways of approaching the same problem: to critically assess the meaning of governing systems of truth and offer possibilities for change. The criteria for change include a critical reflection on the constitution of subjectivity by knowledge-power
213 Hekman, 1990, p. 81 214 Allen, 2011, p. 47 215 Jürgen Habermas, Ian Hacking and Nancy Fraser argue respectively that there is no conception of the properly human subject only an “arbitrary partisanship that cannot account for its normative foundations”, and that “he has given no surrogate for whatever it is that springs eternal in the human breast”, and because of a lack of normative criteria for judgement there is no way of distinguishing between power that does and does not involve domination. (See Habermas, 1987, p. 276; Hacking, 1986, p. 40. Similar claims are made in Foucault. A Critical Reader by Hoy, 1996, Walzer, 1996, Dreyfus & Rabinow, 1996, and Habermas, 1996; also Fraser, 1989, p. 32-3) 216 Patton, 1998, p. 65 217 Said, 1996; Fraser, 1989; Hacking, 1986; Dews, 1989; Habermas, 1996; Kellner & Best, 1991 83 relations, as well as processes of self-transformation through practices of the self.218 Even in his account of docile bodies, often mistakenly taken to mean personal agency and self-constitution are always nothing but illusions, Foucault alludes to possibilities for transformation. In revealing external contingencies Foucault undermines the “timeless authority” of universal truths, and opens a space for critique, transformation and resistance.219
3.2.2 The question of the subject
In The Use of Pleasure and The Care of the Self,220 Foucault uses sexuality and the desiring subject as examples of self-constitution, and explores ways the desiring subject is organised throughout antiquity. Although almost the same prohibitive codes exist in fourth century B.C. Athens as do at the beginning of the Roman empire, Foucault shows that the way these prohibitions integrate with the subject of sexuality are completely different. This is not to suggest that pre-Christian sexuality is less restrictive than post-Christian accounts. Later themes of Christian austerity are clearly present in Pagan ethics, but the relationship between these themes and the desiring subject is different. A crucial distinction is the Greeks’ privileging of techniques of the self over actual rules for sexual conduct. Foucault argues that every morality broadly comprises of two elements: codes of conduct and forms of subjectivisation, and that neither is separate to the other. However, the emphasis placed on these two elements differs. For example, where the primary emphasis is on codes of conduct, the concern is with instances of authority to enforce these appropriate forms of conduct. Subjectivisation refers to the ethical subject’s relationship to a set of laws. Ancient practices of the self are examples of this second element. External codes of conduct exist in relation to these practices, but it is the way these codes are appropriated into life that is central. There is no one correct way to behave that is equally applicable to everyone. Codes of conduct act as reference points that are subjectively appropriated.
The emphasis in the ethics surrounding pre-Christian sexuality is on forms of subjectivisation rather than codes of conduct. Ancient ethics concerns personal conduct rather than institutional systems.221 As such, despite a general continuity in themes regarding sexual practices and ethical behaviour, the care of the self is a fundamentally different model of the ethical subject. The care of the self does not rely on religious command or legal institutions, but
218 Allen, 2011, p. 2-3, makes a similar point. 219 See also, Mahmood, 2005; McWhorter, 1999; Thompson, 2003 220 The History of Sexuality volumes two and three. 221 “On the Genealogy of Ethics”, p.255 84 something Foucault calls an “aesthetics of existence”.222 Foucault argues that external moral codes have lost authoritative control with the decline of modern religions. For this reason, legislative dictates govern much of what is deemed socially acceptable. However, legal intervention into moral and personal affairs is not necessarily a suitable approach to governing personal behaviour. Foucault’s problem with the constitution of the ethical subject is not dissimilar to Arendt’s need to think without banisters. He contends that techniques of the self, understood as shaping the continual work of self-critique, analysis and transformation, offer an alternate approach to modern moral systems—an approach not intrinsically grounded in prescriptive codes based on religious or legislative structures. In much the same way as Arendt calls for the need to think without banisters, Foucault’s care of the self also aims at developing a critical attitude towards the relationship between truths, systems of control and self.
Foucault is aware that presenting the self as having single constant form running through ancient Greek thought to modernity would be misguided. In antiquity, the idea of a self- subject does not exist as a unified essence, form or substance, and Foucault is cautious when discussing the idea of the self or subject in ancient thought. In its most general sense, the care of the self is an attitude or state of mind more adequately conceived as dispersed among a multitude of experiential fields. The care of the self is outlined by four main points: (1) it is a particular way of considering things, behaving in the world and relating to others; (2) it is a form of personal attention and looking inwards, to focus on personal truths and thoughts; (3) it is the continual exercise of physical and mental practices, aimed at developing personal accountability, and which could lead to transformation; (4) it is concerned with rational conduct in all varieties of active life—not only a principle for gaining access to the “philosophical life”.
Comprised of physical and intellectual practices, the care of the self is directed towards cultivating, improving and protecting the self. Foucault argues that the term initially suggests physical, rather than intellectual states. Even when self-care concerns practices directed towards intellectual states, the emphasis is on mental activities and exercises, not forms of knowledge or states of mind. As Foucault points out:
The etymology [of the Greek epimeleia heautou- care of the self] refers to a series of words such as meletan, melete, meletai etcetera… The meletai are exercises, gymnastic and military exercises, military training. Epimeleisthai refers to a form of vigilant, continuous, applied, regular…activity much more than to mental attitude.223
222 Laws against sexual misbehaviour were limited and not severe. 223 The Hermeneutics of the Subject, p. 84 85
As an intellectual state, the care of the self remains a matter of exercise or activity, and does not establish knowledge claims about the world. Showing clear similarities to my discussion of Arendt’s distinction between thinking and knowledge in Chapter Two, care is better conceived as a matter of thinking as opposed to knowing. Care as an act of thought often depicts a retreat from the world to restore and rejuvenate. Care is an attitude, form of attention, and collection of practices that provide the conditions by which individuals can develop the capacity to critically reflect and self-transform.224
Self-care cultivates a different approach to defining the relationship between self, world and others, and Foucault considers it to offer possibilities for reimagining the meaning of ethical behaviour and political action more broadly. Through practices of self-care, Foucault reconceptualises an ethical subject that critically evaluates personal behaviour, actions and judgments independent of externally constituted criteria. Ideally, the care of the self leads to a different form of political thinking. In an interview, when asked about the connection between the care of the self and politics, Foucault responds by saying:
I admit that I have not got very far in this direction, and I would much like to come back to more contemporary questions to try to see what can be made of all this [whether the care of the self can be located at the heart of a new form of political thought] in the context of the current political problematic. But I have the impression that in the political thought of the nineteenth century – and perhaps one should go back even farther, to Rousseau and Hobbes – the political subject was conceived of essentially as a subject of law, whether natural or positive. On the other hand, it seems to me that contemporary political thought allows very little room for the question of the ethical subject.225
Foucault explores ethics as a form of moral subjectivation and as a form of self-constitution, and looks at different possibilities for regarding not only the history of sexuality, but also the ethical—and by extension political—subject.226 In discussing the care of the self, Foucault distinguishes ethics from morality: ethics is an active experience and practice, and morality a system of rules (a distinction Arendt does not make). Foucault describes two main types of moral systems: the first is externally enforced, asserts authority, and emphasises moral codes that reference appropriate behaviour according to a law or a set of laws. Foucault provides the Abrahamic religions as examples of the first type of moral system. The second type of moral system focuses on self-relational ethical practices, where basic rules and codes for behaviour are secondary to the attention on the formation of self within interconnected relationships through techniques and exercises. In this system authority is self-referential and takes a
224 See The Hermeneutics of the Subject, pp. 10-14; McGushin, 2007, p. 32-35 225 “The Ethics of Concern for the self as a Practice of Freedom”, p. 294 226 Arnold I. Davidson makes a similar point in the Introduction to The Hermeneutics of the Subject. Lectures at the Collége de France 1981-1982; Also see, The Use of Pleasure, pp. 29-30; Rabinow, 2000, p. xxvii. 86 therapeutic or philosophical form. The Roman-Hellenistic account of self-care, which I will examine later in this chapter, is an example of this model. Despite separating ethics and morality, Foucault acknowledges the two are not mutually exclusive. Nevertheless, the contrast is instructive in that it highlights a different approach to understanding the ethical subject.227
3.3 Epimeleia heautou / gnothi seauton (care of the self/know yourself)
In the posthumously published 1981-2 lectures at the College de France on The Hermeneutics of the Subject Foucault discusses the historical dimensions of subjectivity-truth relations and presents a detailed account the relationship between truth and the subject. 228 In the context of his broader examination of self-constitution, Foucault investigates how people are brought to see themselves as particular subjects in the first place. The Hermeneutics of the Subject expands on the history of forms of moral subjectivation and practices, initially presented in History of Sexuality, and challenges categories in Western thought that articulate the relationship between subjectivity and truth only in terms of knowledge or that describe subjectivity through processes of systemisation and categorisation.229
According to Foucault, the history of modern Western thought includes repeated statements that the founding principle concerning the truth and the subject is the result of the elevation of the ancient Greek maxim, gnothi seauton (know yourself). Consequently, modern questions on subjectivity and truth are predominantly framed in terms of self-knowledge, or by making the subject an object of knowledge. Yet, Foucault posits that gnothi seauton (know yourself) was not the sole founding principle concerning questions on subjectivity and truth and that, in ancient thought (Greek, Roman-Hellenistic, early Christian), there is a different categorical arrangement. Foucault suggests that the Delphic prescription gnothi seauton (know yourself) is intended to be taken in conjunction with epimeleia heautou (care of the self) because the latter characterises the philosophical attitude of the former. Practices of self-care are fundamental to questions of self-knowledge in antiquity, and in this context, to know the self is just one of a number of necessary practices.230
In Greek and Roman texts, the command to know yourself is always connected to the equally important care of the self. In the Socratic dialogues, Hippocrates, Xenophon, the
227 The Use of Pleasure, pp. 27-29); Paul Rabinow makes this point in the Introduction to Ethics, (Rabinow, 2000, p. xxvi-xxvii) 228 The French edition was published in 2001. The English version did not come out until 2005. 229 As Arnold I. Davidson suggests in the Introduction to the English edition of these lectures, The Hermeneutics of the Subject was, and remains, the working out of a philosophically new point of access to the history of the ancient, and especially Hellenistic, philosophy” (Davidson, 2005, p. xxi) 230 The Hermeneutics of the Subject p. 5; McGushin, 2007, p. 32 87
Epicureans, Stoics, Neo-Platonists and even the early Christian texts, the care of the self is central. In order for the Delphic precept—know yourself—to be brought into action, a person first has to be occupied with himself. As such, the maxim know yourself is dependent on the care of the self because the exercise of one makes room for the other.231 Often the principles of self-knowledge and self-care are “coupled or twinned”, and in some texts the maxim “know yourself” is even subordinated to the principle of care. In Antiquity the care of the self is, according to Foucault, one of the main principles necessary for the development and guidance of personal, social and political conduct. Yet, today, unlike knowing yourself, the care of the self is almost entirely forgotten.232
Foucault revisits the idea of the privileged place of the Delphic principle in Western philosophy many times in interviews and subsequent lectures, even speaking of an idea for a new book about the technologies of the self. Although his premature death prevents him from writing this work, it is clear his interest in the epimeleia heautou extends beyond the History of Sexuality series. As Foucault says in the opening of The Hermeneutics of the Subject lectures:
You will no doubt say that in order to study the relations between the subject and truth it is a bit paradoxical and rather artificial to select this notion of epimeleia heautou, to which the historiography of philosophy has not attached such importance hitherto. It is somewhat paradoxical and artificial to select this notion when everyone knows, says, and repeats, and has done so for a long time, that the question of the subject (the question of knowledge of the subject, of the subject’s knowledge of himself) was originally posed in a very different precept: the famous Delphic prescription of gnothi seauton (“know yourself”).233
3.3.1 Appearance of the care of the self.
In the opening lecture of The Hermeneutics of the Subject Foucault introduces the relationship between caring for, and knowledge of, the self in a close reading of sections from Plato’s Apology. As a prelude, he reminds the audience that the all too familiar maxim, know yourself, makes its first appearance around the character of Socrates, as attested in a number of Platonic texts, as well as Xenophon’s Memorabilia. Consequently, if his contention that self- care and self-knowledge exist in conjunction, epimeleia heautou should also make an appearance with the figure of Socrates. To establish that to know yourself is not the only founding expression regarding the subject and truth, Foucault predominantly focuses on three passages from the Apology. He believes these three passages suggest the possibility that to know the self is not the only maxim to emerge at this time. The three passages he discusses are:
231 “Technologies of the Self”, p.226-227; The Hermeneutics of the Subject, p.4-6; Davidson, 2005, p. xx 232 To support his claim that the care of the self was equally as important – if not more so – as to know yourself Foucault’s turn of phrase is at times intentionally confrontational (The Hermeneutics of the Subject, p. 4-5). 233 The Hermeneutics of the Subject, p.2-3 88
(1) 29d where Socrates criticises those who put wealth and status ahead of the care of their soul (Foucault often uses soul, self and subject interchangeably in discussions on care); (2) 30c when Socrates states, by putting him to death the Athenians are harming themselves and not him because no one will teach them to care for themselves; (3) 36b-d where Socrates implores that the greatest service he offers is teaching the care of the self (soul).
Foucault presents the first passage by describing Socrates’ defence before those who have reproached his current situation of possibly being condemned to death. The accusation, basically says, we are not positive about the evil you have done but you should feel ashamed nonetheless for living such a life as to lead you here. On the contrary, Socrates’ is not shamed by these judgments and asserts that regardless of a different outcome, if asked to live differently he would refuse,
Athenians, I am grateful to you and love you, but I shall obey God rather than you, and be sure that I will not stop practicing philosophy so long as I have a breath and am able to... you are Athenian, citizen of the greatest city...yet are you not ashamed for devoting all your care (epimeleisthai) to increasing your wealth, reputation and honors while not caring for or even considering (epimele, phrontizeis) your reason, truth and the constant improvement of your soul? And if anyone argues and claims that he does care...don’t think that I shall let him go and go on my way. No, I shall question him, examine him and argue at length...this is what the god demands, and I believe there is nothing better that has befallen this city than my zeal in executing this command. 234
Socrates’ task is to make the citizens of Athens attend to themselves, and realise the importance of self-care, truth and reason. As he stands before his judges and accusers Socrates insists it is not he that should be ashamed, but all those that put wealth and social status before the care of the self.
In the second passage, Socrates returns to the notion of self-care in his assertion that if he is to die, the Athenians would not be harming him but themselves, because then there would be no one to encourage self-care. This passage presents the care of the self as a practice directed towards the understanding and development of virtue, and not just a concern with health or assets. Foucault’s depiction of Socrates in this passage resembles Arendt’s appropriation of the same character. Just as Arendt’s Socrates claims that by thinking about terms such as virtue a person becomes more virtuous, so too through care of the self a person becomes more virtuous by becoming attentive to the complex relationship between self and truth.
234 The Hermeneutics of the Self, p. 5-6 [emphasis added] 89
The final passage focuses on the penalty Socrates should incur if found guilty. As with the other two passages Foucault does not offer commentary, but simply quotes Socrates’ speech at length:
What treatment do I deserve, what amends must I make for thinking I had to relinquish a peaceful life and neglect what most people have at heart – wealth, private interest, military office, success in the assembly, magistracies, alliances and political factions; for being convinced that with my scruples I would be lost if I followed such a course; for not wanting to do what was of no advantage either to you or myself; for preferring to do for each particular individual what I declare to be the greatest service, trying to persuade him to care (epimeletheie) less about his property than about himself so as to make himself as excellent and reasonable as possible, to consider less the things of the city itself, in short, to apply these same principles to everything? What have I deserved, I ask, for having conducted myself in this way [and for having encouraged you to attend to yourself? Not punishment, to be sure, not chastisement] something good, Athenians, if you want to be just.235
In this speech, Socrates again considers the greatest service he offers is the practice of self-care. He implores the Athenians to see the importance of attending to the self, even when in the pursuit of excellence.
Two key points are revealed in all three passages on the care of the self. Firstly, the epimeleia heauton, just as gnothi seauton, is an activity the gods entrust to Socrates because of their care for the Athenians. Socrates is simply carrying out an order determined by the gods. Secondly, Socrates’ role is to wake his fellow citizens from their slumber, with comparisons being made between Socrates and a horsefly (Arendt uses the term gadfly), an insect that chases animals and makes them restless. The care of the self is “a sort of thorn which must be stuck in men’s flesh”, becoming a part of and a principle of activity and continuous concern throughout life.236 According to Foucault, the care of the self emerges with the figure of Socrates and becomes one of the guiding principles to describe the philosophical attitude throughout Greek, Hellenistic and Roman culture, and the beginnings of Christianity.237
3.4 Three models of practices of the self
Foucault’s investigation presents three historical models of practices of the care of the self: Socratic-Platonic (Greek), Roman-Hellenistic and Christian. The second, third and
235 The Hermeneutics of the Self, p. 6-7 236 The Hermeneutics of the Self, p. 7-8 237 It was important to the Epicureans, with the frequently repeated expression: “Every man should take care of his soul day and night and throughout his life”. Cited in (Foucault, 2005, p. 8); it was important for the Cynics where in a text cited by Seneca (First paragraph of book seven of De Beneficiis; cited (The Hermeneutics of the Self, p. 9), the Cynic Demetrius explains how it was pointless for a person to concern himself with speculations about certain natural phenomenon when first he should look to immediate things concerning himself; and it was central to the Roman-Hellenistic culture. In Foucault’s words, “throughout the long summer of Hellenistic and Roman thought” self-care became so wide spread it truly was a cultural phenomenon. (Quotes cited in The Hermeneutics of the Self, p. 8-9). 90 unpublished fourth volume of The History of Sexuality (The Use of Pleasure, The Care of the Self and Confessions of the Flesh) deal with each respectively.238 Practices of the self are equally important during these different historical periods, but the particular practices and reasons by which individuals are led to focus attention on themselves differs. The idea of recollection, where the “soul” discovers what it is by recalling what it has seen, governs the Socratic-Platonic model and is primarily considered relevant for young men in preparation for public-political life. The Roman-Hellenistic model is a lifelong pursuit culminating at the moment of death, which is the self-finalisation of the relationship between the self and self-conversion. The Christian model primarily concerns the connection between truth and God, and focuses on notions of self- renunciation and exegesis.
Practices of the self are important in all three models when it comes to questions of truth and the subject. However, for Foucault, the care of the self reaches its greatest cultural significance in the first few centuries AD during the Roman-Hellenistic period. To clarify and add context, I will provide an overview of all three models: the Socratic-Platonic model, where Foucault contends the epimeleia heautou makes its first appearance; the Roman-Hellenistic model, which Foucault considers the golden age of the care of the self; and the Christian model where the transition from pagan philosophical askesis (practices of the self) to Christian asceticism starts to become evident. Despite Foucault’s appreciation of the Roman-Hellenistic model, in my discussion I dedicate more space to the Socratic-Platonic model because it lays the foundations for the conceptions of self-care to follow.
3.4.1 The Socratic-Platonic (ancient Greek) model
To explain the Socratic-Platonic model of a care of the self, Foucault discusses sections from Plato’s Alcibiades and Laches. Foucault’s contention is that the care of the self receives its first major philosophical elaboration in these texts.239 Foucault chooses these two dialogues
238 The Use of Pleasure describes sexual practices and the desiring subject in ancient Greece, not specifically about the Socratic-Platonic model. 239 Foucault acknowledges that the date this dialogue was written is uncertain however, as he says, he is interested in pointing out the principal features of the care of the self at the centre of this dialogue and not, in his words, “to study dates”. Foucault recognises there are questions regarding the authenticity and date of this dialogue. Although, for him, there is no question concerning the text’s authenticity he agrees there is some discrepancy as to when it was written. Foucault suggests that looking at the changing style it is possibly a composite of an early Socratic dialogue with some later additions. (See “Technologies of the Self”, p. 23; The Hermeneutics of the Self, p. 45) To his choice in using the Alcibiades Foucault claims that in the third and fourth century AD this dialogue gained importance among the Neo-Platonists and was considered to be the first of Plato’s dialogues. As such, it provided a point of departure for all Platonic philosophy at that time and was the first to be read and studied. (“Technologies of the Self, p. 33) 91 because each presents a different perspective on the care of the self. The first dialogue requires a contemplation of the divine to understand one’s relationship to truth, and the second deals with testing personal actions and behaviours, it is a test of existence.240 Foucault suggests that at the heart of the Alcibiades is the care of the self. To clarify, Foucault separates his analysis into three parts: (1) the reasons for Socrates and Alcibiades’ discussion of the care of the self; (2) the reason Alcibiades should be concerned with himself; (3) what the self is, and what care comprises.241 Laches, on the other hand, begins with the recognition that in order to live well it is necessary to care for the self. Yet, the main characters in this dialogue do not know what true care involves and nor can they recognise the true master of care. In Laches, Socrates challenges each character to describe the way he lives.
Despite the differing concerns in Alcibiades and Laches, in both, the care of the self and politics are connected because of the relationship between political life and virtue. Ancient Greek conceptions of care are central to a life of politics, which is a point of distinction from the Roman empire and the early Christian era. A constant theme in these ancient texts is the idea that a city is well governed and happy only when its leaders are virtuous. Ruling over others is difficult, with many obstacles, and a ruler must depend on his own reason for guidance. A ruler lacking self-guidance cannot be expected to govern well over others. As such, the care of the self includes notions of self-governance, and is considered crucial in the preparation of young men for public life. Unlike the Roman-Hellenistic and Christian models, where effective government of others is not the primary reason for self-care, the ancient Greeks regard care as a predominantly youthful pursuit to equip men with the capacity of self-governance and knowledge necessary to guide others throughout adult public and political life.
To emphasise the point of self-guidance and governance Foucault cites Dio of Prusa:
A man… who observes the law and equity, who is more courageous than common soldiers, who works more diligently than those who are under coercion, who refrains from any sort of sensual excess … - such a man, … is not just good for himself but … others as well…242
Good governance and the justification of ultimate goals relies on the manifestation of personal visions of just actions that are independently established. Law in this instance is not written
240 “When we compare the Laches and the Alcibiades, we have the starting point of two great lines of development of philosophical reflection and practice: on the one hand, philosophy as that which, by prompting and encouraging men to take care of themselves, leads them to a metaphysical reality of the soul, and, on the other hand, philosophy as a test of life, a test of existence, and the elaboration of a particular kind of form and modality of life.” (The Courage of Truth, p.126) 241 “Technologies of the Self”, p. 23-25 242 The Care of the Self, p. 89 92 law, but personal reason understood as the logos in the soul of the ruler, which must never be abandoned.243 To govern justly over others presupposes the self-guidance necessary for establishing a personal ethos that is then publicly expressed in actions, words and deeds throughout a person’s political life. Without the practice of self-care, it is considered difficult to genuinely care for others. Personal ethos remains baseless when one is ignorant of the relationship between self and truth. Engagement with the other is reactionary and influenced by externalities rather than the experience of genuine care and understanding. This does not mean a person cannot rule if lacking the art of self-governance. On the contrary, there have been many leaders who did not—or could not—display care and concern for others. In such instances, personal gain and self-interest are elevated to the highest goal. It is precisely in order to avoid such tyranny that the mastery of the self is held in such high regard. 244
3.4.1.1 Alcibiades
In this dialogue Socrates first approaches Alcibiades because he is aware that Alcibiades has something on his mind. Alcibiades wants to fulfil the expectations of his status, and achieve the potentialities of his freedom in the political field by gaining power and governing over others. At the time this dialogue takes place, Alcibiades is at the “famous critical age of boys”, after which it is no longer acceptable for Greek men to love them.245 Alcibiades was pursued by many lovers in his youth—Socrates never being one of them—yet he rejected them all. Alcibiades is now at the point where there are expectations for him to begin his public and political life. Socrates confronts Alcibiades to simultaneously force him to recognise that he is only motivated by ambitions to rule, and to demonstrate Alcibiades’ complete ignorance about the meaning of effective rule.
If Alcibiades wants to turn to the people, and take the city’s destiny in his hands he has to reflect on himself and take stock of his life.246 Self-care becomes the condition by which Alcibiades could pass from his position of statutory privilege, to definite political action and actual government.247 When asked about his personal capacity, ambition, the meaning of justice, and rule of law it becomes clear Alcibiades knows nothing. Socrates points out that if Alcibiades
243 The Care of the Self, p. 89 244 The Care of the Self , p. 238 245 The Hermeneutics of the Subject, p. 33; The Greek “love of boys” is discussed in detail in The Use of Pleasure in Chapter Four. 246 At this point, the care of the self is only given in a weak form, as simply a counsel of self-prudence rather than the strong meaning it will later have. (The Hermeneutics of the Subject p. 35; “Technologies of the Self”, p. 24) 247 The Hermeneutics of the Subject, p. 36 93 is to govern effectively he needs to confront two rivals: the internal rivals he meets in the city (others who wish to govern) and external rivals (the city’s enemies). Socrates demonstrates that in comparison to his rivals Alcibiades does not possess the wealth or education to be a worthy ruler despite his upbringing and family status. Yet, it is not too late to gain an “upper hand”.248
Once recognising the importance of self-care Alcibiades remains uncertain of what this actually means. To address Alcibiades’ confusion, Foucault draws attention to a question Socrates raises: “you must take care of yourself; but what is this ‘oneself’ (auto to auto)249 since it is yourself you must take care of”.250 Much like the sentence “I see myself” where the seer (subject) and the seen (object) are one, it is the same in the care of the self. The one caring for the self and the self being cared for are one. The “self” is simultaneously the subject and object of the care—auto to auto. In asking Alcibiades to take care of himself, Socrates does not refer to self-understanding in terms of abilities, passions or mortality. Similar to Arendt’s understanding of who—as opposed to what—a person is, the aim of self-care is not to provide a definition of a person’s nature or composition. The self is not clothing, tools or possession. Caring for the body and caring for the self are not synonymous. The self (soul, subject) is not a thing to look after in the same way as a broken leg—it is a concern with understanding and developing the guiding principles of personal ethos. The self is “found in the principle…not of body but of soul”. The “soul” in the Socratic-Platonic model, which concerns the nature of “man”, is closest to what today is called the subject, and from this point I will use soul-self- subject interchangeably, as does Foucault.251 It is not the eternal being that lives on in an afterlife or a person’s “true” nature, as the soul does in Christian religions. The care of the self (soul) is not the care of soul as substance, but as activity. The soul-self is dynamic, fluid, and something to be continually worked upon and transformed.
Self-care is thoroughly pragmatic, and comprises of practices directed towards cultivation, improvement and protection. Care is more than attentiveness, because through constant practices a person acts on, and transforms the self.252 Practices of self-care modify self, others, and the engagements and relationships that occur in the world. As Edward McGushin
248 For more detail see The Hermeneutics of the Subject, p. 33-36 249 This expression is found in Alcibiades, 129b cited in The Hermeneutics of the Subject, p. 38 250 The Hermeneutics of the Subject, p. 38 251 Jan Patočka is also interested in what Foucault calls, the care of the self, only he calls it the care of the soul. See the “First Lecture: Subject Body and Ancient Philosophy”, Body, community, Language, World. 252 Plato used the term khresis/khresthai or “use”, yet it does not refer simply to an instrumental relationship with the world. Foucault suggested, khresis is far more complex and concerns a person’s comportment to self, things and others. For example, in reference to a person’s relationship to the gods, khresis does not imply using the gods, but performing appropriate acts that shape this relationship. 94 says: “[t]he care of the self is then an activity of taking care […] which defines one’s very being”.253 Care, understood as an activity, does not “discover” or “reveal” some innate personal essence, but constantly defines, creates, and transforms self conceptions. The self is both an attitude and a real activity, a continual work in progress.254 The effort of the soul (subject) to know itself forms the basis on which just political action is founded. Through contemplation the soul discovers rules that serve as the basis for a personal ethos, arrived at independently, which will influence public behaviour and political action.
The first reference to the maxim, know yourself, is during Socrates’ initial encouragement of Alcibiades to stop being ignorant of his inadequacies and begin taking care of himself. Alcibiades’ realisation of his ignorance gives rise to the need to care for the self in order to achieve better self-knowledge. The second reference comes in the form of a methodological question concerning the “self” that is to be cared for. In the second reference, it becomes evident that care is equated to self-knowledge. The ability of the soul to recognise itself and grasp its own being leads to the third (and most fundamental) point Foucault identifies regarding the make-up of self-care. His contention is that this particular moment in the Alcibiades establishes the Socratic-Platonic schema concerning the relation between self- knowledge and the care of the self, and constitutes a fundamental shift in the history of practices of the self.255 The key in part lies with the privileged role of knowing. In short, to know the self is to know the true, and to know the true is to be freed.
The transformation into a subject capable of political life occurs after attaining knowledge of the “true” being of the soul (subject). To achieve such self-knowledge in the Socratic-Platonic model, it is necessary to detach from the present world in the recollection of the “other” divine world. Recollection is located at the intersection between the care of the self and self-knowledge, where “knowledge of the self and knowledge of the true, care of the self and return to being are brought together and sealed off in a single movement”.256 It is this notion of “recollection” when the soul recalls another world (divine reason), Foucault claims, that is a key feature of the Socratic-Platonic model and distinguishes this model from the Roman- Hellenistic.
Foucault suggests that this point in the dialogue, when Plato references the Delphic maxim gnothi seauton, paves the way for the subordination of the care of the self in Western
253 McGushin, 2007, p. 76 254 “Technologies of the Self”, p. 24-25 255 The Hermeneutics of the Subject, p. 67 256 The Hermeneutics of the Subject, p. 254-255 95 philosophy. Although it is not the first time gnothi seauton appears in the text, Foucault regards this as decisive with “considerable effects throughout Greek, Hellenistic, and Roman civilization” because the care of the self becomes subordinated to the “greater maxim”, know yourself. In earlier texts like the Phaedo and Symposium there are allusions to practices that do not simply fall under the precept to know yourself, practices that revolve around a withdrawal into the self, but are not directly assimilated into self-knowledge. 257 Yet, at this moment in the Alcibiades, Foucault argues, there is no mention of prior practices of the self, and as soon as the space for self-care opens and is revealed to be the soul, gnothi seauton “takes over” the space or, at the very least, room is made for such a “take over”.258 As Foucault says: “And this time we have, if you like, the gnothi seauton in all its splendour and fullness: Care of the self must consist in knowledge of the self; gnothi seauton in its full meaning”.259
The Alcibiades establishes the importance of self-care in preparation for political life, as well as providing the space for the eventual subordination of the epimeleia heautou to gnothi seauton. Foucault considers the Alcibiades an important dialogue because it highlights both the historical background in which the care of the self makes its first major philosophical elaboration, and also sets up the four main problems that remain throughout antiquity: (1) the problem of the relation between being occupied with the self and political activity; (2) the problem of the relationship between being occupied with the self and pedagogy; (3) the problem of the relation between the care of the self and self-knowledge; and (4) the problem of the care of the self and philosophical love (or the relation to a master).260
3.4.1.2 Laches
In both Laches and Alcibiades, self-knowledge through practices of self-care is achieved by personal examination and interrogation. Yet there is a difference in the object of care depicted in the two dialogues. In Alcibiades the object of care is the soul (subject), whereas in Laches it is a concern with a way of living (bios). Care in Laches does not require contemplation of the divine soul. Care concerns questioning the manner of living by putting existence to the test. I will not go into the same detail as Foucault’s analysis of Laches, though I will provide an
257 Earlier when Foucault introduces his reading of the Alcibiades he notes the difficulty in dating the text, suggesting that in the third and fourth centuries AD Neo-Platonists consider it to be the first text written. Although Foucault does not necessarily support this outright he alludes to the possibility of it being an early text. Here however, he definitely states he does not consider it to be the first text if others are supposedly before it. 258 The Hermeneutics of the Subject, p. 67-69 259 The Hermeneutics of the Subject, p. 67 260 “Technologies of the Self”, p. 26-27 96 overview of some key points of relevance concerning the argument that Laches outlines a different form of self-care to Alcibiades.
Laches begins with the recognition that a person must care for the self in order to live well, as opposed to its purpose as preparation for public, political life as presented in the Alcibiades. A central theme in Laches is the connection between self-care and parrhesia, or the ability to speak frankly. I will look at this idea in greater detail in Chapter 4—briefly however, parrhesia concerns a person’s ability to speak their beliefs without intentions to deceive or flatter. Through parrhesia a person reveals who they are, and exposes their ideas to the test of others. Again, similarities to Arendt’s views on a public forum where people express conflicting doxa is evident. Arendt does not mention parrhesia, nor does she make distinctions between doxa (opinion) or any other notions of speaking freely. However, as Chapters 4 and 5 will show, there are resemblances between Foucault’s parrhesia and key elements of Arendt’s account of public speech.
Foucault discusses Laches for four reasons: (1) it reveals the connection between care, parrhesia and practices of examination (practical exercises); (2) throughout the dialogue Socrates confronts men who exercise political and military power in Athens, and incites them to properly care of themselves by taking up another non-political discourse; (3) the purpose of the dialogue is to examine the ethical relationship between courage and truth; and (4) because it stands, in some way, in opposition to the Alcibiades. On the surface, the dialogue seems to concern finding the nature of courage, which is meant to be the hallmark of the key characters, but what is actually at stake is not a definition of courage but to each characters relationship to truth in regards to the notion of courage.
The dialogue takes place among four main characters, not including Socrates: Lysimachus, Melesias, Laches and Nicias. These characters are themselves broken into two groups. The first comprises Lysimachus and Melesias, who have arranged for the conversation to take place. Laches and Nicias, a military general and political leader, form the second group. Foucault singles out three moments in the dialogue that demonstrate the precise relationship between parrhesia (free speech), examination and care. In The Courage of Truth, Foucault says the first moment happens in the setup of the dialogue, where a “pact of frankness” is established.261 The second defines Socratic examination, and the third looks at the importance of the interaction between the need for a good teacher or master, and the care of the self.
261 The Courage of Truth, p. 128 97
The first passage of Laches introduces the four characters and establishes what Foucault refers to as, a “pact of frankness”. In this passage, Lysimachus and Melesias invite Laches and Nicias to witness an exhibition of a famous martial arts instructor. At the point when the demonstration ends the dialogue begins. Lysimachus and Melesias begin the dialogue because each has a question to ask the other two. Knowing that both Laches and Nicias are respected figures in the polis, and regarded as men that speak their mind, they approach the two for advice. Lysimachus and Melesias are concerned with their children’s education because despite coming from aristocratic families, when reflecting on their lives, both have achieved very little. The reason for Lysimachus and Melesias’ lack of accomplishment, they claim, is that neither has been taught self-care in preparation for public life. Belonging to a wealthy, powerful family is not enough to succeed without self-care. Learning self-care however, requires a teacher-master to serve as a guide to living. Yet the catch is, in order to find a proper master to teach the proper care, a person must already know such care. Foucault points out that in the history of ancient morality the notion of a suitable master is important. Lysimachus and Melesias implore Laches and Nicias to use their parrhesia to advise them on the suitability of the famous martial artist to educate and care for their children.
Laches and Nicias are regarded as public speakers of truth. Yet despite being considered skilled at parrhesia, they disagree in their views on the martial artist. Nicias judges the martial arts teacher’s lesson useful because it provides practical skills in fighting. Also, this introduction into the art of fighting can develop moral qualities of courage and boldness, and lead to an entire system of strategy. Laches, on the other hand, is critical of the exercises because he has seen this particular teacher in battle, where he was neither brave nor courageous. Laches believes, despite making a good display, the teacher would more likely hinder Lysimachus and Melesias’ children because he does not perform well under real circumstances. The disagreement between Laches and Nicias reflects a central issue in the dialogue between the discontinuity of words and deed, wherein Laches symbolises deeds and Nicias words. Yet for either to genuinely express parrhesia, words and deeds need to be harmonised.262 To help settle the impasse and unite the words and deeds of the two protagonists, Socrates enters into the dialogue.263
262 McGushin, 2007, p. 82-83 263 Until the moment of Socrates’ arrival Foucault references this first passage to demonstrate how the dialogue undermines the foundations of parrhesia. Regardless of Lysimachus and Melesias’ good backgrounds their parrhesia only serves to highlight their failings. Laches and Nicias, on the other hand, have lived what other Athenians would consider impressive lives, and people should expect to hear the truth when listening to them. Yet, when both give their honest opinions they disagree, which could suggest that at least one is not genuinely speaking what he considers to be true. 98
The dialogue shifts from a political to a technical discussion by focussing on the guidance of a worthy master and the manifestation of works.264 Foucault, in The Courage of Truth, suggests Socrates’ intervention brings about three transformations, and immediately changes the direction of the dialogue from the suitability of the martial arts instructor to Laches and Nicias’ relationship to truth. The first transformation is the change from a political to technical model of discussion. According to the political model, two characters approach one another to support their individual theses. A political setting requires winning others’ votes and determining which opinion will serve as law. Yet, by transposing normative discourse into this particular dialogue, the political model deflects the question of care.265 In this context all that results is an impasse. Socrates rejects this model and asks whether the law of majority is applicable in this instance. Instead, what needs to prevail is technique (techne), and more precisely what is needed is a technician of the care of the soul. To prove personal capacity in the art of care as techne, it is necessary either to demonstrate that a skilful, praiseworthy master- teacher has taught the person self-care or show how others have become praiseworthy as a direct result of personal advice or opinions. However, Socrates is not interested in finding the validity of another’s opinion by learning about his past masters and works. As the dialogue progresses, it becomes apparent that Socrates introduces this notion only to subordinate it through the dialogic process.
The second transformation that Foucault describes in his discussion of Laches occurs in the shift from discussing the competence of the martial arts teacher to Socrates. Having transformed the dialogue from a political to a technical discussion, Socrates does not attempt to prove himself a worthy advisor. Instead, he points out his inability to teach others because he was too poor to have a teacher himself. Socrates then turns the question of competence upon Laches and Nicias and asks each to justify their expertise. All the protagonists, including Nicias are familiar with Socrates and agree to enter into this Socratic discourse to give account of themselves, wherein each participant makes himself into a problem. In this redirection, the third transformation occurs, which relates to the discursive procedure of parrhesia that is neither political nor technical. In replacing the question of technical competence with the question of the self, the dialogue becomes a process of care where self is defined as the form of a person’s existence.
264 The Courage of Truth, p. 134-135 265 McGushin, 2007, p. 85 99
The crucial point is that Socrates’ interrogative process should occur throughout life and not just during this particular encounter. Testing personal existence is not merely a preparation for public life, it is a way of life. Entering into this way of living takes courage and requires constant self-critique and assessment. As Foucault says:
Life must be submitted to a touchstone in order to make an exact division between what is and is not good in what one does, what one is, and how one lives… it is not just a question of testing or forming this mode of life once and for all in one’s youth, but… this principle of the test of life should be followed throughout life.266
Giving account of a person’s life is not only the justification of competencies and techniques, it is the willingness to submit life to a test and distinguish the good and bad things a person has done. Self-care is an attentiveness to the meaning of actions and words that shape ethical subjectivity. This presentation of care differs to the care in the Alcibiades, where care primarily concerns the preparation of young men for public life. In Laches care of the self is the never- ending interrogation of personal existence, where meaning is located in the style of being.267 The self is an object of pragmatic concern, where existence is laid bare and underlying truths are put into words. In Laches, the interest is with life rather than the soul, where philosophy aims at testing life instead of discovering the knowledge of the soul.268
According to Foucault, Alcibiades and Laches are the two lines of development for Western philosophical reflection: one leads to the metaphysical reality of the soul, the other elaborates a particular way of living, as a test of life and existence.269 When discussing these two lines of development Foucault mentions Jan Patočka’s, Plato and Europe, which he claims is one of the few modern philosophical texts to acknowledge the importance of epimeleia (care). Foucault regards Patočka’s work as important and valuable, but sees their respective accounts as diverging. According to Foucault, Patočka approaches the theme of care from the first line of development of philosophical reflection—the knowledge and ontology of the soul (subject). The second line of development, involving care as personal examination, questioning, and the testing of life, is absent from Patočka’s analysis. It is the second line of reflection that Foucault highlights in his discussion of Laches and it is the one that appears to interest him the most.270
Despite highlighting a different approach to self-care, Foucault acknowledges that the general theme of ancient Greek care is predominantly defined as the interval between youth
266 The Courage of Truth, p. 145 267 McGushin, 2007, p. 94-95 268 Flynn, 1987, p. 218-20 269 The Courage of Truth, p. 122-127 270 The Courage of Truth, p. 127-128 100 and adulthood, as a preparation for becoming a subject-agent in the public, political arena. Although care in Laches concerns personal existence, the dominant idea of the Socratic-Platonic model is more closely aligned to the one presented in Alcibiades. Here care is linked to pedagogy, self-knowledge and political need. However, despite the Socratic-Platonic model’s preference for the type of self-concern depicted in the Alcibiades, the relationship between the care of the self and life in Laches becomes the leading concern during the Roman-Hellenistic era.
3.4.2 The Roman-Hellenistic model
It is helpful to recall the three basic conditions that determine the form of care presented in the Alcibiades: (1) the purpose of the care of the self is for young men with political ambitions (whose status allowed it) to run the city-state and govern others; (2) the objective of the care of the self is the ability to govern others reasonably and virtuously and; (3) the connection with the care of the self and self-knowledge—as to take care of the self is to know the self. Foucault points out in The Courage of Truth that these three conditions seem to lose significance by the first and second centuries AD. Self-care is no longer regarded as the means by which to acquire self-knowledge in preparation for public, political life. The importance of the act of self-care remains, but the concerns and reasons for care change to focus on “arts of living” rather than ruling well over others.271 The care of the self is no longer only the obligation of those concerned with acquiring the education and technique for public office. The objective is preparation for a kind of achievement of life, which is only completed at death.
The Roman-Hellenistic model of care covers, more or less, the first and second centuries AD.272 The notion of the care of the self reappears in numerous philosophical doctrines (pre and post the first two centuries AD), but it is during this time that the theme of care becomes broad in scope and extends into many aspects of society.273 During this period, Foucault claims, the history of self-care reaches its “highest form” of development. He writes in the third volume of The History of Sexuality (The Care of the Self), “[i]n the slow development of the art of living under the theme of the care of oneself, the first two centuries of the imperial epoch can be seen
271 The Hermeneutics of the Subject, p. 82 272 “I would like now to take some different chronological reference points and move to the period covering more or less the first and second centuries A.D.: let’s say, taking some political reference points, the period going from the establishment of the Augustinian, or Julian-Claudian dynasty, up to the end of the Antonines [historians identify this period as the High Empire], or again, taking some philosophical reference points – or at any rate reference points in the domain I want to study – let’s say that I will go from the period of Roman Stoicism in its prime, with Musonius Rufus, up to Marcus Aurelius, that is to say the period of the renaissance of the classical culture of Hellenism, just before the spread of Christianity and the appearance of the first great Christian thinkers: Tertullian and Clement of Alexandria”. (The Hermeneutics of the Subject, p. 81) 273 The Care of the Self, p. 44-45 101 as the summit of a curve: a kind of golden age in the cultivation of the self”.274 It is a period that Foucault sees marking the development of a “culture of the self”, where self-care becomes an end in itself. Practices of care are in the service of personal existence and ways of living, rather than in preparation for some other end (be that public, political life as in the previous model, or a relationship to God, as in the Christian model to come).275
Hadot, whose work inspires Foucault’s interest in ancient practices of the self, is critical of Foucault’s interpretation of Roman-Hellenistic philosophy as a “culture of the self”. Hadot argues that Foucault’s over-emphasis of ancient aesthetic practices detaches the self from any detailed account of relationships and responsibilities. Despite disagreeing, Hadot acknowledges that Foucault’s interpretation of ancient conceptions of the self is not born out of ignorance but a conscious strategy on Foucault’s part. Foucault’s project is not one that seeks to describe all aspects of the diverse practices of the self present throughout antiquity. His aim is to rethink modern conceptions of the subject, and self-understanding, and offer a model of living that could be relevant for the present.276
Hadot bases his understanding of Foucault’s account of the self on the second and third volume of The History of Sexuality and Writing the Self. Yet in Foucault’s later published lectures, particularly The Hermeneutics of the Subject, he clearly proposes a more detailed conception of the culture of the self that is not detached from relationships and responsibilities. Arnold Davidson suggests that the ‘styles of existence’ Foucault describes in the lectures from this period are actually more closely aligned with Hadot’s interpretation of ancient thought than Hadot realises.277 It is true that Foucault’s interpretation of self-care is narrower because unlike Hadot, who is a historian, Foucault’s interest is primarily with everyday life. Rightly or wrongly, Foucault’s exclusion of the spiritual and mythical aspects of care, often linked to attempts to become “one with the cosmos”, are not born out of a conceptual misunderstanding but are a conscious effort to limit the self to everyday practices. Given his continuous endeavours to identify and resist the implications of discourse and power that construct individuals’ identities, his account of the care of the self is not arbitrary or simplistically aesthetic or narcissistic. 278 Despite Foucault’s stress on “the self”, it is not an obsessive attention only on the self—every form of care he describes involves a complex relationship with and knowledge of the world and
274 The Care of the Self, p. 45; Foucault talks about this “golden age” many times throughout lecture courses and interviews during the 1980s 275 The Hermeneutics of the Subject, p. 179 276 See Hadot, 2002 277 Davidson, 2003, p. 130 278 McGushin, 2007, p. 104-105 102 others. Even when not belonging to a greater whole, Foucault’s self-care is not isolated. It is always a part of a community, sharing a world with others.279
In the Roman-Hellenistic period, the telos of the care of the self is not the city-state but care itself. This is the first major distinction between the Socratic-Platonic and Roman-Hellenistic models. In the “golden age”, the self appears as both the object of care (as in the Socratic- Platonic model) and the end in view.280 Positing the care of the self as an end in itself differentiates the Roman-Hellenistic model because it is lifelong analysis and practice, and not just a moment between adolescence and adulthood. The care of the self during the Roman- Hellenistic period is no longer the primary concern of young men preparing for public life but a general principle which, in theory at least, is applicable to everyone. However, in practice only the privileged few could occupy themselves with such endeavours because only a very small number of people were freed from pursuing life’s necessities281
Despite the disappearance of some central ideas expressed in the Alcibiades, the ancient Greek and Roman-Hellenistic model of care both address the four main themes outlined in this same dialogue. To recall, these are: (1) the relation between being occupied with the self and political activity, (2) the relationship between being occupied with the self and pedagogy, (3) the relation between the care of the self and self-knowledge and (4) the problem of the care of the self and philosophical love (or the relation to a master). I have looked at the Socratic-Platonic approach to these problems. As a point of comparison, I will now outline how the Roman-
279 Foucault is hesitant when discussing the Roman-Hellenistic culture of the self because of the fear that “culture” may be understood too loosely. Foucault’s use is very specific and technical. Culture refers to a hierarchical organisation of values, accessible to everyone, but which nonetheless gives rise to a mechanism of selection and exclusion since access to these values requires effort, sacrifice and a lifetime of devotion. According to this particular definition this hierarchy of values is posited as a universal that only the privileged few can access since these values require a highly regulated, precise conduct that is constituted as a “field of knowledge”. “First, when there is a set of values with a minimum degree of coordination, subordination, and hierarchy. We can speak of culture when a second condition is satisfied, which is that these values are given both as universal but also as only accessible to a few. A third condition for being able to speak of culture is that a number of precise and regular forms of conduct are necessary for individuals to be able to reach these values…the fourth condition for being able to talk about culture is that access to these values is conditional upon more or less regular techniques and procedures that have been developed, validated, transmitted, and taught, and that are also associated with a whole set of notions, concepts, and theories etcetera: with a field of knowledge.” (The Hermeneutics of the Subject, p. 179) 280 “...you must advance towards the self as you advance towards an end. This is not merely a movement of the eyes but a movement of the whole being, which must move towards the self as the sole objective. Advancing to the self is at the same time a return to the self...We have a problem...in these images which are not immediately coherent... I do not think it is ever completely clear or resolved in Hellenistic or Roman thought whether the self is something to which you return because it is given in advance or an objective you must set for yourself and to which you must finally gain access if you achieve wisdom. (The Hermeneutics of the Subject, p. 213) 281 The Hermeneutics of the Subject, p. 112 103
Hellenistic tradition covers these same issues. Although the main themes remain throughout all three models of the care of the self in Antiquity, the differences in approach are instructive. Where self-care in ancient Greece is primarily concerned with preparation for political life in the Roman-Hellenistic period it becomes a concern for life more broadly. Furthermore, the account of self-knowledge changes from a two-world theory requiring the contemplation of the divine to understanding one’s relationship to the immanent world.
Firstly, as mentioned, the relationship between the care of the self and political activity is no longer central. Political activity remains, but the question becomes about the correct moment to turn away from political activity to properly care for the self.282 In this model, a person leaves politics behind to truly care for the self. Secondly, Plato’s pedagogical model is replaced with a medical one where a person is expected to examine and check-up on the state of the soul throughout life. Practices of the self and philosophy are viewed as essentially therapeutic, aimed at developing the ability to withstand accidents, misfortunes and setbacks that may come to pass. Care is aligned with a medical rather than pedagogical model, where the concern is with diagnosing and working on the self. Just as a doctor has more chance of helping a patient with early intervention, so too does a person have more chance of self-correction if starting early. Even though it is preferable with such practices to start early it is never too late to begin. Paraphrasing Seneca, Foucault says, “[e]ven if we are hardened, there are means by which we can recover, correct ourselves, and become again what we should have been but never were”.283
The notion of becoming what a person “should have been” is central to self-care during this period. The expectation is that a person constantly reflects and analyses her state of being, and not just in moments of crisis when things break down. Care focuses on activities of correction rather than training and is set against a background of bad habits, mistakes, and what Foucault refers to as “an established and deeply ingrained deformation and dependence that must be shaken off”, rather than revealing a person’s ignorance (as Alcibiades’ is revealed to him).284 Additionally, because this care deals with self-correction rather than pedagogy it is a practice to prepare a person for a complete achievement of life, reached only prior to death.
282 “Technologies of the Self”, p. 26 283 The Hermeneutics of the Subject, p. 95); “There is work to do (laborandum est) and, to tell the truth, even the work is not great, if only, as I said we begin to form and correct our souls before they are hardened by bad tendencies. But I do not despair even of a hardened sinner. There is nothing that persistent hard work, sustained and intelligent zeal, will not overcome” Seneca, Letters, L.4 cited in (The Hermeneutics of the Subject, p. 103, footnote 42). 284 The Hermeneutics of the Subject, p. 94 104
Old age is regarded as the privileged moment of existence and the ideal point of a subject’s fulfilment. In the Roman-Hellenistic period, a person must be old before they can be considered a fully developed subject.285
Self-correction is not situated in opposition to another world, as in the Socratic-Platonic model, where the soul attains self-knowledge and truth in a movement between this world and the divine. During the Roman-Hellenistic period the care of the self is immanent. The focus of correction concerns the becoming free from what is beyond personal control and moving towards what is. The care of the self is a departure from ignorance, deformation, and the blind dependence on normalizing practices, discourses and relationships. The stress is on correction- liberation rather than training-knowledge. The care of the self is no longer primarily concerned with the self-knowledge necessary for political life. This is not to say that self-knowledge disappears during the Roman-Hellenistic period, but it is integrated into a much broader structure.286 Only through self-critiquing culture, customs and education is personal transformation possible. Foucault suggests that, in the Roman-Hellenistic period, self-care briefly displaces the Delphic maxim “know yourself” in questions on self-knowledge and the ethical subject.
The idea of correction and immanence leads into the third point and concerns the connection between the care of the self and self-knowledge. Although self-correction is important in both the Socratic-Platonic and Roman-Hellenistic models, in Roman-Hellenistic thought knowledge is no longer central to the idea of correction. To recall, recollection is central to the Socratic-Platonic model for gaining self-knowledge and knowledge of the true. In Roman- Hellenistic practices askesis, understood as exercise, practice, and training is essential.287 The principle features of askesis are the numerous physical and mental exercises necessary for the preparation for any situation life presents. A key feature of the self-knowledge made manifest through ascetic practices of self-care is the movement from immaturity and ignorance, to an awareness of the influence of external ideas and representations on subjective experience necessary for transformation.
The awareness of the constitution of personal agency is achieved through physical and mental exercises directed towards personal and cultural critique. These exercises facilitate a
285 The Hermeneutics of the Subject, p. 94-95, 125; “Technologies of the Self”, p. 31 286 The Hermeneutics of the Subject, p. 82-84 287 “In the philosophical tradition dominated by Stoicism, askesis 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. It has as its final aim not preparation for another reality but access to the reality of this world.” (“Technologies of the Self”, p. 35) 105 self-awareness of external influences on the formation of subjectivity, and eliminate blind dependence on normalizing practices, discourses and relationships. During this period those lacking such self-awareness are known as stultus. Referencing Seneca’s letter 52 to Lucilius, Foucault in The Hermeneutics of the Subject explains that stultus is the absence of self-care, where there is a conflation of external influences and the experience of subjectivity. The failure to critically examine external forces precludes the ability to will freely, because personal decisions and beliefs are controlled by systems outside the self.288 Unlike practices of self-care, the stultus is not concerned with personal existence nor directed to life’s completion in old age, and remains passively ignorant to the possibility of self-constituted agency. To “cure” stultitia, intervention in the form of ascetic exercises is needed to develop an understanding of the relationship between self, truth and culture, and to assimilate this knowledge into a personal ethics.
The notion of curing stultitia brings me to the final point—on the role of the master in self-care. Just as in the Socratic-Platonic model, a master is essential in providing necessary guidance in matters of self-care and personal correction. The intervention of a master is central to the process of self-transformation needed to escape stultitia. During this period the philosopher is considered a master in self-governance, and regarded as the most suitable master to cure the stultus. However, what it means to be a philosopher during the Roman-Hellenistic period is very different from modern conceptions. Philosophy is not an academic discipline, but a set of principles and practices that allow for the proper care of the self and other. The philosopher claims to be a master of governing others. 289 Philosophy teaches a variety of principles and practices necessary in developing the capability of self-care, and the master provides the tools and techniques for self-analysis necessary for reformation and transformation. A master is fundamental for curing the self’s imperfection, and serves as a mediator in the processes necessary for becoming a self-constituting subject.290
The care of the self during the Roman-Hellenistic period is regarded as a form of correction or transformation, and is based on a medical rather than pedagogical model. Care focuses on self-awareness and transformation. Through ascetic practices a person critiques the
288 The Hermeneutics of the Subject, p. 108-109 289 Although Foucault is sympathetic to the role of philosophy during this period he is aware there are numerous schools and philosophers peddling their wares, not all of whom are speaking truth in the sense of parrhesia, understood as a synthesis between words and deeds. It is at this point that Foucault identifies a divergence between philosophy and rhetoric. (The Hermeneutics of the Subject, p. 130-5; “Technologies of the Self, p.27) 290 The Hermeneutics of the Subject, p. 94-95 106 connection between conceptions of self, truth and the world, and in so doing finds liberation from the dictates of external events and representations. Where there is personal disunity and passivity, through lifelong practices of the self, a person gains the ability to will independently and be a self-constituting agent.
3.4.3 The Christian model
The Christian, or “ascetic-monastic”, model of care is formed in light of the Socratic- Platonic model depicted in the Alcibiades and begins in the third and fourth centuries AD. Additionally, although manifesting differently, the Christian model shares the Socratic-Platonic feature of a two-world theory. As with Platonic recollection, care concerns accessing the knowledge of the self and truth rather than ways of living. 291 In the Socratic-Platonic model, the two-world theory is tied to recollection—whereby knowledge of the self and knowledge of the true are united and closed off in a single movement, when the soul-self discovers itself in the recollection of the divine.292 Christianity establishes the two-world theory with the separation of the mortal world and the “real” world. Being a salvation religion, Christianity leads people from one reality to another, from death to life, and practices of the self are the necessary preparation for this transition. Salvation and eternal life are achievable through the strict adherence to a particular set of behavioural rules and conditions necessary for self- transformation. As with the prior two models, particular practices developed the self in such a way as to attain particular ends—in this instance the end being salvation.293
Christian confession becomes central to attaining the harmony and purity necessary for salvation. As such, many of the physical ascetic practices of the previous era, although not completely eradicated, are overtaken by private self-analysis. With confession being one of the dominant practices of purification, these inner activities become fundamental to deciphering the inner soul and the text. It is the obligation of every person to know what is happening internally: faults, temptations and desires. It is also a personal duty to recognise and acknowledge private faults and provide private or public witness against the self by confessing
291 “…knowledge of the self is entailed and required by the fact that the heart must be purified in order to understand the Word; it can only be purified by self-knowledge; and the Word must be received for one to be able to undertake purification of the heart and realize self-knowledge.” (The Hermeneutics of the Subject, p. 255) 292 The Hermeneutics of the Subject, p. 255 293 Foucault discusses “salvation”, or “conversion” as referred to in this chapter, in the Roman-Hellenistic care of the self also. However, salvation is understood differently to the binary terms in salvation religions. The result of our Christian heritage leads to understanding salvation as an event of transitioning from one state to another, as in this world to the next or sinfulness to purity. In the Roman- Hellenistic tradition salvation is understood as permanent activity; salvation is the permanent activity of the self on the self. 107 either to God or others. Only with self-knowledge is the purification essential for understanding the text and truth attainable. There is a circularity in the relationship between self-knowledge and truth. Self-knowledge is a necessary precondition to understanding the text and Revelation—however, only through an intimate relationship with the text and Revelation are the truths a person holds decipherable.
In The Hermeneutics of the Subject Foucault outlines three main points that define the Christian model of the care of the self: (1) as already discussed, the circularity between self- knowledge, knowledge of the true and the care of the self, where self-knowledge and truth are linked in a complicated manner, as presented in the original text and by Revelation. To gain the purity of heart necessary for salvation is only possible through a prior, fundamental relationship to the truth of the text and by Revelation and yet, to accept the truth given in the text and manifest in Revelation, purity of heart is needed; (2) self-knowledge is achieved through techniques whose essential purpose is identifying temptation and dispelling illusions that arise in the soul. Only through such identification is the purification necessary for accessing the truth (of God) possible. This idea of purity is non-existent or marginal in the Socratic-Platonic and Roman-Hellenistic periods.294 At some point post the Roman-Hellenistic era, the problem of purity displaces the aesthetics of existence, where self-care is directed to deciphering the processes and movements within the soul. It is a movement from a care of the self as questioning and creation, to inner purification through decipherment;295 (3) self-knowledge and self-renunciation unite and the practice of self-care is directed towards inner purification where renouncement is fundamental in accessing the truth of God. To develop the self-knowledge necessary to access another level of reality a person needs to renounce all worldly pleasures and desires, which for the most part are filled with sin.
In early Christianity, practices of obedience and contemplation concern thought more than action. Thoughts become perpetual objects of scrutiny to discriminate between those thoughts that lead towards God and those that do not. Unlike previous models where practices of the self are primarily personal, in Christianity thinking must continually turn to God. According to Foucault this is the beginning of the Christian hermeneutics of the self, where inner thoughts are deciphered in order to uncover what is hidden within. Early Christian self-examination presumes constant self-deception that must be uncovered to reveal inner impurity and reach
294 It is present in Pythagorean circles and in Neoplatonic schools, but is not central to practices of the self. 295 Foucault mentions the process of purification through decipherment in The Hermeneutics of the Subject, p.256 and; “The Ethics of the Concern for Self as a Practice of Freedom”, p. 274. 108 closer to God. Self-care publicly attests to personal thoughts by dividing good thoughts from the bad and verifying the quality of the thought to discern if it is pure or tainted by desire.
According to Foucault, in the first few centuries AD there are numerous exercises designed to discover and decipher the truths inherent in personal thoughts. In particular, he identifies two ancient forms of practice: exomologesis and exagoreusis.296 The first, exomologesis is a Greek term with no exact translation, and is found in various guises in Christian practices until the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Broadly speaking, exomologesis is a recognition of fact. For early Christians, it has two meanings: (1) to publicly recognise the truth of a person’s faith or of being a Christian; and (2) the penance imposed on someone seen to have committed a serious sin. Within the status of sinner there is the obligation of exomologesis. With both meanings there is an element of public recognition. In the first it is the recognition of the truth of personal faith, in the latter it is truth achieved by publicly seeking penance. In the second meaning the sinner seeks penance by visiting a bishop to request the status of penitent. The sinner provides the bishop with an explanation for reasons behind the request by outlining personal faults. This explanation is not considered a confession but a condition of the status of penitent. Following the recognition of sin, the person is marked so as to never live the same life as others. During this time, it is necessary to abide by a series of rituals to achieve purification and gain an access to the truth. In order to access truth a person must undergo a process of self- destruction where with the aid of non-verbal symbolism and theatrical ritual they break with their past and their world.297
The second form of self-disclosure, exagoreusis, occurs around the fourth century AD, and Christian principles of obedience and contemplation are fundamental to its practice. It is much less well-known and proves more interesting to Foucault. Although changed significantly, this form of self-examination is reminiscent of the verbal practices between a master-teacher and student in earlier pagan philosophies, as well as practices inherited from Stoicism. 298 In this second form of practice, nothing can be done without permission from the master—so much so that everything a student does without permission constitutes theft. Autonomy plays little role in these practices of self-care, and obedience is central to notions of self-constitution. Even when becoming a master/teacher, the permanent sacrifice of autonomy to the obedience to a master remains. Apart from complete obedience to a master, exagoreusis requires the permanent contemplation of God to ensure the necessary purity of heart. Self-verbalisation and
296 “Technologies of the Self”, p. 41-44 297 “Technologies of the Self”, p. 43 298 I am using the term student but these practices of the self were between a monk and his director. 109 permanent obedience to a master is the only way to know the quality of a person’s thoughts. In revealing the movements of the conscience, a student stands in a hermeneutic relationship to both self and master. Permanent verbalisation is the ideal because confession leads to self- knowledge and knowledge of the true. Yet this ideal is impossible, because the price of permanent verbalisation is that everything that cannot be verbalised is understood as a sin.299
Exomologesis and exagoreusis are different terms that share the theme of renunciation. It is impossible to have self-disclosure without renunciation. In exomologesis it is the renouncement of self, past and world; in exagoreusis it concerns the renunciation of the self to the obedience of a master. Although these two forms of self-disclosure and the practices surrounding them are located in the first few centuries AD, the notion of renunciation remains important throughout Christianity more broadly. Renunciation is important because of its connection to self-disclosure and verbalisation (confession). Even today, beyond religious experience, the remnants of this tradition remain. The care of the self no longer concerns preparation for public-political life or ways of living in this world. It is about internal practices aimed at deciphering inner thoughts and purifying the soul. It is not self-care directed towards the capacity to speak truthfully (synthesis of word and deed) or to live a better life with others, it is self-renunciation in order to better see God. With these changes towards the existence of a private, inner life the care of the self as practice is gradually displaced, and self-knowledge to discover the truth of a person’s being is elevated to the highest ideal. Despite gnothi seauton “usurping” the epimeleia heautou in the Western history of thought some remnants of the early Christian tradition remain. Although Foucault identifies the care of the self as playing a role in early Christian practices, Christianity is also the beginning of its end.
3.5 Conclusion
This chapter provides an exegesis and framework for Foucault’s idea of the care of the self. In an attempt to resurrect epimeleia heautou in contemporary discussions and create a space for a self-constituting subject, Foucault looks at three different models of practices of the self to explore the meaning of this idea: the Socratic-Platonic, Roman-Hellenistic and Christian. How the self is understood, what care consists of and what the end of this care is varies between each model.300 For Foucault, the Socratic-Platonic and Christian models are generally considered the two “great models” of antiquity, with immense historical prestige. However, it is the second schema, wedged in between the two greats which Foucault considers the “golden age” of the
299 “Technologies of the Self”, p. 46-48 300 The Hermeneutics of the Subject, p. 258-9 110 care of the self. Neither grounded in recollection nor exegesis the Roman-Hellenistic era offers an understanding of care that concerns how to live in the world. Unlike the other two models, the Roman-Hellenistic model does not bring together care of the self and knowledge of the self, nor does it move in the direction of self-renunciation. Instead the central ideal concerns constant self-creation.
This idea of living life in constant creation through critical practices appeals to Foucault. Due to this creative element, Foucault labels this idea of self-care as an aesthetics of existence, and tries to incorporate it into his own conception of self-constitution. However, as I will argue in the next chapter, it is important not to reduce Foucault’s preference for self-creation to an aestheticism akin to dandyism. In the next chapter I will explore the political and ethical implications of the care of the self—after all, Foucault is not discussing a long-forgotten notion merely to point it out and then move on. He sees this idea of self-care, its relation to self- understanding and parrhesia, as offering different possibilities to current approaches to ethical and political problems. I will explore Foucault’s reappropriation of these various notions of care in his explorations of the self-constituting subject, demonstrate its potential for establishing a non-prescriptive account of ethics and examine the political consequences that follow from this.
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Chapter Four
Foucault and the art of ethico-political engagement
In Chapter Three I looked at Foucault’s argument concerning the Western philosophical tradition’s denigration of the ancient concept of the care of the self. I presented three models of self-care and argued that, for Foucault, these practices of the self play an important role in the relationship between the subject, truth and knowledge. In this chapter, I will examine Foucault’s discussion of the ways in which such practices reformulate the relationship between self and others, as well as shaping a person’s comportment towards the world. I will argue this notion of self-care reframes the meaning of living and acting in the world, and offers possibilities for a more dynamic understanding of ethics. Finally, I will suggest that the care of the self influences personal engagements in the world, and presents alternatives for ethical and political action.
To clarify the relationship between self-care and ethico-political engagement, I first expand the idea of the relationship between an aesthetics of existence and the subject of ethics more broadly to demonstrate how ethics, in Foucault, becomes the mediator between the subject, knowledge and power. Elaborating on Foucault’s conception of freedom, I will show how in his ethics of self-care Foucault attempts to discover transgressive modes of thinking and living that are not simply products of normalizing forces (or power to use Foucault’s term). Next, I outline the influence of Pierre Hadot’s work on Foucault’s account of the care of the self. Expanding on points mentioned in Chapter Three, I elaborate Hadot’s account of philosophy as a way of life and contrast this to Foucault’s aesthetics of existence. Thirdly, I explain the meaning of askesis and present an example of one of the many ancient Greek ascetic practices. Following this I compare Foucault’s notion of an aesthetics of existence with more “traditional” accounts of moral behaviour. As part of this comparison, I consider a common criticism of Foucault—that his account of ethics is merely an obsession with the self amounting to no more than a modern form of dandyism. This line of attack, in its refusal to consider any significant relation between the ethical and aesthetic, is limited in its capacity to understand Foucault’s project—and more significantly, ignores the insights that the aesthetic dimension of the ethical can disclose. Next, I return to the notion of parrhesia, touched upon in Chapter Three, to discuss the connection between self-care and the ability to speak freely. Finally, I connect all of these elements to highlight how a care of the self offers a possibility for a dynamic account of the ethical, and also presents an alternative for ethico-political engagement more generally.
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4.1 The subject of ethics
Foucault identifies three aspects of ethics301: ethical substance, the mode of subjection and ascesis (technique). Each of these aspects have been touched upon, but it is useful for understanding the ethical subject to look at these three aspects more closely. Firstly, ethical substance refers to a subjectivity insofar as it is defined by a range of externally and internally enforced practices (power, knowledge, self). The particularities of these modes of subjectivity govern a person’s thinking and actions, and range from such things as forms of sexual identity to how people are brought to embrace the ideals of a socio-cultural milieu.302 The formation of a particular kind of subject, a process that Foucault refers to as subjectivation, is the result of a complex set of forces acting and reacting upon one another. This contrasts with a view of subjectivity that casts it as unchanging and fundamental. Modes of subjection are inescapable because, at any given time, there is always a set of historically contingent characteristics and capacities defining how a self-subject is understood, and how she understands herself. Modes of subjection are whatever is internalised and comes to inform the constitution of the ethical subject; this could be Holy writ, reason, or political conviction to name a few. Yet, recognising such modes as contingent, albeit necessary, allows for a critical engagement with subjectivity that opens a possibility for transformation.
Foucault disagrees with the standard Cartesian model of subjectivity that has come to be the overriding model of subjectivity in modernity. However, he also rejects the possibility of discarding subjectivity, understood as a set of contingent correlates, altogether. Modes of subjection that define forms of subjectivity are inescapable, but this is not the same as saying the subject is passively defined. Foucault uses the term ethical substance when talking of his conception of the ethical subject. It is easy to misunderstand ethical substance to mean that the subject has as fixed ethical structure. However, Foucault’s use of this term, while providing a tip of the hat to a more traditional understanding of innate quality of the ethical subject, he simultaneously points out that ethical substance is not a substance in the strict sense, but rather that it is defined by various practices. Ethical substance is the aspect of the self that is relevant
301 Ian hacking includes a fourth element, a teleology – the kind of being to which we aspire when we act ethically. See Hacking, 1986. 302 For example, identifying, and being identified, as homosexual includes a multiplicity of practices that define this “subjectivity”, and are simultaneously imposed internally by oneself and externally by the time, place, society, culture, sub-culture and so forth. In an interview with a French gay magazine, Foucault suggests that homosexual subcultures offer the possibility for new forms of subjectivity. Foucault says in an interview, “…[it’s] possible that gay culture will be not only a choice of homosexuals for homosexuals – it would create relations that are, at certain points, transferable to heterosexuals”. (“The Social Triumph of the Sexual Will”, p.160) 113 for ethical judgment, and provides the basis of personal concerns and self-understanding. It can be feelings or intentions as in Kant, or inner unity as for Arendt. However, to appreciate Foucault’s use of the term “substance”, it is necessary to understand that this ethical substance is not fixed.
Techniques of self-care offer the possibility to shape and transform life, behaviour and relationship. With such techniques, there is no ultimate guiding principle or guaranteed success (like the good or beauty for the ancient Greeks). It is necessary for individuals’ to play around with the meaning of a self-subject to explore the possible limits for subjective transformation. Through constant work questioning the modes of subjection and developing one’s self-care technique, historically determined, rigid, object-like forms of subjectivity are undermined.303 It is crucial to this process to recognise that the self is not given and does not have ontological precedence, and that subjectivity is transformable. Foucault says by finding the lines and fractures in external and internal modes of objectification it helps to “open up the space of freedom… [and] of possible transformation”.304
This notion of the self-subject as a form to be worked upon and transformed brings me to another aspect of ethics: ascesis or technique. The fundamental point of ascetic practices is that they establish a transformative relation to the self. As such, constant work is necessary to question, shape and transform the self-subject. Examples of asceticism can be moderating acts, self-deciphering, or analysing desires. It can also involve the breaking down of commonly held truths and ideas regarding the world and self. As such, it is necessary to develop techniques to help inspire and provoke such transformation. However, unlike ancient Greece where there are publicly acknowledged established practices, Foucault advocates developing techniques that are broad in scope and that differ between people. The key element is that such techniques contribute to an ethics of self-transformation, and are not just learned practices that are repeated unthinkingly. It is continual, critical, self-transformation that manifests in practices as varied as sadomasochism305 and genealogical critique.
The question that ultimately interests Foucault is, how is it possible, outside of dominant institutional frameworks, to build new forms of affective relationships? Sadomasochism and genealogy are not in themselves key features of Foucault’s conception of ethics as self-care. Not every person interested in sadomasochism is caring for the self, and nor is every person caring
303 For an interesting account on a similar point see O'Leary, 2002, p. 130-133. 304 “Structuralism and Post-structuralism, p. 36 305 Foucault is interested in the various practices in the gay scene, such as Sado-Masochism and how these contributed to a different view of the gay self-subject. 114 for the self engaging in sadomasochism—and the same goes for any other practice. The essential feature is a certain attitude towards the self that embraces the contingency and necessity of subjectivity, and regards the subject as a malleable form. On Foucault’s account, there is a necessary connection between ethics and an attitude towards existence that involves both a critical attitude to the world, and a compulsion to face the task of self-creation that re-imagines and transforms modes of behaviour and ways of thinking.306 One example he mentions, particularly in interviews, concerns the position of gay men in society. A particular stance that he holds, which is very Nietzschean, is that the homosexual community, precisely because of its exclusion from dominant institutional modes, should not fight for equal recognition and assimilation but use this marginal position to rethink sexual practices and develop new forms of life or affective relationships. Foucault says in an interview from 1981,
Rather than saying what we said at one time, “Let’s try to re-introduce homosexuality into the general norm of social relations,” let’s say the reverse — “No! Let’s escape as much as possible from the type of relations that society proposes for us and try to create in the empty space where we will see new relational possibilities.” By proposing a new relational right, we will see that nonhomosexual people can enrich their lives by changing their own schema of relations.307
Just as with his notion of truth, the ethical subject for Foucault is a process that embraces contingency, and aims at self-transformation through a number of different paths. Transformation is not an end in itself. Truth, subject, and ethics are all viewed as processes aimed to destabilise ossified structures and prevent the imposition of others.
4.2 Pierre Hadot’s philosophy as a way of life
Foucault seeks an ethics that combines regulation and structure with openness and changeability, and it is precisely this element that attracts him to ancient relations of the self. Earlier I mentioned Hadot’s influence on Foucault’s later work, most particularly with regard to the different ways of understanding what it means to live a philosophical life. In particular, Foucault is interested in Hadot’s interpretation of ancient texts, and the emphasis on the importance of what he terms spiritual exercise. Hadot begin from the premise that it is important to situate ancient thinkers in the “living praxis from which they emanated” rather than assuming they are attempting to construct systems in the same way as modern philosophers.308 According to Hadot, a fundamental aspect of this lived praxis is the oral dimension of ancient philosophy, from which the written philosophical works of antiquity are never entirely free. This lived discourse is intended to produce a particular psychic effect in the
306 “What is Enlightenment”, p. 317-320 307 “The Social triumph of the Sexual Will”, p.160 308 Hadot, 1993, p. 8 cited in Davidson, 1995, p. 19 115 reader or listener and not simply to pass on information. As such, dialogical learning equates to being able to philosophise. Hadot posits that a Socratic dialogue is actually a spiritual exercise that calls on a person to pay attention to himself, to care for himself and to know himself. Self- knowledge is only possible through a relationship with the self and constitutes the basis of all spiritual exercises. According to Hadot, such spiritual exercises are central to understanding ancient philosophers’ writings and their philosophical discourse.
In Antiquity, theory is not posited as an end in itself, but is always in the service of ascetic practice. As such, the significance and aim of ancient philosophical discourse is conditioned by the attempt to transform individuals’ lives by providing a philosophical art of living. Foucault uses this idea, of philosophy as an art of living, as the basis for his account of techniques aimed to develop a personal relationship to ethics that is not reliant on universal principles. Although there are guiding principles concerning techniques of the self, for the most part the rules and principles of these techniques, and the form that is given, is personally invented. Unlike the ancient models of self-care Foucault presents in The Hermeneutic of the Subject309 Foucault does not personally offer specific practices or guidelines for self-care. In ancient Greek, Roman- Hellenistic and Christian models of care, Foucault clarifies that the role of the master is central to learning practices od self-care. Foucault however, does not present a formal account of particular practices, and neither does he assert the need of a master. Foucault’s practices of self- care are unspecified, and revolve around notions of personal responsibility, accountability, and a consistency between the truths a person holds publicly and privately, as well with words and deeds. As he says, “the care of the self can be centred entirely on oneself, what one does, on the place one occupies among others”.310
The reduction of practices of the self to ethical exercises alone in The Use of Pleasure and The Care of the Self troubles Hadot. For him, ancient exercises need to be understood in relation to three major areas of philosophy: dialectic or logic, physics and ethics.311 According to Hadot, in Foucault’s reduction of the art of living to ethics alone it is impossible to properly understand the spiritual exercises of antiquity. It is true that ancient ethics puts the rules of life into practice by setting out the principles, distinctions and definitions of virtues and vices as well as a lived ethics, but logic and physics also share these dual elements of theory and practice. For instance, logic concerns propositions, syllogisms, various ways of refuting sophism, and
309 He also discusses these models in The Courage of Truth and “Technologies of the Self” along with a few others. 310 “The Ethics of Concern for Self as a Practice of Freedom”, p.295 311 Hadot, 1993, pp. 18-29 cited in Davidson, 1995, pp. 23-24. 116 exercises to learn to apply abstract rules, but there is also a lived logic that consists of not consenting to falsities. Again, physics comprises both the theoretical and the lived experience; the latter involving a cosmic consciousness that brings pleasure to the soul. This belonging to a whole, which Hadot believes Foucault omits from his discussions, is a central element to ancient notions of living. In reducing the care of the self to personal ethics, Foucault’s account of ascetic practices becomes too narrow. No room remains for a broader consciousness, through which the philosopher can view her relationship to the world. Hadot contends that, by not allowing the self to become aware of its belonging to a whole, Foucault is unable to see the full scope of ancient spiritual exercises where physics, logic and ethics all play an equal part in self- transformation. Hadot writes:
It is quite true that… the ancients did speak of an “art of living”. It seems to me, however, that the description M. Foucault gives of what I had termed “spiritual exercises,” and which he prefers to call “techniques of the self,” is precisely focused far too much on the “self,” or at least on a specific conception of self… In fact, the goal of [ancient] exercises is to go beyond the self, and think and act in unison with universal reason.312
And:
In this way, one identifies with an “Other”: nature, or universal reason, as it is presented within each individual. This implies a radical transformation of perspective, and contains a universalist, cosmic dimension, upon which, it seems to me, M. Foucault did not sufficiently insist. Interiorization is going beyond oneself; it is universalization.313
Foucault’s omission of logic and physics from his account of the care of the self is undeniable. Foucault does not take account of the other two areas in any sustained way and Hadot is correct in pointing out that Foucault mainly focuses on the ethical dimension. Yet, it seems unlikely that having read Hadot, along with his own meticulous research of ancient texts Foucault would be completely ignorant of the role of physics and logic in ancient thought and practices of the self. Perhaps logic and physics are not an issue for because he has already covered what he might see as the equivalent of these two dimensions in earlier work on power and knowledge. Foucault’s project on self-constitution is not a revival of the exact account of self-care presented in antiquity but an exploration of practices that might offer new possibilities for the subject of ethics. A comment Veyne makes regarding an unrelated conversation on Foucault’s ideas of self-care demonstrates that Foucault is aware of the idea of a lived physics and logic, but that he does not consider it to be all that important for his particular project. Following an exchange with Foucault, Veyne says, “[o]ne day when I asked Foucault: ‘The care of the self, that is very nice, but what do you do with logic, what do you do with physics?’, he
312 Hadot, 1995, p. 207 313 Hadot, 1995, p. 211 117 responded: ‘Oh, these are enormous excrescences!’’’.314 Additionally, as Foucault says in “The Return to Morality”:
…I believe that this “fishing around” that one undertakes with the Greeks it is absolutely necessary not to fix the limits nor establish in advance a sort of program that would permit one to say: this part of the Greeks I accept, that other part I reject. The whole Greek experience can be taken up again in nearly the same way by taking into account each time the differences in context and by indicating the part of this experience that one can perhaps save and the part that one can on the contrary abandon.315
Much like Benjamin’s “pearl diver” that Arendt references, Foucault explores the past not to resurrect ideas, but to discover different possibilities for thinking and acting ethically in the present.
Hadot is perhaps correct in his assertion that, to grasp the centrality of ancient spiritual exercises, it is important to include all three areas of philosophical practice. Yet, as is the case with all of Foucault’s explorations, he never wants to just understand a way of thinking in the past and reapply it to modern problems. He wants to see how ideas change over time in order to rethink or problematise current issues. Just as modern music takes sounds from the past to create something different yet related, Foucault does the same with ideas and ways of thinking. He does not want to learn to play a particular composition note for note. Instead he looks at the various ways of approaching the song using current methods, drawing out the similarities and differences and in the process perhaps revealing something new. However, despite my claim that Foucault is not interested in all aspects of ancient practices of the self, Hadot is correct when he says: “[t]hese differences [in their interpretation of the care of the self] could have provided the substance for a dialogue between us, which, unfortunately, was interrupted all too soon by Foucault’s premature death”.316
4.3 Askesis - practices of the self
As discussed, Foucault’s notion of care does not present a prescriptive theory of ethics and is based on practices of the self. The view that there should, and moreover could be a single morality that everyone must submit to and accept, strikes Foucault as absolutely catastrophic. Instead he investigates other models for developing an ethical subject that could offer different possibilities to contemporary approaches:
The search for styles of existence as different as possible from each other appears to me to be one of the points around which contemporary research could be initiated in particular groups in
314 Veyne, 1991 cited in Davidson, 1995, p. 25; Also see, Boothroyd, 1996 and Oksala, 2005, p. 166-168. 315 “The Return of Morality”, p.225 316 Hadot, 1995, p. 206 118
the past. The search for a form of morality that would be acceptable to everyone –in the sense that everyone would have to submit to it– strikes me as catastrophic. 317
Foucault challenges ubiquitous models of morality and is unwilling to accept the current arrangement of dominant systems, Foucault searches for alternative forms of resistance by looking at how subjects constitute themselves, rather than the ways in which they are constituted.
It is difficult if not impossible to step outside of a socio-historical context, but by providing a genealogy of knowledge, power and ethics, Foucault highlights differences in an attempt to trigger new ideas for present day problems. His return to antiquity and the care of the self is one such attempt, whereby in rethinking the meaning of ethics and the subject, different possibilities to the modern understanding of acting both ethically and politically are put forward. Each era offers different perspectives, worldviews, problematics and concerns that have the potential to reframe current issues in such a way as to perhaps transform them altogether. Although similar problems occur across different times, the way these problems are framed differs. Foucault’s interest in ancient thought is precisely this juxtaposition of such differences and similarities. By highlighting completely different arrangements of conceptions of the self and world, Foucault hopes to put into question current modes of subjectivation.
Foucault acknowledges there are many problems in antiquity, and by no means does he look back to this time as if it were an ideal in need of revival. Foucault sums up this sentiment best when asked in an interview whether he finds the Greeks admirable by simply responding, “No”.318 Of course, this answer does not in any way explain Foucault’s relationship to the thought of antiquity and it is clearly untrue that he disregards the era altogether. Although Foucault does not believe ancient Greece is the exemplar of a model society, there are many ideas he finds appealing. For instance, one of the most important aspects to arise out of ancient Greece, for Foucault, is not its ideal of the beautiful life but the genuine questioning, as we saw in the previous chapter, of how we are to live? A fundamental aspect of this question is that it implies a view that ethical practice concerns the form of a person’s life, rather than achievement of some ultimate beauty, purity or unity, the definition of which is always historically contingent. This connection between ethics and aesthetics in Foucault’s work offers a reconceptualization of the ethical subject, but has also opened him up to numerous attacks based on a misunderstanding of what Foucault means by the “form” of a person’s life.
317 “The Return to Morality”, p. 330 318 “The Return of Morality”, p. 319 119
4.3.1 Is self-care selfishness?
In several interviews during the early 1980s Foucault laments the fact that art has become something related only to objects; he corrects this restricted view of art by claiming that people need to live life as if it were a work of art:
What strikes me is the fact that, in our society, art has become something that is related only to objects and not individuals or to life. That art is something which is specialized or done by experts who are artists. But couldn’t everyone’s life become a work of art? Why should the lamp or the house be an art object but not our life. 319
This idea of the bios as the material for art is something that fascinates Foucault. When speaking about his later work on ethics and the care of the self, Foucault regularly returns to this process of living self-creation, where life is continually shaped and moulded. Yet what does living like a work of art mean, precisely? Surely, Foucault is not simply suggesting that in the absence of universals we concentrate on giving our lives the most beautiful form possible? After all, if this is his proposal, a problem emerges in the definition of such a beautiful artwork, as well as the capability of passing judgment over this beauty.
A division between art, ethics, and knowledge is a common sentiment in modernity, with Kant being one of the first to enunciate that beauty exists independently of science or ethics. I have already shown Arendt’s appropriation of Kant’s critique of judgment in her re- conception of ethics, and the implications this has for politics. Although her concern is not with an aesthetics of existence, she uses Kant’s notion of judging particulars, without subsuming them under universals, for her own political ideas on judgment. It is in the same spirit that Foucault enters into a debate concerning the relationship between art, life and ethics. Yet this idea—an ethics based on the idea of the self as a work of art—has met with much hostility. The fear is that without recourse to a prevailing moral structure, such as Aristotelian virtue or Kantian duty, the idea of the self as artwork easily transforms into a politics that treats the masses as raw material to be moulded for diabolical ends; Nazism and Fascism are the readily employed examples to support this case. The primary concern of this critique is that the beautiful illusion of aesthetic expression takes priority over principles of political right. Richard Wolin, among others, sees Foucault’s emphasis on aesthetics as a kind of immorality that points towards a “politics of nihilistic catastrophe”.320 His primary fear is that approaching life as
319 “On the Genealogy of Ethics”, p. 260-261; As I will argue later in this sectionFfoucault’s sloppiness in distinguishing between art as travail (process/style) rather than oeuvre (product/object) opens him up to some superficially valid, but generally unwarranted criticism. 320 Wolin, 1986, p. 85; Timothy O’Leary presents a counter argument to Wolin’s views in his article, “Foucault, Politics and the Autonomy of the Aesthetic” (O'Leary, 1996). Also cf. Jane Bennett, “’How is 120 aesthetic expression could have catastrophic implications because of the abandonment of any grounds for what is right, and as I have pointed out in my discussions on Arendt, the very suggestion that there could be an ethics without universal principles makes some decry that the ultimate implication of such ideas is an amoral free-for-all—and it is no different in relation to Foucault.
I contend that this line of criticism does not directly engage with Foucault’s work. These are not his concerns; they reflect the critic’s assumptions about the nature of morality. I am not by any means suggesting Foucault’s ideas are without problems but, as I will show, many of the attacks on this front arise from a need to defend a particular moral system rather than with a genuine debate with Foucault’s ideas. Andrew Thacker, for example, demonstrates this view when he argues that Foucault confuses the ancient Greek and Kantian sense of aesthetics. He argues that the two approaches are incongruous because the ancient Greek form of aesthetics relates to perception—for example to be seen to be living a good life—and is interconnected with social and ethical practices. The Kantian understanding of aesthetics, however, relates to matters of taste, characterised by disinterested delight, where aesthetics serves no ends other than its own. The possibility of some “semantic slipperiness” is initially an interesting observation until it becomes evident that Foucault’s “confusion” emanates from Thacker’s refusal (or inability) to let go of his Kantian understanding of aesthetics. His Kantianism guides his subsequent attack of Foucault’s aesthetics of existence. When quoting Foucault’s use of aesthetics, Thacker remarks that Foucault’s use is “clearly not recognisably Kantian” because the autonomy of the aesthetic is negated and subjective aspects rather than universal codes inform the ethics.321
Thacker’s argument, along with others like Wolin and Peter Dews, rests on the premise that aesthetics and ethics are incompatible and any attempt to combine the two is dangerous. Dews argues that it would be anachronistic to fuse Kantian and ancient Greek aesthetics. The key point in this line of criticism is the necessity to keep the ethical and aesthetic realms separate, because modern day conceptions of aesthetics do not contain ethical or social practices.322 For example, Thacker states, today it is impossible to capture the ancient concept of aesthetics because art objects contain no intrinsic ethical meaning. For Wolin, an aesthetics of existence may lead to good relations between interlocutors through discussions of what
it, then, that we are still barbarians?’ Foucault, Schiller, and the Aestheticization of Ethics” (Bennett, 1996). 321 Thacker, 1993, p. 14 322 Dews, 1989, p. 37; Cf Thacker, 1993, p. 14 121 actions are considered beautiful, stylish and good, but its application to spheres other than artistic practice could result in praising actions that are manipulative and predatory.323 Terry Eagleton expands on this concern, suggesting that without moral codes it is impossible to approve or disapprove of an action that is aesthetically carried out. He puts the problem this way: “what would a stylish rape look like?”. He argues that the best to hope for is an aesthetics of existence based on autonomy and not ethics.324 Without principled guidelines there is no way to determine between what is and is not an ethical act. The problem with an aesthetics of existence understood in all three of these critiques is that it cannot provide a necessary framework by which to condemn certain acts as wrong.325
This raises the broader issue, mentioned earlier, concerning not only morality and ethics but the significance of any criteria, internal to an aesthetic practice, by which to judge something as significant. Foucault turns to ancient ideas of the self to demonstrate the limits of, and find alternatives to, standard approaches to universally applicable moral systems. As I mentioned earlier in this chapter and also in Chapter Three Foucault’s self-care is not amoral or context free. Practices of self-care always exist in relation to universal ideas such as justice or virtue, but these ideas are not in themselves beyond critique. Furthermore, a personal relationship to truth, as this relates to the understanding of universal principles, does not exist independently of the world and others. Such truths guide and facilitate a person’s actions and judgments. However, these “truths”, which serve as an ethical orientation, are not timeless and beyond question. The care of the self is a practice that continually assesses, reaffirms and discards the foundations that provide meaning and guidance, and although these “personal truths” appeal to universal ideals, they are not universally applicable to all at all times and, as such, no action can be said to be inherently bad or good, and no idea of good or virtuous acts is beyond critique.
Thacker, Wolin and others set up their attacks by locking Foucault’s work into the space he tries to disrupt. Each assumes their ethical framework as beyond critique, and regards any attempt to question this premise as a dangerous deviation. Thacker, Wolin, Dews and Eagleton do not entertain the possibility of developing a different kind of ethical attitude. Instead, each attacks Foucault’s aesthetics of existence, made manifest through practices of self-care, as simply a concern with beauty and style, regardless of the nature of the actions (as in Eagleton’s
323 Wolin, 1986, p. 79, 84 324 Eagleton, 1991, p. 394 325 Other critics of the dangers of Foucault’s lack of normative guidelines include Taylor, 1996; Walzer, 1996; Fraser, 1989 and; perhaps the best known critic, Habermas, 1987. Habermas and Foucault were set to have a debate on this very topic but unfortunately due to Foucault’s untimely death this never took place. 122 appeal to the “Foucauldian possibility” of a “beautiful rape”). In Thacker’s critique, for example, there is an awareness of Foucault’s project. After “demonstrating” the disastrous consequences of Foucault’s aesthetics of existence, based on modern conceptions of aesthetics, Thacker states that the best Foucault can hope for by looking back to the ancient Greeks is a reminder that our present configuration of ideas is not set in stone and is capable of rearrangement. Yet just as quickly as he suggests present configurations of thought may not be timeless, Thacker casts this “absurd” notion aside. The result is that Thacker engages with the idea of aesthetics from one perspective and does not entertain the possibility that perhaps his own “configuration of these various realms is not set in stone”.326 Furthermore, Thacker, along with the others mentioned, demonstrate belief in the progress of knowledge, where “new” and “correct” ideas replace out- dated ones. In accepting progress as inherent in the development of ideas, it is impossible to “return” to an ancient Greek view of aesthetics that meshes the social and ethical—because this has already been displaced.
By ignoring Foucault’s actual account of the care of the self, critics of his aesthetics of the self appeal exclusively to an understanding of aesthetics that is separate from any ethical structure. This restricted view of aesthetics allows them to equate the care of the self with selfishness, and conclude that the striving for beauty, at best, is ethically blind and, at worst, leads to horrendous actions. At no time do any of these criticisms engage with the conception of self-care and aesthetics that Foucault presents. This critique of Foucault’s self-care rests on a fundamental failure to understand the challenge of living the life of continual, critical self- creation that Foucault puts forward as an alternative to morally prescriptive systems. Rather than explore the possibilities of different ethical systems, Thacker and the others set up attacks to allow them to reaffirm the superiority and necessity of a universal ethics.
To explain the criticism Foucault faces from thinkers like Dews, Thacker, Wolin and Eagleton, Arnold Davidson points out that in most Anglo-American moral philosophy developing a relationship with the self is not considered ethically relevant.327 When such relations do appear, they generally concern the question of personal duties, usually presented as a list of prohibitions. Additionally, discussions of such duties are always limited, and considered of less importance than the duties towards others, since the latter are seen to be more complex and numerous. Davidson cites Alan Donagan as an example of this approach. Davidson claims that, after proposing a fairly traditional list of prohibitions against self-mutilation, suicide and
326 Thacker, 1993, p. 15 327 Davidson, 1996, p.231-232 123 diminishing health, Donagan attempts to determine how demanding these duties are and when exceptions are permitted. Yet, despite presenting a work that primarily concerns a discussion about self-directed duties, Donagan nonetheless opens with the claim, “[a]s we shall see, the relations which human beings can have to one another are more complex than those they can have to themselves”.328
Such standard approaches to moral philosophy, which predominantly concern ethical codes and ignore the role of self-relation in ethical judgment, is evident in the above critiques of Foucault’s idea of an aesthetics of existence. For critics from the Kantian and Anglo-American tradition of moral philosophy, the only relevance a relationship to the self can hold is in the desire to make the moral code complete, and in the wish to know what specific duties (if any) a person has to himself. Yet from Foucault’s perspective, there is little difference between these Kantian heirs and Schopenhauer’s claim that there are indeed no such duties at all, because both ethical approaches ignore the multifaceted and complex relationship to the self. 329 As Davidson concludes:
Even if our duties to others are more complex than our duties to ourselves, our relations to ourselves have all the complexity one could ever hope for, or fear. By showing how to embed our relations to ourselves in a grid of ethical intelligibility, Foucault has helped to articulate the kind of complexity these relations actually embody. Unless moral philosophers supplement their discussions of moral codes with ethics a la Foucault, we will have no excuse against the charge that our treatises suffer from an unnecessary but debilitating poverty.330
Davidson’s argues that the “grid of ethical intelligibility” encompasses a diverse range of relations that are not easily reduced to a duty toward others.
Foucault reveals the complex nature of ethics by suggesting that perhaps the application of moral codes is not necessarily the same as acting ethically, and nor should ethics be reduced to the adherence to universal moral codes. Defending against criticisms such as Wolin’s on Foucault’s admiration for living life as a work of art, one can highlight that Foucault’s idea of “art” must not be approached as if it were a finished product, but rather as an ongoing process. The art of life is not the completion of a final object, but the process of artistic creation. Timothy O’Leary makes a similar point when he suggests that although Foucault uses the conventional French expression oeuvre d’art, his “work of art” would be better understood as travail (process) rather than oeuvre (product).331
328 Donagan, 1977, p. 76 329 Davidson, 1996, p. 231-232 330 Davidson, 1996, p. 232 [emphasis in original]. 331 O'Leary, 2002, p. 127 124
4.3.2 Art as process
Foucault’s aesthetics of existence cannot be reduced to a mere concern with style, at the exclusion of the practice and work of living fundamental to his account of care. O’Leary’s distinction between process and product is helpful, because it more accurately reflects Foucault’s concerns in his lectures in The Hermeneutics of the Subject. In those lectures he provides varying accounts of care as an end in itself, and his repeated emphasis on self-care echoes Nietzsche’s call for “long practice and daily work”.332 In using the term “aesthetics”, Foucault simultaneously references both technique and beauty, such as an “aesthetically pleasing piece of art”, and it is precisely this oscillation that opens up Foucault to attack from critics such as Wolin.333 Such critics focus on Foucault’s aesthetics of existence in terms of the beauty of the finished product, and omit the continual process of work and development in his account of self-care. Foucault’s failure to adequately highlight his movement between process and product, technique and beauty in his discussions of an aesthetics of existence leaves him open to attack. However, fears such as Eagleton’s concerning a “beautiful rape” are only possible by refusing to acknowledge that the care of the self does not have the creation of a “beautiful” product as its end.
In discussions on an aesthetics of existence, Foucault’s use of “art” exists in the space between ancient notions of technique and modern ideas of art as beautiful objects. As Paul Veyne points out, in ancient Greece an artist is firstly an artisan and an artwork a work.334 This notion of aesthetics is fundamentally different to the idea of aesthetic production that Wolin and Thacker rely on, because the art-work here is taken as a verb and not a noun. In light of the distinction between art as process and art as object, perhaps Thacker is correct in pointing out Foucault’s semantic slipperiness. However, the “slipperiness” is not because Foucault confuses the ancient Greek and Kantian sense of aesthetics as Thacker suggests, but rather in Foucault’s shift between art as process and art as product, between art as technique and art as beauty.
In light of the distinction between art as process-technique and product-beauty, I suggest Foucault’s connection between ethical and aesthetic practices is the result of the technical, ascetic mode of these practices presented in the previous chapter. His call to live life like a work of art refers to life lived as a constant process of creation, rather than the achievement of a final form of beauty, purity or unity. As with other artistic practices, it is the
332 Nietzsche, The Gay Science, section 290; Foucault discusses this section in “On the Genealogy of Ethics” p. 351 333 “On the Genealogy of Ethics” p. 348 334 Veyne, 1986 cited in O'Leary, 2002, p. 128 125 form life takes that gives it meaning, and it is in this meaning that the ethical subject is constituted. This idea of life as a constant work forms the basis for Foucault’s ethical subject because, through constant practices of critique, a person confronts her personal belief system and the truths that provide meaning to the world.
The practice of life as a work of art, and the constitution of the ethical subject, is not just about living as an artistic practice. Life as art refers to the constant process of critique and creation necessary for understanding the truths a person esteems above all else, and the manifestation of these truths not just in words said to others, but through lived practice and action. In contrast to modern moral precepts, self-care does not posit a set of fixed rules that ought to hold equally to all people and situations. The care of the self is a process of self-analysis and development rather than an adherence to a strict set of universals. Foucault believes there are no fixed customs and norms that can universally dictate appropriate modes of behaviour, and neither is there a transcendental self to discover. To repeat my earlier point, self-care refers to a particular attitude that questions the personal relationship to truth, and puts to test those ideas and truths held most dearly. The care of the self evaluates the consistency between those truths regarded as necessary, and a person’s actions in the world. Furthermore, these truths, although functioning as guidelines for action and judgment, are not fixed; an aesthetics of existence through practices of the self entails never-ending work and transformation.
4.4 Aesthetics of existence - a never-ending practice
The constitution of subjectivity and self-knowledge is a never-ending process, with personally monitored practices of self-care at its centre. Foucault does not deny the subject exists, but he does not see it as a “sovereign, founding subject”, or a “universal form of subject that is found everywhere”.335 Yet Foucault’s constituted subject does not prevent the possibility for self-constituted agency. As Foucault says:
“…since no Greek thinker ever found a definition of the subject, never looked for one, I would simply say that there was no subject. Which doesn’t mean that the Greeks didn’t strive to define the conditions of an experience, but it wasn’t an experience of the subject; rather, it was of the individual, insofar as he sought to constitute himself through self-mastery.” 336
The relationship between ethics and aesthetics manifests through technical and ascetic practices, whereby ethical practice is principally a matter of self-critique and development, and not located in a “universal form of the subject”. In the ancient models of self-care discussed in
335 “An Aesthetics of Existence”, p.313 336 “A Return to Morality”, p.330 126
Chapter Three, the meaning of self-disclosure varies between the Ancient Greek, Roman- Hellenistic, and early Christian periods. However, in each model the necessary practices of self- care allow an understanding of the personal relationship to truth to develop. Through processes of reasoned self-critique acted out in physical and mental practices, commonly held ideas, rules and codes are put into question—and affirmed as necessary, transformed, or discarded altogether. A critical attitude between the self and externally posited truths is a foundation for ethical and political engagement, because these truths guide decisions, and extend beyond the self to affect individual judgment of events and actions. Self-care is the awareness that truth is not a static essence or pre-given nature, but rather that it emerges through practice.337 It is this idea of truth through practice, rather than a pre-given foundation, that Foucault sees as offering a possibility for a different account of ethical and political agency.
In The Use of Pleasure, Foucault argues that every morality broadly comprises two modes: codes of conduct and forms of subjectivisation, and that neither is separate to the other.338 However, the emphasis placed on either of the two elements can differ. For example, if stress is on codes of conduct, the focus will be instances of authority necessary to rules and regulations for appropriate behaviour—i.e. with what is or is not acceptable. These codes must be learned and followed. Foucault considers normative moral systems as examples of the first element of morality. Subjectivation, on the other hand, concerns the second mode and refers to the ethical subject’s relationship to a set of laws. Ancient practices of the self are examples of this second element, because while external codes of conduct exist, it is the way in which these are appropriated into life that is central to the development of an ethical subject. Individuals internalise moral codes that are then assessed and applied to particular instances. In this second mode of morality, reference to codes to assess right and wrong behaviour remains, but is adjusted according to particular subjects and situations.
Foucault attempts to develop an ethical account that is different to dominant forms of morality. Rather than basing his account of the ethical subject on a relational model between codes of conduct and the internalisation of these codes, Foucault advocates a more dynamic model. This does not mean that his idea of self-care exists independently of codes of conduct. As he points out, modes of subjectivation and codes cannot exist independently. Influenced by ancient practices of the self, Foucault’s care emphasises the second mode of moral morality. However, the relationship between the subject and codes of conduct is not as meticulous. In
337 Foucault discusses this in “The Ethics of the Concern for the Self” among other texts. 338 The Use of Pleasure, p. 25-32 127 ancient Greece, although moral rules act as guides to be personally assessed and monitored, there still exists a detailed account of behaviours to be internalised. Foucault’s conception of ethics is more dynamic. Instead, Foucault describes a relationship between the ethical subject and codes of conduct, such that the ethical subject develops an attitude that always strives to transform or discard existing systems. This dynamic conception of ethics still relies on a relational model between moral codes and forms of subjectivation, but the subject no longer simply internalises such codes to then apply to particular instances. Foucault writes in The Use of Pleasure:
It is easy to conceive of moralities in which the strong and dynamic element is to be sought in the forms of subjectivation and the practice of the self. In this case, the systems and codes may be rather rudimentary. Their exact observance may be relatively unimportant, at least compared with what is required of the individual in the relationship he has with himself, in his different actions, thoughts, and feelings as he endeavours to form himself as an ethical subject.339
Foucault expands on the idea of ethics-oriented moralities that have existed alongside codes- oriented moralities in the past, and presents an ethical account where codes of conduct are basic to a person’s ultimate action within the world. Permanent critique, transformation and creation of life are central to Foucault’s account. Through various practices and techniques, a person assesses particular relationships to codes of conduct, and in so doing perhaps creates an entirely new system of beliefs altogether. The “art of living” is the development of an ethics-oriented care of the self that approaches codes of conduct as structures to be questioned, reorganised and transformed.
Foucault recognises care and self-transformation through ethics-orientated practices is not new, and is present in ancient Greco-Roman thought, as well as Christianity. His contention is that in modernity moral principles have become disconnected from the notion of self-care. In fact, as some of the criticisms presented in this chapter demonstrate, to advocate for a care of the self is likely to be regarded as selfish, and opposed to morality as commonly conceived. The care of the self does not mean selfishness or self-absorption. To equate care of the self with a notion of concern only for oneself is mistaken. The care of the self is always regarded in relation to others. The self in this model does not exist in isolation, and nor does it disregard the wellbeing of others. The care of the self always presupposes a concern for the development of others. To view self-care, as Wolin does— as an escape from rules of ethical conduct, in favour of personal needs and desires—is a fundamental misunderstanding due to an excessive
339 The Use of Pleasure, p. 30 128 emphasis on the first moral element. The cause of this misunderstanding lies in the unanalysed exclusion of practices aimed at developing a relationship between self and truth through self- analysis and critique.
Foucault’s self-analysis should not be interpreted to imply the existence of a hidden unconscious, or subconscious truth, to be discovered deep within the subject. There is no “hidden truth” or unified “I”. Self-analysis, or aesthetics of existence, is an active process and involves continual adjustment in light of the changing circumstances that affect personal comportment within, and towards, the world. The relationship between truth and the self consists in the interplay between structures of knowledge, and active self-constitution within a particular historical context. Gaining access to the truths inherent in a person’s life and world is achieved through active processes of self-analysis, rather than the adherence to static rules. Focusing on the relationship between codes of conduct and the self, it is up to each person to come to terms with what a just life entails; an activity that consists of far more than following a system of rules. In ancient Greece, for example, being a good person means being a good citizen, and this is demonstrated through words and deeds. Greek life includes conforming and affirming various social codes, but unlike Christian morality where goodness and justice become internalised, in antiquity it is in the public demonstration of personal beliefs where virtue is judged. In Greek thought, the moral reflection on a person’s behaviour supports the stylisation that the free man exercises in regard to his own activity, whereby actions and deeds are inextricably linked.340
An aesthetics of existence relates to a development of the ethical subject that is not a matter of learning, internalising, and formalising a set of externally imposed norms that are equally applicable to all.341 To be just and good is tied with enhancing a relation with the self where people freely work out, invent and select the important principles to guide their life and actions. Foucault elaborates this point in what he describes as the “three great arts of conduct” that are developed in ancient Greek thought: dietetics, economics, and erotics.342 These techniques do not posit universally applicable principles, but comprise exercises that a person chooses to incorporate into life. The various techniques, methods and exercises aid the development of the art of self-conduct and of the ethical subject.
340 As we discussed in regards to some of Foucault’s critics, ancient Greek society was not equitable to all and as such the techniques of the self that assist in the development of a just and moral person regard only the smallest minority of the Greek population of free, adult males. 341 The Use of Pleasure, p. 251-253 342 The Use of Pleasure, p. 251 129
The three regimens prescribe techniques that are the most suitable for an individual’s wellbeing, given the economics of marriage and their particular status. In the dietetics, the emphasis is on the relationship between the body and external elements. At its core, dietetics avoids illness. The economic regimen relates to marital affairs and the relationship between husband and wife. The economics of marriage is not defined by mutual faithfulness, but concerns the “privilege, which the husband upholds on behalf of the lawful wife over whom he exercises his authority”.343 Ultimately, the economics of marriage concerns the maintenance of hierarchical structures that are considered appropriate within households. In order to maintain this necessary permanence, excesses are expected to be self-controlled both in relation to the self and others. These regimens rely on the internalisation of strict rules and regulations, but the manner in which these rules are subsequently applied by each individual is different, and relies on personal assessment and choice. Again, this ethics-oriented approach stresses the second element of morality, relating to subjectivation—where codes dictating right and wrong acts remain, but which are adjusted according to particular subjects and situations.
The regimen of erotics deals with a man’s relationship with boys. Moderation and self- control are highly regarded in ancient Greece, and the development of a close and loving friendship between men, as opposed to sexual excess, is esteemed. The erotics advocates not only mastery of personal sexual desires, but also knowing how to allow for another’s freedom in the mastery he exercises over himself.344 Sexual relations with boys is not regarded as inherently immoral, but there are many social expectations regarding such relations. A man should only have relations with those not yet considered men, and always from the position of dominance. The young man, on the other hand, should act with the foresight that he will one day become a free, adult man and avoid degrading himself in the eyes of others by acting frivolously, or by using his body for personal gain. Although sexual relations with men are acceptable, the Greeks always tie these relations to social standing. In the end, as shown in the relationship between Socrates and Alcibiades in Chapter Three, if a man truly loves a boy he has his freedom in mind, and develops a close friendship in order to teach and nurture his growth and development towards becoming a free, adult male—rather than engaging in purely physical relations. Each of the three technologies—dietetics, economics, and erotics— list methods and exercises that are a matter of choice, and that reflect self-worth and social standing, rather than the application of fixed rules. To highlight the function of these
343 The Use of Pleasure, p. 252 344 The Use of Pleasure, p. 252 130 techniques in ancient Greek society, I will briefly outline Foucault’s reading of the dietetics in relation to health and sexual practices.
4.4.1 Dietetics
Dietetics, along with economics and erotics, consists of detailed routines understood as instructions for how to live well. Each person follows a different routine that best suite his body and soul, and through self-analysis this routine is continually reassessed and adjusted. Since these regimes do not hold the place of a law or mandate, no punishment ensues from the ruler/state/governing body if a person does not care for himself. However, although no external reprimand exists, to not care for the self is considered detrimental because of the connection between the process of continual self-analysis, and the art of living a good life. Being good, from the perspective of dietetics, is not about avoiding immoral or illicit actions. It is a matter of judgment, self-analysis and continual re-creation. Each person is expected to discover and develop the necessary truths for living virtuously:
In short, the practice of regimen as an art of living was more than a set of precautions designed to prevent illness or complete their cure. It was a whole manner of forming oneself as a subject who had the proper, necessary, and sufficient concern for his body. A concern that permeated everyday life, making the major or common activities of existence a matter of both health and of ethics.345
In the end, a person is defined as virtuous or good by the way he lives, where these truths are reflected in the actions and deeds towards others. In its most basic sense, the care of the self is a process of self-analysis, self-creation and continual questioning, as well as the presupposition that self-care is essentially tied to caring for others.
The care of the self is an active practice directly related to the art of living, and concerns the formation and development of the self. As a component of the care of the self, dietetics is a technique of existence—it is not a path of self-development achieved by passively following an authority. Dietetics is not an unquestioned subservience to a particular way of life; the emphasis is on acquiring the capacity to live a life of care rather than on simple obedience to rules. It is a practice requiring thought and deliberation, and its application a matter of choice. As Foucault writes “[w]hereas medications and operations acted upon the body, and the body submitted to that action, regimen addressed itself to the soul, and inculcated principles in the soul.”346 Most basically, dietetics is a regimen that aims to regulate activities that are or are not beneficial to personal health and sexual practices, and integrate
345 The Use of Pleasure, p.108 346 The Use of Pleasure, p. 107 131 this regimen, as much as possible, into the management of the health and life of the body.347 This dietetic regimen comprises a list of guidelines that covers how a person ought to live, taking into account elements from daily physical life, such as when to wake in the morning and when to go to sleep. The list includes, among other things: foods beneficial to health, the kind and amount of exercise to perform, what to drink, how much to sleep and the type and amount of sexual relations to indulge in. The regimen provides a set of rules with different options and variables, and is determined by a concern for the development of the body. Yet, unlike the first element of morality that stresses codes of conduct discussed earlier, with the dietetic regime there is not one correct way to follow these dictates, and nor is it mandatory. Each individual is expected to internalise these rules and make personal assessments based on particular situations and states.
Dietetics applies to both the corporeal and moral realm, simultaneously embracing good health and a care for the self.348 Unlike modern moral precepts, it is not enough to simply follow the dictates of the dietetic regimen as a set of fixed rules; the regimen is intended to aid the process of self-analysis and development, rather than impede it through a strict set of unchanging guidelines. The precepts directed at caring for the body in regards to nutrition, exercise and sexual activities not only provide advice for maintaining health, but also hold the authority of modernity’s moral precept. Yet, unlike moral precepts, the authority of the dietetic regime is not universal, and although the dietetic regimen is highly regarded there is no duty to follow these codes. There are many precepts to take into account, and the application of these differ between people. Only by understanding one’s body can a person find the best way to care for the self. For the Greeks, an unhealthy body causes “forgetfulness, loss of courage, bad temper, and madness, so that in the end the knowledge one has acquired may even be dislodged from the soul”.349 To follow the practices of the regimen is to maintain physical health, as well as strength and beauty, which are all necessary for living a good life. These regimens are not a list of permanent mandates, and should not apply equally to everyone at all times. The particularities of each person’s circumstance influences how the regimen is taken up. Also, following the precepts too strictly is considered a failure to develop the process of self-creation necessary for personal development. The aim of the dietetic regimen, along with economics and erotics, is to nurture the ability to experience and face different situations, rather than being limited to a strict, inflexible code.
347 The Use of Pleasure, p. 97-98 348 The Use of Pleasure, p. 102 349 The Use of Pleasure, p. 103 132
In relation to sexual practices, the regimen defines sexual acts as a series of practices built upon an understanding of the correlation between states of the body and particular times of the year. It concerns the avoidance of exhaustion, survival and the maintenance of the species. The recommendations for the regulation of aphrodisia are situated between alimentary concerns and advice on exercise and evacuations. For example,
Winter, from the setting of the Pleiades to the spring equinox, is a season in which the regimen should have a drying and warming effect: hence, roasted rather than boiled meats, whole- wheat bread, small portions of dry vegetables, slightly diluted wine, but in small amounts; numerous exercises of every sort (running, wrestling, walking); baths that should be cold after running workouts… and hot after all the other exercises; more frequent sexual relations, especially for older men whose bodies tend to become chilled; emetics three times per month for those with moist constitutions, two times per month for those who are dry.350
Sexual acts are not illicit or licit in themselves. Depending on a number of considerations, the problematisation of sexual practices by dietetics relates to whether an activity should be reined in or increased. Sexual acts are viewed as activities that are more or less harmful depending on the person and circumstance. Sexual pleasures are not uniformly established, and each person is expected to govern his behaviour in accordance with his personal constitution. The ancient Greeks do not view sex as morally objectionable, although if a person overindulges in sexual activities without regard for his body or circumstance he is thought to be at risk of becoming ill or even dying. Through self-control and self-analysis, the regimen aims at guarding against such potential ills.
In Greco-Roman times a person is encouraged to begin caring for the self as early as possible (most particularly in ancient Greece, since it is linked to preparing young men for public life), but it is never too late to start. The art of living is a never-ending labour with no definite starting-point or ultimate end.351 A person confronts life by looking at what has been, and will be, done. The precepts and exercises listed in the regimens merely serve as inspiration in the process of self-analysis. In caring for the self, a person embraces the art of living to understand the relationship between truth and the self. Practices of self-care develop an understanding of personal ethical existence necessary learning what it means to be just and virtuous. This constant self-analysis necessary for an art of existence mirrors Arendt’s faculty of thinking, in that only by thinking about what it means to act justly can a person become more just; only by contemplating virtue is it possible to become virtuous. Both emphasise the
350 The Use of Pleasure, 1992, p. 112 351 As discussed, for the Greeks the care of the self does have an end, in that it is a necessary condition for political life and the governance over others. For the ancient Romans, care of the self is an end in itself. 133 transformative aspect of such reflection, and consider it an important element in understanding what it means to live and act ethically.
4.5 Parrhesia and the care of the self
In Fear-Less Speech says Foucault parrhesia first appears in Greek literature in Euripides (c.484-407 B.C.) and is still found in patristic texts at the turn of the fourth and fifth century A.D.352 Parrhesia is generally translated as “freedom of speech”, “free speech” or the act of “speaking frankly”, and is a notion Foucault considers to be relevant for today. In his discussions Foucault often refers to parrhesia as a truth-telling, or willingness to speak the truth. There are five main features of parrhesia: frankness, truth, risk of danger, criticism and duty.
(1) “Frankness” concerns a person openly speaking her mind to others, by demonstrating personal opinions through discourse. Unlike rhetoric, where the speaker uses technical devices in order to prevail, with parrhesia the speaker shows others, as directly as possible, what she believes.
(2) “Truth” is where the speaker sincerely expresses her opinions and says what she “knows” to be true. According to Foucault, with the second characteristic of parrhesia there is always, “an exact coincidence between truth and belief”.353 This particular idea of truth is defined as a type of activity and is different to our modern epistemological framework by which truth is understood as a certain (mental) evidential experience. Additionally, it is not compatible with a correspondence theory of truth, where truth corresponds to something in the world. Unlike Cartesian doubt (prior to the attainment of “clear and distinct” ideas) there does not seem to be an issue about the acquisition of truth for the ancient parrhesiast, since the access to truth is linked to specific moral qualities (and vice versa), and these qualities arise through a care of the self.
(3) Truth-telling and frankness always carry a risk of danger to the speaker, since there is no guarantee that others want to hear what is being said. It is the willingness to take risks and say what is on a person’s mind regardless of consequence. The security of a life where the truth is left unsaid is cast aside, in favour of a relationship with the self where telling personal truths is preferable regardless of retribution. Parrhesia is always a game between the speaker and interlocutor since there is the risk of hurting or angering others by saying something they do not wish to hear.
352 Fear-less Speech, p. 11 353 Fear-less Speech, p. 14 134
(4) Parrhesia is also a form of criticism, either towards the self or another. However, this criticism, in ancient Greece in particular, usually involves a power structure where the parrhesiast is in a less privileged position and the criticism is directed above—a philosopher criticising a tyrant for example.
(5) The final feature of parrhesia is the personal responsibility of truth-telling. Even if a person is at risk of punishment and it is in her interest to stay silent, it is her responsibility to speak up. As Foucault says,
parrhesia is a verbal activity in which a speaker expresses his personal relationship to truth, and risks his life because he recognizes truth-telling as a duty to improve or help other people (as well as himself). In parrhesia, the speaker uses his freedom and chooses frankness instead of persuasion, truth instead of falsehood or silence, the risk of death instead of self-interest and moral apathy.354 In Chapter Three, these characteristics of parrhesia were presented in the discussions on Laches and the Apology. In the Apology, Socrates has the courage to speak the “truth” even if it is not what the judges want to hear, and which consequently harms his case. However, to avoid reprisal, in Laches the protagonists in the dialogue agree to what Foucault terms a parrhesiastic contract. Namely, the agreement that all can speak frankly to one another without fear of retribution. This contract primarily refers to a political practice where the relationship between the people involved is characterised by a difference in power, and there is potential risk to the speaker if such a contract is not entered into. There are two main features of this parrhesiastic contract: (1) the truth-teller is willing to take a risk in speaking the truth; (2) the person in power, a ruler for example, has an opportunity to display his virtue in the willingness to enter into such a contract.
In antiquity, parrhesia occurs not only in situations where there is a power differential. It is a key feature of Athenian citizenship, and is distinct from forms of flattery and rhetoric. In matters of civic importance, it is the right of every Athenian citizen to speak frankly to his fellow citizens. This right of criticism is intended to guard against excesses of intemperate rulers and provide opportunities, for those permitted, to participate in the exercise of power.355 While this aspect of parrhesia primarily concerns political virtue, according to Thomas Flynn it is only in his last course at the Collége de France in 1984, subsequently published as The Courage of Truth. The Government of Self and Others II, that Foucault begins looking at truth-telling as an ethical virtue.356 I would claim that this is not his first exploration of the ethical dimension of
354 Fear-less Speech, p. 19-20) 355 Discourse and Truth: The Problematization of Parrhesia, p. 13; O'Leary, 2002, p. 148-149 356 Flynn uses the term “moral virtue” but I have chosen to use “ethical” because of Foucault’s insistence on the difference between ethics and morality, as discussed in chapter 3 (Flynn, 1987, p. 213). 135 parrhesia.357 Certainly in the final lecture series Foucault focuses in detail on ethical parrhesia, but this ethical dimension of truth-telling has been presented throughout his later works starting in 1980. For instance, in Chapter Three I discussed Foucault’s account of the Apology and Laches—both of which emphasise this ethical dimension and the synthesis between words and deed. Furthermore, Foucault’s interest with self-care itself arises from an ethical concern.
There is a group of important notions and themes that come together in the idea of parrhesia: care of the self, techniques of the self, knowledge of the self, relationships with and government of others, and truth telling.358 In ancient Greece the notion of truth-telling is considered essential to governing well over others, and in matters of self-governance also. In his 1982-3 lecture series, The Government of the Self and Others, Foucault claims that, in antiquity, the notion of parrhesia is positioned at the meeting point of the commitment to speak the truth, techniques and procedures of governmentality, and the constitution of a relationship to self. Parrhesia is important for the political constitution of the city as well as the ethical constitution of its citizens.359 Politically, parrhesia is the right of every citizen, and relates to the relationship between the speaker and what she says, as well as between the speaker and her interlocutors. However, although it is each person’s right, it does not mean that all are capable of, or willing to, speak the truth (in the sense discussed previously). It takes courage to speak frankly and truthfully, and at times comes with great personal risk.
Despite these positive aspects of parrhesia, a negative side to this notion also emerges. Parrhesia can be used pejoratively, evoking something like “chatter”—where people say anything and everything that is on their mind. The pejorative sense of parrhesia is demonstrated in Plato’s Republic, where everyone has the right to address his fellow citizens and tell them anything, regardless of how ridiculous or dangerous it may be.360 The fifth century BC gives rise to what Foucault terms, “the crisis of parrhesia” where through the democratisation of speech, everyone has the right to say anything they pleased. 361 Parrhesia is reduced to the expression of mere opinion, with little relation to truth-telling or critique in the positive sense of the term. The tension between the positive and negative aspects of parrhesia becomes a cause for debate
357 I should point out Flynn never argues that political and ethical parrhesia are incompatible. His aim is to provide an overview of Foucault’s final course, and not with the comparison between politics and ethics embodies in the act of speaking frankly. 358 The Government of Self and Others, p. 45 359 O'Leary, 2002, p. 149 360 Plato’s Republic 577b. Cf. also Phaedrus 240e and Laws 649b, 671b 361 Discourse and Truth: The Problematization of Parrhesia, p. 47-49 136 during this period. It is also around this time that the ethical significance of parrhesia emerges with the figure of Socrates.
According to O’Leary, unlike political parrhesia, ethical parrhesia concerns individual character rather than being a political, institutional guarantee. Furthermore, this ethical parrhesia must be practiced in spite of such political institutions. Political parrhesia puts a person in a position where he can take charge of the city with the power of discourse. Political truth- telling is a continual jousting match against others, directed towards providing adequate guidance for a city.362 Ethical parrhesia, on the other hand, is not just a public display of competing doxa, it is the bringing together of words and deeds. As mentioned in Chapter Three, in his willingness to speak and live his truth regardless of consequence, Socrates becomes the model of a true ethical parrhesiast. In the way Socrates lives, there is no contradiction between his words and deeds. What Socrates states are his beliefs are also supported by his actions, and he is not afraid to make the most powerful men in the city account for themselves, as highlighted in the discussion on Laches in Chapter Three.
In the Berkley lectures from 1983 published as Discourse and Truth: The Problemetization of Parrhesia, Foucault claims Socratic parrhesia introduces new features that differ from the political model:363 (1) it takes place between a small number of individuals face to face and not between a speaker and large groups; (2) it highlights the need to harmonise speech and life (logos and bios); and (3) it raises questions about who is able to tell the truth, about what and with what consequence, and with what relation to power.364 With the ethical parrhesiast the truth of the self-subject is established by the subject himself in the consistency between his life and speech. Truth in this case is regarded as consistency between personal beliefs, public action and expression. Unlike political parrhesia, which is directed to what Arendt terms “wooing the consent of others”, the ethical parrhesiast demonstrates what he considers to be just and true, even at risk of offence or personal danger. Political and ethical parrhesia share the necessity for a public demonstration of ideas, and despite having differences both have implications for political engagement. However, it is the ethical dimension arising from practices of the self, where word and deed synthesise, that holds a particular interest for Foucault.
362 The Government of Self and Others, p. 157 363 Discourse and Truth: The Problematization of Parrhesia, p. 47-49, 114 364 O'Leary, 2002, p. 150 137
4.6 Freedom, political thought and the ethical subject
The critical task of the care of the self is to question and challenge forms of domination, at whatever level, and sound a warning through one’s words and deeds. The difficulty is in working out precisely the power relations to minimise, and in identifying the forms of domination that determine and restrict actions. In the late 1970s Foucault clarifies the distinction between power and domination; a distinction that previously was only implicit. To summarise, he argues that power and power relations are characterised by the interplay between strategic games and liberties. Domination, by contrast, is characterised by the shrinking space for freedom of action. Unlike power relations, which cannot exist without freedom of action, domination is a perversion that restricts power relations to such a degree that possibilities for subjective choice are almost non-existent. This is interesting for the discussion on the ethical subject and political thought, because this distinction appeals to the notion of freedom as a condition of possibility for certain kinds of social relations; those social relations commonly referred to as politics but also ethics. It is at the point of the minimisation of freedom to act where politics and ethics combine. The political task of working out forms of control and management is not separated to the ethical task of formulating an ethos.365
For Foucault, just as with his account of the subject, freedom is socially and historically contingent, and arises within the context of power relations. Freedom is a historically conditioned possibility that exists in a particular context, or as an abstract term. Freedom is not an ideal state nor is it an essential feature of a transcendentally grounded human nature. Freedom is as relational as power; as historically changeable as the subject; exists as a lack of complicity, rather than as essential autonomy; and is both the condition of possibility and the task of ethical practice. As O’Leary points out, freedom, in the Foucauldian sense, is the concrete capacity of people to say ‘No!’ to being governed in a particular way, or to governing themselves in particular ways. It is the capacity to refuse.366 This capacity to say ‘No!’ shares similarities with Arendt’s idea of thinking without bannisters and being capable of saying, ‘I cannot, this is wrong’, even if everything around says otherwise. Freedom is the attempt to identify alternatives to practices that constitute subjectivity and shape life, in the continual response to forms of government and self-government. It is the capacity to challenge effects of power and domination, and although there is no end, freedom is most certainly a revolt within practices.367
365 O'Leary, 2002, p. 158 366 O'Leary, 2002, p. 159 367 Rajchman, 1986, pp. 60, 115 138
The centrality of freedom in Foucault’s ethics comes as a surprise to some critics, because many believed it was the precise lack of freedom that characterised his work on power in the 1970s. Of course, as has been demonstrated by countless commentators, the subject in earlier accounts was never completely powerless and never solely constituted by external power relations and control mechanisms. Foucault’s conception of power is not as an all-encompassing force that incapacitates human action in the world. Even when rejecting appeals to a transcendental or constitutive freedom—a rejection he maintains in later works—resistance is always a possibility. Yet freedom is given the status of an ethical principle rather than a historical constant. Critical thinking (or philosophy), political struggle and practices of self-care make the space for transformation possible. When force or domination prevail, the space for freedom and transformation closes off.368
Foucault stresses on freedom as the condition of possibility for individual ethical practice. This confuses some critics, because it appears to them that the champion against the enlightenment principles of freedom, humanity and autonomy suddenly makes an about turn in his thought. Yet, despite appearances, Foucault’s overt interest in freedom as the corner-stone for an individual ethics is not evidence the wayward child is finding his way home, as Habermas had hoped; indeed, much of what he says ends up looking very counter-enlightenment. For example, Foucault’s engagement with Kant in the paper “What is Enlightenment” is the same as all his other engagements: he uses Kant as a means to stimulate new ways of thinking about problems. In many ways, and as he readily admits, Foucault’s attitude is very much in the spirit of the Enlightenment. However, the specifics of Kant’s system are of little interest. Foucault does not wish to reinvigorate the notion of “maturity”, or define the areas of public and private reason. The specifics of Kant’s answer to the question, “what is Enlightenment?”, is not important. The appeal is in the attitude the question embodies, an attitude that simultaneously validates, transforms and surpasses the current state of affairs.
According to Foucault, Kant stands at the crossroads of critical reflection and reflection on history. It is the first time a philosopher so closely connects the significance of his own work in relation to knowledge, reflection on history, and the analysis of the particular moment in which, and because of which, he is writing.369 For Foucault, Kant voices a key feature of the attitude of modernity; namely, the idea that the task of thinking is to question, critique and transform fundamental features of the reality a person occupies. Approaching cautiously a
368 “Structuralism and Post-structuralism”, p. 451-453 369 “What is Enlightenment”, p. 309 139 discussion on the attitude of the Enlightenment, Foucault recognises positives and negatives in the relationship between contemporary critical philosophy and the Enlightenment. The negative is that while recognising that the Enlightenment provides the framework for current ways of thinking, it is necessary to avoid succumbing to the “blackmail” of the Enlightenment by taking a stand either for or against it, a charge Foucault can be accused of himself at various times. Also, it is necessary to reject the equation between the Enlightenment and humanism. On the other hand, Foucault views positively the sense in which the Enlightenment includes attempts to transform reflections on the necessary limits of knowledge, and expands towards an analysis of what limits can possibly be transgressed.
Foucault’s reflections on the self are genealogical rather than transcendental because the aim is not to progress from forms of subjectivation to the limits of possibility. Instead, he moves from the contingency of the constitution of the self to the possibility of surpassing those limits.370 Foucault commitment to the Enlightenment project on social and subjective change is characterised by a specific, positive attitude towards self-constitution. Rather than locating the completion of the Enlightenment in an underlying principle, such as Habermas’ pursuit of public reason and consensus,371 Foucault embraces the Enlightenment attitude towards the present as a central theme of its project. As discussed earlier, transformation is important for the subject of ethics, but not merely as change for change sake. Although Foucault does not subscribe to any of the doctrinal elements of eighteenth-century thought, he certainly does embrace the attitude he sees as the driving force behind its critical approach to thought, and it is this attitude that provides possibilities in the present. It is an attitude not to be copied but actualised, and perhaps in the process something different is created. In some respect, Foucault agrees with Habermas in the belief that the Enlightenment project has never been fulfilled.
4.7 Conclusion
The care of the self serves as a form of critique and resistance, whereby philosophy as a way of life simultaneously becomes a critical, personal work—as well as a critique of society, structures and power relations. Although Foucault never lays out systematically his understanding of the link between of philosophy as a way of life and politics, it is, without a doubt, a connection he regards as important. The care of the self not only concerns ways of living and acting in the world, it is closely tied to a particular vision of philosophy. The care of the self is a critical response to a particular time and place, and is pivotal to the expansion of
370 “What is Enlightenment”, p. 312-316; see also Hinchman, 1996; O'Leary, 2002, pp. 165-170 371 Foucault openly disagrees with Habermas’ approach. 140 resistance, with ethics serving as the mediator between the subject, knowledge and power. Influenced by Hadot, Foucault’s vision of philosophy is as a way of life, rather than as academic pursuits and achievements. This does not mean he excludes philosophy as an academic disciple—he wrote books himself after all. However, the point he makes is that a philosophical attitude comprises much more than the constructing systems, solving puzzles and dealing with moral dilemmas. Foucault shifts focus from philosophy as an intellectual enterprise, to forms of living centred on ethical practice and personal action. The concern is not with the presentation of rational arguments about moral codes, but rather with lived philosophy.
Foucault argues that the moralisation of individuals has expanded to the moralisation of the masses; yet to overcome such a morality does not necessarily result in eliminating ethical questioning all together. In practices of the self Foucault introduces a relationship to ethics that is not grounded in the established morality of the eternal values of Good and Evil, right and wrong. Distinguishing between morality and ethics, Foucault posits that morality is a set of culturally imposed norms enforced onto individuals, whereas ethics concerns questions about how to act, and does not necessarily rely on universal principles. The care of the self is a lived ethics based on immanence, vigilance and distance372—with immanence understood as the sense in which care of the self includes placing an order on life that is not underpinned by transcendent values or external conditions. This approach to ethics concerns the act of creation rather than the finished product. It demands continual exercise and work through which a relationship to the self is established. This exercise and critique entails constant vigilance—in not only questioning the world and events, but also personal truths and points of view.
This care of the self is not a self-satisfied contemplation or introspection, which pines for the fulfilment of some authentic self. As Foucault says, “[n]ot only do I not identify this ancient culture of the self with what you might call the California cult of the self, I think they are diametrically opposed”.373 Self-care is not a narcissistic, self-obsessed quest for a lost inner truth. It is a state of constant vigilance about what is determined and determinate, both from within and without. Simply, the care of the self is the acknowledgement that a person exists in a world that cannot be transcended, whilst simultaneously remaining an active part in it. At its core is a concern with developing a personal relationship to truth and manifesting that truth in words and deeds, whilst continuing to question those truths made manifest. Taking the Nietzschean line that all truths are interpretations, the care of the self does not discover an ultimate hidden
372 Gros, 2005, p. 530 373 “On the Genealogy of Ethics”, p. 271 141 truth deep within the soul—it is never-ending exercise, work and vigilance. Finally, although the care of the self is inherently social, and involves the continuous presence of the other, an element of distance is also necessary. The care of the self is an intensifier of social relations, and the distance it necessitates is not personal isolation, but rather the standing back from activities while still continuing to pursue them. Distance from action is used to take control of action rather than nullify it. It is this distance that constitutes the necessary state of vigilance needed for Foucault’s notion of self-care. It is about preparing to be a subject of action within the world, rather than being removed from it. Situated within the world, the care of the self is about the constitution of a person as a self-constituted subject of action.
The care of the self is a regulative principle of activity, and of relationships with the world and others. It is an attitude towards existence that affects self-understanding, life and action, and that can have political implications. An ethics of existence is the constitutive principle of political and civic activity, because practices of the self are important for self-transformation in the face of fixed modes of subjectivity. Practices of the self are not merely individual, and nor are they entirely communal, but always relational and interconnecting. The task Foucault sets in articulating his ethical practice based in freedom, is to bring out ascetic practices from the realm of art, and place them into politics and society more broadly. Through a critical attitude towards the present via an individual ethics, based on a specific notion of freedom, Foucault questions the limits imposed upon us and experiments with ways to reconfigure such limits.
Self-creation involves creating different modes of existence by identifying historically contingent aspects where there is more freedom than first appears. Furthermore, because freedom is a field of possibility instead of a fixed state, the work never ceases. The task of giving form to a person’s life and their engagement with others is a project without completion; the ethical concern for the self is an infinite labour. In O’Leary’s words, “[i]f the aim of critical philosophy is to help us untie the knots of our identity, then the aim of ethics is to work out ways of retying them in new and less constraining ways”.374 The aim of an aesthetics of existence is not to give life the most beautiful, stylish form, as Eagleton worried when pondering what a stylish rape would look like. Care of the self as an aesthetics of existence concerns analysing, unravelling and re-constituting inherited forms of individual and collective life that have become intolerable. In the end, most simply, an aesthetics of existence is an attitude towards the self, life and the world. It is a never-ending, critical approach to externally and internally imposed
374 O'Leary, 2002, p. 170 142 truths. It is the cultivation of techniques that can assist in the task of transformation and create spaces for political resistance and change.
In the next chapter, I will take the political and ethical implications of Foucault’s care of the self and connect these with Arendt’s explorations of the life of the mind. By analysing the similarities and differences in their respective approaches, I hope to further explore the possibilities of a non-normative ethics with broader political implications. In using Foucault to bolster Arendt’s ideas on thinking without bannisters, and applying Arendt’s discussions on political action to Foucault’s less developed political aspect, I aim to further elaborate and develop a conception of the ethico-political subject.
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Chapter Five
Arendt and Foucault: The transformative possibilities of the ethico- political self
In chapters one to four I presented Hannah Arendt and Michel Foucault’s non- essentialist accounts of the self, ethics and political agency. It is important to point out that in claiming that Arendt and Foucault share similarities in their articulation of the relationship between self, ethics and politics presented in later works, I do not, by any means, suggest that all the themes explored by these two thinkers are similarly closely aligned. The primary point I make is that, despite differences in focus throughout much of their respective careers, in later works both stress the need to develop a non-essentialist account of self and world, and present alternatives to prescriptive moral and political structures. I examined two main themes presented by both thinkers: (1) a shared suspicion of prescriptive ethical or political systems, and (2) the importance of undermining prescriptive accounts of morality and politics by developing a dynamic, critical self-relationship. To question the connection between structures of normativity, judgments and action, each develops transgressive modes of thinking and living that are not simply products of normalizing forces. By recognising the contingency of dominant systems of power that shape world views, self-understanding allows for a critical engagement with subjectivity. In this chapter, I continue to explore the relationship between practices of the self, ethics and politics by comparing Arendt’s and Foucault’s respective accounts of the ethico- political self and show how this particular attitude can create opportunities for transformative events.
First, I look at each thinkers’ notion of freedom and relate this to action, and the possibility for the ethico-political self to bring about the never before seen. To exemplify Arendt’s and Foucault’s accounts of freedom, thinking and the care of the self, I next look at the appropriation of the figure of Socrates; as both the embodiment of Arendt’s contemplative withdrawal, and Foucault’s care of the self. I suggest that the reference to Socrates highlights similarities in Arendt’s and Foucault’s projects, as well as some differences. In particular, I argue that where Arendt sees thinking, broadly understood as a form of self-knowledge, making its first appearance in the Apology, Foucault also contends the equally important (and long forgotten) care of the self makes its first appearance in the same dialogue. Additionally, I suggest that where Arendt posits the figure of Socrates in opposition to “professional thinkers”, Foucault regards him as the embodiment of a philosophical way of life. Thirdly, I argue that critical self-
144 creation offers a possibility to open up a space to resist and transgress the current power, politics and social arrangements. Finally, I revisit arguments on the importance of developing a critical relationship to the self, and how this is useful to counter the prescriptive approaches to ethics and politics that concern both Foucault and Arendt. Extending on their critiques, I suggest the drive to organise the world according to pre-established criteria silences divergent view points and limits possibilities for radical transformation.
5.1 Freedom and transformation
Arendt and Foucault consider world-views and reigning “truths” to be shaped by complex sets of socially and historically contingent circumstances. Accepting the contingency of pre-established systems of thought and power, Arendt and Foucault adopt different approaches to undermine socio-political arrangements. Each believes it is with the refusal to accept the inevitability of present circumstances where resistance and change become possible. While both reject the necessity of the prevailing circumstances, each adopts a different approach to counter the arrangement of dominant moral and political systems. Arendt embraces the idea of novelty as offering the potential to bring about radical social and political change—whereas Foucault talks of problematisation, where “invisible” concepts and forces become manifest and reveal possibilities for different arrangements. However, the change both seek to effect is not a simple modification of already existing concepts. It is radical, transformative change that alters understanding to the point where previous approaches no longer hold true (taking truth in the perspectival sense already discussed).375
A crucial aspect of this transformative attitude is an openness to abandoning established concepts, categories, and principles that are invoked to make sense of the world. It is what Foucault terms “blueprints for change”, and what Arendt calls “banisters”. Central to both instances is a permanent attitude of critique and development, as it relates to finding the meaning of a personal relationship to truth—the willingness to go about daily activities without the need to depend on ultimate values. Dianna Taylor finds “it [is] this counter-attitude toward complexity and the refusal to revert to easy answers in the face of it, [that] is precisely what makes [Arendt’s and Foucault’s] work relevant within a contemporary context.”376 Arendt and Foucault argue for the importance of taking account of multiple perspectives. They both consider the capacity of prescriptive models to unify difference to be, at best, limited in scope;
375 Thomas Kuhn’s account of paradigm shifts presented in The Scientific Revolution is an example of radical transformation. 376 (Taylor, Spring 2011, p. 139) 145 and at worst to be capable of justifying acts of domination leading to catastrophic results.
Taylor’s identification of Arendt and Foucault’s counter-attitude refers to their respective opposition to systems of bio-power. Arendt and Foucault are of the view that bio- political systems limit the possibility of transformative events through state control of physical and political bodies.377 In Arendt’s case, she ascribes to totalitarianism a denial of accidental, coincidental and arbitrary events, and regards the concentration camp as a prime example. The concentration camp is an example of totalitarian rule because it manifests the denial of the random by attempting to efface spontaneity through the regulation of human behaviour. Foucault claims, similarly, that bio-politics subsumes random, accidental, and unpredictable events through the continual regulation of the life of a population. The strict regulation of human behaviour restricts individuals’ freedom to act, limiting it to a set of predetermined ends. Action is controlled, monitored, and shaped in order to minimise the possibility of unforeseen events and spontaneous occurrences.
As Taylor identifies similarities between Arendt and Foucault’s views on bio-power, she also alludes to the critical-creative practices present in both of their works in matters of independent thought and action. Taylor recognises their shared refusal to offer “bannisters” or “blueprints” to make sense of the world. This is relevant to my project, because Taylor’s emphasis on the importance that both place in a critically-creative attitude for practices of freedom supports my claim, in previous chapters, that Arendt and Foucault remain faithful to themes present in earlier works. Without reference to Arendt’s contemplative withdrawal or Foucault’s care of the self Taylor mentions, in her comparison of Arendt and Foucault’s discussions on bio-power, this critical ability to think independently of prescriptive guidelines. Yet, despite mention of critical attitude towards the present, Taylor’s lack of discussion concerning similarities in Arendt and Foucault’s later work highlights the general way comparative studies of the two thinkers is generally taken up. As mentioned in the Introduction, since Agamben’s Homo Sacer there have been numerous publications, like Taylor’s, comparing Arendt’s and Foucault’s accounts of bio-power, with very little interest in other areas of their shared thought. Most notably the shared interest in a dynamic, ethico-political attitude, developed to counter normative moral and political systems though constant processes of self- critique.
377 (Hoffman, 2011, p. 155) Hoffman gives a detailed account of Arendt’s account of the eradication of transformative events through the regulation of human behaviour. 146
Arendt and Foucault do not save their first mention of the idea of freedom for their final works. However, it is in these final works that each elaborates the connection between freedom and a critical self-relationship. To a large extent, both consider the significance of this critically- creative attitude to manifest in times of extreme domination (as discussed in Chapter Four). Revealing the inherent threats of bio-power is one thing, but to also have the freedom to resist particulars that emerge from such systems is equally as important. In the Foucauldian sense, it is the concrete capacity of people to say ‘No!’ to being governed in a particular way, or to governing themselves in particular ways. It is the capacity to refuse.378 This capacity to say ‘No!’ is no different to Arendt’s interest in the capacity to say, ‘I cannot, this is wrong’ even if everything around else says otherwise. Freedom for both is the attempt to identify alternative discourses to practices that constitute subjectivity, and shape life in the continual response to forms of external- and self-government. Freedom for them is the capacity to challenge effects of power and domination, and is a revolt within practices.
Freedom is as relational as power, as historically changeable as the subject, and is both the condition of possibility and the task of ethical practice. Arendt’s and Foucault’s criticisms are directed against the tendency to reduce all social and political problems according to predetermined ends and verifiable procedures. For Arendt, it is important to develop an approach that allows for an understanding of others’ opinions, see the world from another’s perspective, and judge particular circumstances without appeals to universal dictates. In questioning the relationship between self and truth and in putting opinions to the public test of others, Arendt demonstrates that the world, as a common object of human understanding, reveals itself differently at different times. Consequently, what Arendt aims at is “an independent human faculty, unsupported by law and public opinion, that judges anew in full spontaneity every deed and intent whenever the need arises”.379 To stop and think critically dissolves accepted rules of conduct and makes it less likely for people to get swept away unthinkingly.380
378 O'Leary, 2002, p. 159 379 “Human beings be capable of telling right from wrong, even when all they have to guide them is their own judgment, which, moreover, happens to be completely at odds with what they must regard as the unanimous opinion of all those around them… Those few who were still able to tell right from wrong went really only by their own judgments, and they did so freely; there were no rules to be abided by, under which the particular cases with which they were confronted be subsumed. They had to decide each instance as it arose, because no rules existed for the unprecedented.” (Eichmann in Jerusalem, p. 294-295) 380 Lectures on Kant, p.115 – 11 147
Foucault, on the other hand, values thinking about events in terms of meaning. For him, every judgment or evaluation is a particular historical event, that leads to the possible re- imaginings of current configurations. Transformative possibilities open up in the recognition of the particular circumstances a person finds themselves. Foucault believes that criticism should be conducted as a historical investigation, “into the events that have led us to constitute ourselves and to recognize ourselves as subjects of what we are doing, thinking and saying”— this investigation he terms the care of the self.381 Instead of the passive acceptance of predetermined definitions of ethics, politics and the self, Foucault considers techniques of self- care to offer possibilities to change life, behaviour and relationships. Through the constant work of questioning and critique, a space is created for the possibility of transformative events. Central to this process is the recognition that the self is not given and does not have ontological precedence, and that subjectivity is transformable. Foucault searches for the lines and fractures in systems of knowledge and power to “open up the space of freedom… [and] of possible transformation”.382 As with Arendt’s concept of thinking, self-care is not an abstraction, or a simple guide for action, but the development of a specific, dynamic, critical attitude.
Arendt and Foucault both conceive freedom as a critical and creative attitude that provides the condition for ethical and political transformation. Freedom, in this sense, is not simply a freedom from constraint. It is the attempt to question internally and externally defined values. It is a freedom to dismantle foundations, and create new ideas to serve as new “truths”. Furthermore, it is the freedom to subsequently discard these truths, if need be, and recreate anew. It is freedom understood as process (as discussed in Chapter Four) that can perhaps bring about the never before seen; not just personally, but in ways that have broader social and political implications. The uncritical acceptance of externally posited systems and prescriptive dictates limits the transformative possibility of freedom, in Arendt’s and Foucault’s accounts, by limiting the questions asked, problems identified, and solutions offered according to specific evaluative systems. Only by challenging governing socio-political ideas and values can a space for transformative events become possible.
Neve Gordon argues that the central role of personal resistance in Arendt’s theory of freedom distinguishes her approach from Foucault. Primarily referencing The Archaeology of Knowledge, Madness and Civilisation, and the first volume of The History of Sexuality, Gordon approaches Foucault’s work from the premise that machinations of control are ubiquitous and
381 What is Enlightenment, p.305 382 The Return of Morality, p.36 148 leave little, if any room, for resistance. In short, Gordon interprets Foucault’s discussions on knowledge and power as follows: every institution, political office, and field of research involves statements that manifest themselves in constitutions, regulations, mandates, memberships, and contracts. The knowledge that enables answers to questions pertaining to a particular field are always informed by the discursive practice constituting and demarcating that field. Based on his reading of the first volume of The History of Sexuality 1 – The Will to Knowledge, Gordon posits that Foucault’s genealogical examination of sexuality reveals an artificially unified concept of sex which, as with knowledge and power, appears to circumscribe human sexuality in established orthodoxies. Gordon argues sexuality is understood as a construct and site of social control that both shapes and represses individuals. As a “false unity”, sexuality is nothing but manifestations of power that create hierarchies, facilitate domination, and organise the control of subjects.
While this characterisation of Foucault could be argued to be an accurate account of the first volume of The History of Sexuality, it is problematic to claim that this approach is applicable to Foucault’s broader project. Gordon limits his discussion of Foucault to the circumscription of objects existing in the world (madness, in this case), and descriptions of the processes by which objects of investigation are constituted.383 If Gordon had engaged with the second and third volume of The History of Sexuality (The Use of Pleasure and The Care of the Self) it would have become evident that Foucault’s account of the experience of sexuality does not match this interpretation. The result of Gordon’s exclusion of volume two and three of The History of Sexuality from his discussion, along with some of Foucault’s later papers and interviews, leads to his mistaken assumption that no space exists for personal resistance in the Foucauldian schema.
In short, Gordon argues, Foucault’s account of the production of distinct modes of visibility, used to control society through manifestations of power, does not recognise that the
383 Gordon believes Foucault’s historical analysis of madness is pertinent to the question of social control for five reasons: (1) discourse produces and constitutes objects (madness), identities, and interests, and therefore influences and shapes behaviour; (2) in the definition of objects, spheres of inquiry, and fields of research, limits are set through the application of particular discourse, creating systems of exclusion, interdiction, and prohibition (i.e., negative control); (3) Foucault reveals that madness is normalized by being portrayed and consequently conceived to be natural, rather than a contingent, historical construction; (4) Foucault dispels the long-held belief in the neutrality of institutions and shows that institutions frequently present themselves as impartial, while concealing an agenda that is used to advance specific programs; and (5) there is no identifiable site outside of language from which discursive practices are disseminated or controlled. This latter point is crucial, for it suggests that often the mechanisms of control cannot be traced back to any social agent, since they are non-subjective. (Gordon, 2002, p. 127-128) 149 same power producing such modes of visibility are also concomitantly dependent upon them. Consequently, this visibility, produced by manifestations of power, is also a necessary component of resistance. The underlying premise of Gordon’s criticism rests on the assumption that Foucault never adequately explains how people can resist mechanisms of control in a world where power is ubiquitous. As such, he concludes, Arendt’s ideas of freedom, power, plurality and natality can serve as correctives to Foucault by making room for resistance, without assuming humans can “exit power’s web”.384 Yet Gordon’s entire “Arendtian corrective” is completely unnecessary, because the space he creates for resistance within a power-system is already present in Foucault’s account of the care of the self.
Gordon correctly acknowledges that Arendt and Foucault share a non-essentialist ontology and that both reject notions of a fixed human nature or essence. He also recognised both to have a relational understanding of power. However, where Gordon identifies Foucault’s account of power to centre on the relation of multiple forces, he sees Arendt’s position as corrective to this because she conceives freedom and power as manifesting when people act in concert. It is this idea of people uniting that presents possibilities for creating something new, and it is this freedom to act that Gordon believes Foucault’s account is lacking. For Gordon, Foucault’s non-subjective account of power constitutes, naturalises, and makes relations essential by separating and homogenising human beings. Arendt’s notion of power, on the other hand, offers the potential for humans to break free and disrupt the hold of Foucauldian power. Yet what Gordon fails to identify is that resistance is present in all Foucault’s work—in a way that aligns with Gordon’s claim that visibility is a necessary component of resistance, due to the power that produces visibility being concomitantly dependent upon it. Much of Foucault’s corpus concerns the mutual dependence that Gordon identifies. However, only in later work does Foucault explicitly explore ideas of personal resistance.
Gordon identifies the Arendtian potential for resistance as lying in her account of freedom, understood in the context of plurality and natality. Natality offers the potential to bring the never before seen into the world, and the condition of plurality creates a space for people to rise up together.385 Yet, in his explanation, Gordon seems to disregard Arendt’s work post Eichmann, where her concern is with possibilities of resistance once plurality, and the potential to rise up in concert, becomes impossible. Additionally, she comes to modify her account of freedom in subsequent works as a consequence of her contemplative withdrawal. Later, she
384 Gordon, 2002, p. 126 385 Gordon, 2002, p. 133-136 150 understands the ability to instigate the never before seen I not only in terms of natality, but also in her account of willing, where through acts of the will a person has the potential to bring about the completely novel. Although Gordon’s description of Arendt’s and Foucault’s early works is not incorrect, his scope is limited. By not engaging with either thinkers’ later work Gordon incorrectly assumes Foucault’s account lacks possibilities for resistance to forces of power, and reduces Arendt’s idea of resistance to public manifestations where people unite.
Freedom in Arendt is always political, having the potential to create something new. However, in later work, this idea of freedom extends beyond plurality and natality to take account of personal freedom when the public, political space has been eroded. Similarly, Foucault’s work on the care of the self concerns personal freedom, understood in relation to practices of the self that can create a space for not only personal forms of resistance, but also for transformative moments where people might unite and rise up in resistance. Although Gordon offers an interesting account of Arendt and Foucault, his “Arendtian corrective” is unnecessary, since ideas of freedom, resistance and transgression exist in Foucault and are, as I have shown, overtly articulated in his work on practices of the self.
5.2 The figure of Socrates
Arendt and Foucault differ insofar as one considers thinking to be the greatest good to befall the city of Athens and the other considers it the care of the self. Nonetheless, despite this divergence, both draw on similar themes using different terms. Furthermore, each suggests Socrates’ task is to demand thinking or self-care of each citizen, and to “sting” the citizens into thought or care, so as not to “sleep on undisturbed”.386 Where Arendt sees Socrates encouraging others to think independently, so as not to continue slumbering, Foucault similarly identifies Socrates’ role as waking his fellow citizens to a concern with the self. The care of the self is viewed as the instant of first waking, when a person’s eyes open and access the light.387 Furthermore, both Arendt’s and Foucault’s discussions on Socrates’ efforts to rouse his fellow citizens reference the same comparison between Socrates as a gadfly/horsefly. For Arendt, Socrates the gadfly stings his fellow citizens into thinking and examining; whereas in Foucault, Socrates the horsefly bites his fellow Athenians to drive them to a concern with the self.388
386 The Life of the Mind – Thinking, p. 172 387 The Hermeneutics of the Subject, p. 7-8; Apology: 31a. 388 “the care of oneself is a sort of thorn which must be stuck in men’s flesh, driven into their existence, and which is a principle of restlessness and movement, of continuous concern throughout life”. (The Hermeneutics of the Subject, p. 8) 151
Arendt and Foucault both use the figure of Socrates as an exemplar of a person that embodies their respective interests. I will not revisit the details of Socrates’ relationship to either of these notions, but I will discuss the similarity between Arendt’s and Foucault’s appropriation of the figure of Socrates to highlight some specific ideas each presents in their reading of particular Socratic dialogues. The comparison is informative, because both Arendt and Foucault draw on similar Socratic qualities concerning the synthesis of his words and deeds in the public expression of his opinions. Additionally, each makes mention of Socrates the gadfly (horsefly) who stings his fellow citizens into thought. However, where Arendt sees Socrates as the embodiment of the importance of knowing yourself, and the opposite of the “professional thinker”, Foucault identifies in him the beginning of a concern with the self and the embodiment of a philosophical attitude to life.
Arendt’s examination of Socrates is primarily focused on the Apology, Phaedo and the Gorgias.389 She does not provide a close reading of any of these dialogues, instead she picks and chooses from each what she needs to further her account of the activity of thinking discussed in Chapter Two. The main elements she draws from these texts concerning the activity of thought are: the destructive nature of thought in questioning and breaking down commonly held beliefs without positing anything new; the necessity to withdraw into solitude; the importance of a life lived in thinking and examination; the two-in-one, and Socrates’ attempt to lead and encourage others to live a life of thoughtful critique.
Foucault, on the other hand, while referencing numerous texts in his discussions on Socrates, provides several close readings to support his view of the importance of the epimeleia heauton (care of the self)—in particular the Apology and Alcibiades.390 Foucault interest in Socrates is not as the embodiment of the activity of thinking. His interest is in the ways in which the care of the self makes its first appearance around the figure of Socrates. Foucault emphasises the link between the care of the self and others, as well as the importance for Socrates to inspire others to care for themselves.391 Foucault, like Arendt, discusses the importance of self-reflection (Arendt’s “winds of thought”), but presents these elements as a concern for philosophers in general rather than solely in relation to the figure of Socrates. Nonetheless, despite a slight divergence in focus, for both Arendt and Foucault, Socrates represents the critically-creative attitude each values.
389 Also Meno, Charmides and Theatetus. 390 These close readings are presented in his 1981-82 lectures, The Hermeneutics of the Subject. Other texts Foucault references are the Phaedo, Symposium, Cratylus and Republic. 391 The latter two are a theme of the care of the self in general, not just as presented in Socrates. 152
Arendt demonstrates how Socrates encourages his fellow citizens to question such things as virtue and, without settling on a fixed definition, involves them in a process to make them more virtuous. Foucault also mentions Socrates’ suggestions of people becoming more virtuous by questioning these ideas. Foucault paraphrases the passage in the Apology where this is mentioned without offering much commentary.392 Yet this account of a person becoming more virtuous, through processes of self-care, shares features with Arendt’s account. Arendt’s Socrates claims that by thinking about terms like virtue, a person becomes more virtuous; Foucault’s Socrates suggest a similar outcome through practices of the self. At the core of each elaboration lies a concern with the meaning of ethical and political action.
Arendt and Foucault consider Socrates to have lived his truth, in the sense that there is no conflict between his word and deed. Additionally, both thinkers distinguish Socrates from Plato by stating that Socrates displays no interest in positing any universally applicable rules about what such truth entails. His interest centres on making Athenians live more truthfully, in the sense already discussed, by revealing the unquestioned assumptions and contradictions inherent in peoples’ beliefs and points of view. Socrates does not judge the validity of another’s view on the basis of who their teacher had been, their reputation, what philosophical school they belong to or their prior intellectual work. Instead, through a dialogic process, he attempts to make others take account of who they are, by turning each person’s views into a problem to be investigated. Foucault interprets this is a process of care where the definition of self does not concern titles or achievements, but the form of personal existence. Arendt refers to something similar when distinguishing between revealing what a person is (titles, achievements) and who a person is (the character revealed through actions and deeds). Arendt and Foucault highlight similar positives, such as synthesis of words and deeds, willingness to break apart core beliefs, and the attempt to live justly and truthfully. The primary argument both thinkers make is for the necessity of a critical attitude towards self and world, understood as a never-ending quest for meaning, and independent of prescriptive guidelines. Arendt calls this critical attitude the thinking enterprise, and in Foucault it is the practice of self-care.
The following passages from volume 1 of the Life of the Mind highlight the close link Arendt sees between Socrates and thinking, and also demonstrate the difference in approach between Arendt and Foucault a in relation to the figure of Socrates. This passage refers to Socrates as gadfly, electric ray and midwife.
Let us look briefly at the three similes. First, Socrates is a gadfly: he knows how to sting the citizens who, without him, will “sleep on undisturbed for the rest of their lives” unless somebody
392 Apology 30c 153
comes along to arouse them. And what does he arouse them to? To thinking and examination, an activity without which life, in his view, was not only not worth much but was not fully alive. (On this subject, in the Apology as in other cases, Socrates is saying very nearly the opposite of what Plato made him say in the “improved apology” of the Phaedo. In the Apology, Socrates tells his fellow-citizens why he should live and also why, though life is “very clear” to him, he is not afraid of death; in the Phaedo, he explains to his friends how burdensome life is and why he is glad to die.)393 and, …while he defends himself vigorously against the charge of corrupting the young, he nowhere pretends that he is improving them. Nevertheless, he claims that the appearance in Athens of thinking and examining represented in himself was the greatest good that ever befell the City. Thus he was concerned with what thinking is good for, although, in this, as in all other respects, he did not give a clear-cut answer.394 Socrates embodies Arendt’s understanding of thinking and, for her, it is with Socrates that this particular idea of thinking and examination makes its first appearance. According to Arendt, Socrates not only represents what it means to think, but notes also that he considers it necessary to arouse his fellow citizens to thinking and examination—activity without which life is not fully lived. Although Arendt does not directly reference the Delphic maxim, “know yourself” (gnothi seauton), it seems to lie at the heart of her account of Socratic thought. Her repeated reference to Socrates’ claim, that without thinking and examination life is not fully lived, seems to mirror the sentiment of the famous line from the Apology that an unexamined life is not worth living.395
Arendt’s account of Socrates as the figure in whom thinking, in her specific sense, first appears, reinforces Foucault’s argument about the Western philosophical tradition’s emphasis on the ancient Greek maxim, “know yourself”. In “Philosophy and Politics”, Arendt says that Socrates relies on two principles: (1) the Delphic precept, “know yourself”; and (2) avoid disagreement with yourself. To recall, in Chapter Two I showed the ways in which Arendt carries the second of these two insights over—from her earlier accounts of the public Socrates to the later Socrates of “Thinking and Moral Consideration” and The Life of the Mind—to develop her idea of the two-in-one.396 However, what is also evident is that, in some respect, Arendt carries over the first insight also. In her agreement that an unexamined life is not worth living, Arendt aligns her account of thinking with self-knowledge. The connection between Arendt’s account of thinking and examination, and the Delphic motto, “know yourself”, points to a difference between her and Foucault’s interpretation of Socrates in the Apology.
393 The Life of the Mind – Thinking, p. 172 394 The Life of the Mind – Thinking, p. 173 (Emphasis added) 395 Arendt does not discuss gnothi seauton in her discussions on thinking, she does mention it in an earlier paper, “Politics and Philosophy” where Socrates is not as the embodiment of the thinking activity, but the person who understands the importance of nurturing the multiplicity of the public realm. 396 “Philosophy and Politics”, p. 85 154
Where Arendt argues that thinking as self-knowledge first appears with Socrates, Foucault stipulates the care of the self first appears. To recall, in agreement with Arendt, Foucault argues that in the Apology the founding expression, to “know yourself” (gnothi seauton) makes its first appearance with Socrates, but that also another equally important and long forgotten maxim, the care of the self (epimeleia heauton) also appears. Additionally, just as Arendt claims, “that ‘no greater good has ever befallen” the polis than what he was doing”,397 Foucault says much the same, only in reference to the care of the self,
And if anyone argues and claims that he does care…don’t think that I shall let him go and go on my way. No, I shall question him, examine him and argue with him at length…For you should understand that this is what the god demands, and I believe that nothing better has befallen this city than my zeal in executing this command.” This “command,” then, is the command by which the gods have entrusted Socrates with the task of stopping people, young and old, citizens or strangers, and saying to them: Attend to yourselves. This is Socrates’ task.398
Despite many points of convergence, Arendt and Foucault ultimately diverge in their interpretation of the figure of Socrates and his relationship to philosophical practice. In Foucault, self-care is philosophical practice; it is a way of life aimed to test life, instead of discovering the knowledge of the soul. Arendt, on the other hand, goes so far as to say she does not engage in philosophy, nor consider herself a philosopher, because of the degradation of the political realm by professional thinkers. Even during her “contemplative turn” she continues to posit “professional thinkers” in opposition to the plurality of the public realm, and goes to great lengths to demonstrate how her idea of thinking differs from the philosophical pursuit of knowledge. Both Arendt and Foucault agree on the importance of personally putting life to the test, but where Foucault aligns self-care with philosophical practice, Arendt rejects philosophical pursuits as the concern of “professional thinkers” and their quest for Truth.
Foucault, influenced by Pierre Hadot, distinguishes between philosophy as a quest for knowledge, and philosophy as a way of life. Of course, these two approaches are not mutually exclusive; but Foucault points out that the latter regards philosophy as a mode of existence, and is no longer prevalent in modern thought. Schools dedicated to teaching both doctrines and ways of living are absent from today’s philosophical landscape, and philosophy is regarded as a discipline with particular aims, much like the philosophical pursuits Arendt is so critical of. Yet Foucault believes that a philosophical life is not just the life of Arendt’s “professional thinkers”. Philosophy is also a way of life, made manifest through practices of self-care that are always a part of the multiplicity of the world and public realm.
397 “Thinking and Moral Consideration”, p.179 398 Foucault, 2005, p. 6 (Emphasis added) 155
5.2.1 A Foucauldian “corrective” of Arendt’s two accounts of Socrates
Some commentators regard Arendt’s depiction of Socrates in earlier and later works as conflictual. 399 Arendt does present Socrates differently in “Politics and Philosophy” and the later, “Thinking and Moral Consideration”. In the first, Socrates embodies Arendt’s idea of public, political discourse, where he supports a politics of opinion and encourages his fellow citizens to express their specific truth. In “Thinking and Moral Consideration”, Socrates becomes the exemplar of contemplative retreat, and his critical task becomes fundamentally negative. No longer does he publicly build up others opinions, but dissolves truths that seem solid without offering anything in their place. I suggest that Foucault’s distinction between the two lines of inquiry on self-care discussed in Chapter Three could serve as a “Foucauldian corrective”, to reference Gordon’s terms, for Arendt’s two apparently conflictual accounts of Socrates. I put forward this Foucauldian “corrective” primarily to defend Arendt’s depictions of Socrates against critics who argue there is a conflict in her two accounts. As such, my “corrective” resembles Gordon’s “Arendtian corrective” only in the appropriation of the term “corrective”— because, in referencing the two lines of inquiry of self-care Foucault identifies in ancient Greek thought, my intention is to support rather than improve Arendt’s particular depictions of Socrates.
I suggest that, rather than presenting conflicting accounts, Arendt’s Socrates embodies Foucault’s two lines of inquiry concerning the care of the self discussed in Chapter Three. To remind, Foucault posits that Alcibiades and Laches represent two lines of development for Western philosophical reflection: the first encourages a care of the self, which leads people to the metaphysical reality of the soul (self) in preparation for public life and political parrhesia; the second elaborates a particular way of living, as a test of life/existence.400 I contend that Arendt’s earlier and later versions of the figure of Socrates align with these two lines of philosophical reflection. Her earlier presentation of Socrates resembles the second line of inquiry depicted in Laches, concerning a particular way of living. In the second line of inquiry life
399 “Even allowing for the fact that [Arendt’s] use of opinion here departs from her usual meaning (a rational faculty rather than mere prejudice or prejudgment) [referencing Arendt’s description of Socrates in “Thinking and Moral consideration as purging people of their opinions] this is an extraordinary reversal for Arendt. Of course, she does not renege on her endorsement of a (democratic) politics of opinion as opposed to an (authoritarian) politics of absolute truth. Nevertheless, she utterly recasts Socrates’ role within the debate and deliberation that constitutes the Greek/Arendtian politics of talk. Socrates no longer builds opinions up by eliciting their specific truth; rather he…reveals their inadequacy.” (Villa, 2001, p. 267); See also, Ignatieff, 1995. 400 The Hermeneutics of the Subject, pp. 122-127 156 becomes the continual test of personal beliefs and world-views through public debate and deliberation. As such, when taking these two lines of reflection into account the Socrates in Arendt’s “Philosophy and Politics”, walks among his fellow citizens and publicly encourages them to express their specific opinions in much the same way as the Socrates presented in Foucault’s reading of Laches. In both instances public debate is a particular way of living that puts individuals’ personal existence to the test—by allowing themselves to be publicly judged by others.
Arendt’s Socrates in “Thinking and Moral Consideration”, on the other hand, better aligns with Foucault’s first line of inquiry discussed in his reading of Alcibiades. This first line is in preparation to enter public life and engage in political parrhesia—it entails reflection upon the divine, in order to learn the metaphysical truth of the soul (self).401 In Arendt, this reflection upon the divine becomes the thinking activity as it deals with abstractions. Thinking, for Arendt, is always a destructive activity that breaks apart norms and truths that are held dear. Just as Socrates encourages Alcibiades to reflect on ideas of justice, Arendt’s thinking does the same. Arendt’s later, contemplative Socrates, is an articulation of the preparation necessary before entering public life. In this instance, Socrates does not symbolise the contemplative withdrawal of Arendt’s “professional thinkers”, but rather the contemplation necessary to understand the meaning of personal points of view, opinions and truths.
The care of the self manifests differently in Alcibiades and Laches, but nonetheless concern the necessary relationship between public life and thinking. As such, the Socrates in “Politics and Philosophy” aligns with the self-care presented in Laches, relating to particular ways of living where ideas and personal existence are publicly tested; and the Socrates of “Thinking and Moral Consideration” represents the care, depicted in Alcibiades, that leads people to the metaphysical reality of the soul (self) in preparation for public, political life. Neither Arendt nor her supporters use this idea of the two lines of inquiry outlined by Foucault in his discussions of self-care. Yet, I suggest, it is another angle to approach Arendt’s depictions of Socrates to further support the claim that her early and late depictions of Socrates are not in opposition, but align with Foucault’s two lines of philosophical reflection that, he argues, are already present in ancient Greece.
401 Arendt’s earlier Socrates is the model of the political parrhesiast, publicly expressing his doxa to demonstrate the meaning of ruling justly. Arendt does discuss the political pariah, but does not distinguish between parrhesia, rhetoric and doxa. Doxa is used to describe all instances of free public expression. 157
5.3 Critical self-creation
Arendt and Foucault both put forward accounts of dynamic processes of self- engagement. Both do this in order to counter what they regard as the reduction of ethico- political agency to universally applicable codes and systems. Each considers blindness to the underlying structures that shape methods of investigation—such as science, technology, progress, and for Foucault, rationality—to be potentially dangerous, because of the tendency to reduce, destroy and dismiss alternative approaches. The inability to question fundamental values stifles genuine critical analysis by limiting different possibilities or approaches to the complexities within the world. Exploring themes of critical self-development as a means of resistance, aimed at transgressing current configurations, Arendt and Foucault promote a critical engagement between self and world to counter universally applicable moral and political structures. Both approach notions of self, ethics and political action as ends in themselves, and not a means to achieving a pre-established goal.
In earlier works, Arendt approaches the problem of universally applicable moral and political structures by developing an account of performative political engagement, where political actors continually present opinions to be publicly judged by other political actors. In later works, Arendt develops her account of thinking as a means to test commonly held beliefs and worldviews. In both approaches the dynamic process of developing a personal relationship to truth guides and informs ethical and political engagement. Similarly, Foucault’s description of self-care presents processes of self-creation where the concern with meaning about self, truth and freedom is central, and in which these notions are not conceived as metaphysical categories, or historically constant. Truth and freedom occupy the position of an ethical principle. Yet there is the recognition that these notions are constituted by historically contingent forces and structures, and can be transformed through various modes of resistance. Critical thinking (or philosophy), political struggle and practices of self-care make the space for such transformation possible. Truth, freedom, and the ethico-political self are all viewed as processes rather than as predetermined systems or concepts, that aim to destabilise ossified structures and prevent the imposition of others.
Arendt uses the three faculties of the mind to offer an account of ethico-political judgment (and resistance) that is independent of the public arena, while retaining her fundamental notions of plurality, dialogue, and the potential to bring about the unforeseen. Practices directed towards self-constitution, critique and reflection offer alternative approaches to current conceptions of ethics and politics. At the heart of Arendt’s ethico-political action is a
158 space for the free and open exchange of conflicting ideas, and the ability to judge particular situations without subsuming them under fixed standards. As I discussed in Chapter One, public performance is central to Arendt’s understanding of political action, and the key to this performance is the demonstrable unity of words and deeds. Additionally, in her investigation into the three faculties of the mind, the problem she confronts concerns the possibility of making independent judgments that are not necessarily determined by pre-established codes of conduct. The ability to approach particular circumstances without blind faith, without obedience to governing rules and doctrines, can have profound ethical and political consequences, particularly in times where liberties and abilities to publicly resist in are eroded— such as under totalitarianism.
Arendt’s concern with independent ethico-political action is mirrored in Foucault’s discussion of the practices of self-care. Resistance and transgression are recurring themes throughout his work on power and knowledge, but only with the care of the self do these themes become explicit. Despite claims that the subject does not exist outside of systems of power and knowledge, resistance has always been possible. The very structure of his discussions, on epistemic changes and approaches to categorisation, are examples of resistance in practice. A space is created for the possibility of different correlates by magnifying some of the underlying structures shaping conceptions of self and world. Extending on this idea of resistance through critique, the self-constituting subject—understood as a critical relationship between personal identity and external structures that constitute existing truth claims—offers one such possibility of transformation.
In the context of responding to particular events, the ability to examine firmly held beliefs and truths allows a person to question and judge each situation afresh. Arendt and Foucault’s respective accounts of the critical and dynamic, ethico-political attitude share two features: (1) a propensity for openness, and (2) a lack of fear concerning transformative events or ideas. The first feature regards an openness to others’ opinions, world-views and claims to truth. It is also an openness to question and make visible the purpose, function and effects of the systems of power that are at play. These include, but are not limited to: techniques of governance, institutionalised practises, ossified beliefs, religious dogma, the scientific world- view, normative constructs, and universal truths. Furthermore, this critical attitude is not only directed at the social and political world, but at personal opinions, beliefs and truths as well. It is the second feature that makes it possible to extend the questioning of externally enforced systems of knowledge and power to the truths and principles that guide and inform personal opinions, actions and judgments. A lack of fear about transformative events is necessary for the 159 attempt to question internal and external truths that anchor beliefs and worldviews. Numerous historically and socially contingent constructs guide actions, and govern questions and solutions. As such, a person must be open to critically assessing even those ideas held to be most sacred. It is necessary to be unafraid of ideas crumbling under the weight of interrogation. Of course, it is impossible to be completely free of the social, cultural and historical constructs that shape the meaning of the world. However, in developing the openness to examine the conceptual apparatus that determine the meaning of self and world, small spaces for new experience and ways of understanding can open up.
5.4 Dynamic ethical and political engagement
Foucault and Arendt both develop a relational account of ethics and politics based on plurality and difference, and oppose the organisation of multiplicity under a single, unifying ideal. The concern with unifying systems, is that everything becomes viewed through a single orientation that guides methods of inquiry as well as outcomes. An example of such a unifying system is utilitarianism, in which, at its most elemental level, moral judgment is reduced to the evaluation of the greatest good for the greatest number. Arendt believes the tendency to reduce every action or event according to one evaluative system limits the capacity to judge particular circumstances independently because it is grounded in a determinate interpretative horizon. This makes it more likely for people to readily adopt an alternative if circumstances dictate. Foucault shares Arendt’s view concerning universal moral and political systems, and finds the idea of an ethics or politics that is equally applicable to all to be disturbing, because of the potential dangers that can arise from the arrogant certainty of assuming only one way to be the right way. Ultimately, the problem is not so much with the specifics of any given system—for most have many positives to offer—but in the inability to entertain alternative approaches, or critique the possible limitations of whatever moral and political system is deemed most effective.
Analyses of issues and strategies for social or political problems are always affected by particular moral and political codes. Issues are tested, particular approaches to problems criticised, but rarely is the system itself questioned. It is true that supporters of particular codes of conduct may do so in the attempt to change the world—perhaps for the better—yet these approaches leave certain pillars untouched. A case in point is Peter Singer’s recent book, The Most Good You Can Do, which found some popular success.402 In this book Singer presents examples of appropriate evaluative judgments to guide individuals’ actions in order to maximise
402 Singer, 2015 160 the betterment of all. Central to Singer’s arguments is the idea that by making the right choices it could become possible to alleviate global poverty, improve the average quality of life, and maximise the greatest good for the greatest number worldwide. The arguments he presents include such things as, practical advice on what charity to support so as to make the best use of the money donated, or career choices offering the highest salaries, which could then allow for donations to the causes already assessed as worthy and effective.
The changes Singer discusses are not the transformative events championed by Arendt and Foucault. The approach Arendt and Foucault take to systemic transformation concerns rethinking the very ideas that shape worldviews; in order to reconceptualise the understanding of ethical and political action altogether. Singer, on the other hand, does not question current configurations of power and knowledge systems. Instead, he uses the capitalist model to inform his ethical account directed towards helping those groups identified in the most need. As a result, in Singer’s approach an artist, for example, is not necessarily the best career choice because it is not the most efficient means to making a high income, which could then be put towards funding causes worthy of charitable donations. A stockbroker is much more efficient in maximising earning potential. According to these particular guidelines perhaps it would no longer be the best idea to become a philosopher, since large wages are not guaranteed and the impact of a person’s ideas unknown. Of course, Singer is justified in his choice of career, and sees himself making a valuable contribution to the “greater good”. However, this certainty of career choice is not necessarily clear according to the criteria his model sets up. The broad issue is that Singer’s moral philosophical approach does not challenge the underlying social and political order, but rather seeks to modify individual agent’s action which, in aggregate, leads to a better outcome for some specific class of people or the natural world.
In Arendt and Foucault, transformative events occur in the unpredictable interplay of divergent and complex arrangements. Radical political or social change cannot necessarily arise when differences are united under a singular idea. It is for this reason that Arendt and Foucault embrace the notion of multiplicity. Instead of silencing difference according to predetermined categories it is important to question the meaning of certain behaviours and conditions, and allow different viewpoints, voices and ideas to rise up so as to create space for genuine change. Foucault describes this thinking about the meaning of the state of things problematisations:
Actually, for a domain of action. A behaviour, to enter the field of thought, it is necessary for a certain number of factors to have made it uncertain, to have made it lose its familiarity, or to have provoked a number of difficulties around it. These elements result from social, economic, or political processes… They [social, political, economic elements] can exist and perform their action for a very long time, before there is effective problematization by thought. And when 161
thought intervenes, it doesn’t assume a unique form that is the direct result or, the necessary expression of these difficulties; it is an original or specific response –often taking many forms, sometimes even contradictory in its different aspects –to these difficulties, which are defined for it by a situation or a context, and which hold true as a possible question.403
This problematisation by thought makes certain social, political or economic processes lose their familiarity to make unquestioned forces and power relations manifest. In such instances when “a certain number of factors” become uncertain the possibility for transformative events to take place opens up. Arendt uses the term “novelty” to capture this idea.
The problem Arendt and Foucault identify with the dependence on a prescriptive system is that it prohibits the possibility of different sets of relations from manifesting. Singer’s concerns should not to be derided; it is worthwhile trying to better others’ circumstances by thinking beyond personal interest. Yet Singer’s approach provides solutions to alleviating modern day problems of poverty and suffering without questioning the normative principles informing his approach—and without questioning the structure underlying the poverty and suffering. Singer develops a system to better the overall good of the people—the greatest good for the greatest number—without looking at the underlying configurations of power and knowledge that shape world-view, influence methods of inquiry, and affect solutions to issues. The fate of the powerless, disenfranchised, and poor depends on the pre-established categorisation of worthy causes, decided and judged according to a fixed set of criteria.
5.5 Conclusion
Central to Arendt’s and Foucault’s critical exploration of the dynamic, critical attitude is an openness to examining ideas and systems that shape personal, social and political understanding. As the earlier discussion on Gordon illustrated, this critical attitude is not independent of the systems and ideas in question. Normative systems of power, knowledge, history, society and governance all affect the focus and modes of critique. Regardless of the dangers Arendt and Foucault identify in the dependence on normative ethical and political principles, it can equally be suggested that their respective accounts also presuppose normative ideas of a right or wrong judgment, or good or bad act. This point is not controversial, and neither Arendt nor Foucault would suggest that thought and inquiry could be completely free from the limits and constraints their work is directed toward. As Jan Patočka writes,
Every philosophical school and persuasion casts accusations of being “metaphysical” at every other school, as if it were a deadly weapon. Ordinarily, we consider any philosophising metaphysical if it goes beyond the limit of positive science. By this definition, metaphysics means
403 “Polemics, Politics, and Problematizations”, p. 117 (emphasis added) 162
a lack of clarity, a false profundity, a secularised theology, a surpassed, obsolete science fit only for museums.404
Yet, in the attempt to critically engage with the prevailing guiding principles and systems of knowledge, the focus shifts from a passive acceptance of norms towards ongoing critique. Investigation becomes continual critical inquiry into the connections between systems and particular events, and the meaning this has for personal responsibility and judgment.
For both thinkers this critical attitude, which judges anew each particular circumstance (Arendt), or manifests in the effective problematisation by thought (Foucault), is a process of continual labour. In Arendt, the critical task of thinking is fundamentally destructive. She claims thinking has an “undermining effect on all established criteria, values, measurements of good and evil, in short, on those customs and rules of conduct we treat of in morals and ethics”.405 Similarly, Foucault considers the transformative task of self-care to be a lifetime of hard work. As he says in an interview with Stephen Riggins, “that’s why I work like a dog, and I worked like a dog all my life. I am not interested in the academic status of what I am doing because my problem is my own transformation.”406 Arendt and Foucault are not interested in establishing a new ethical structure—they each advocate a particular attitude to living that questions the meaning of world-building systems and points of view. Only with an openness to endless critique and the ongoing search for meaning is it possible to think, judge and act independently, to use Arendt’s terminology, and make space for political, ethical and personal transformation.
404 Patočka, (1953) 1989, p. 175. 405 Life of the Mind – Thinking, p.175 406 “An Interview by Stephen Riggins”, p.131 163
Conclusion
In this thesis, in opposition to common comparisons between Arendt and Foucault, I argue that the two thinkers’ works have more in common than a shared fight against normalisation and conformity. It is true that Arendt and Foucault consider the modern configuration of prescriptions—because of the ever-present attitude towards the homogenisation of plurality – to have an inherently destructive potential. An example of one such prevailing system that limits divergence, and elevates a particular perspective, is the role of scientific method in shaping modern modes of critique and investigation. The advances in the empirical understanding of the world that result from scientific investigation are astounding. It is therefore no surprise that this model of scientific investigation has extended to other modes of inquiry, including questions concerning ethics and politics. Yet, for Arendt and Foucault, to universalise a particular method—with very specific concerns—to inquiry in general, is representative of the destructive possibilities inherent in modernity. The extension of the scientific mode of inquiry to the ethical and political realms is problematic. The scientific notion of the progress of ideas is dangerous when applied to morality and politics, as it strengthens faith in modern norms and values by supporting the need to “discover” a correct system, as if such a system is ever there to find. The uniformity and power of this approach is capable of leading to a situation in which alternate approaches are either not pursued or are disregarded.407
Instead, Arendt and Foucault reveal the contingency of dominant systems that shape modern world-views; they facilitate the identification of destructive, harmful practices, and bring about alternative ways of thinking and acting. With a shared suspicion of universal ethical or political systems, each attempts to undermine prescriptive moral and political models by fostering a dynamic, critical self-relationship. Too frequently, Foucault is accused of lacking active agency in his account of normalising systems that control individuals’ behaviour, while Arendt is put forward as the champion of freedom and political action. However, as I have
407 Dianna Taylor, who was briefly mentioned in Chapter Four, disagrees with the suggestion that in Arendt and Foucault modernity is inherently destructive. Taylor argues, Arendt’s and Foucault’s critical “counter-attitude” towards modernity does not mean modernity is inherently destructive, just as it is neither inherently positive by distinguishing between modernity as inherently destructive, and modernity having destructive tendencies. Taylor suggests that the destructive potential in modern systems of power and knowledge manifests in two ways: (1) in the harmful effects produced by, “esteemed modern norms and values such as scientific and technological innovation, rationality, and efficiency”, and (2) from the view that a “civilising process” is inherent to modernity itself.407 The modern tendency to equate positive change with human progress, where “superior ideas” surpass inferior, false or ineffectual ones, masks the possible harm that stems from ostensibly positive modern developments and values. (Taylor, Spring 2011) 164 shown, Arendt and Foucault’s later work also converges around the idea of the connection between ethics, politics and self-constitution. Arendt’s contemplative withdrawal complements Foucault’s care of the self, with both presenting accounts for developing a critical attitude that questions the meaning of current systems and prescriptive codes. By maintaining a critical relationship to self and world, Arendt and Foucault present ethico-political accounts of the self that are concerned with meaning rather than with establishing systems of knowledge. The self is simultaneously a form to be worked upon and transformed, while also being affected and defined by the externalities specific to a time and place. Each believes this process of ongoing critique and reflection is vital to the development of an ethico-political subject.
The critical task of ongoing critique can be formulated either as Arendt’s activity of thought, or Foucault’s aesthetics of existence as an ongoing process of self-care. In the former, the activity of thinking breaks down everyday assumptions and liberating the faculty of judgment. Once thought returns to the world of appearances, it allows for the judgment of each particular as the need arises—without recourse to universal principles. In the latter, by practices of self-care the subject continually questions, discards and re-creates, as need be, the organising systems and truths inherent in a particular world-view. In both instances, the awareness of the contingency of systems of knowledge and power is essential for the development of an independent ethico-political attitude.
To highlight the similarity between Arendt’s and Foucault’s views on independent thought, I present a quote from each as a point of comparison. Explaining his idea of the important role of thinking, Foucault says:
What distinguishes thought is that it is quite different from the domain of attitudes that can determine this behaviour. Thought is not what inhabits a certain conduct and gives it 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 condition, and its goal. 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 its problem.408
Similarly, Arendt elaborates that:
If what you were doing consisted of applying general rules of conduct to particular cases as they arise in ordinary life, you will find yourself paralyzed because no such rules can withstand the winds of thought.409
In both instances, thinking questions meaning and breaks down rules and relations of knowledge and power, where necessary, and in the process creates possibilities for independent judgment,
408 “Polemics, Politics and Problematizations”, p.117 409 The Life of the Mind – Thinking, p.175 165 and the potential for unforeseen events to occur.
Despite these similarities, frequently Arendt’s and Foucault’s overarching narrative is overlooked because of a difference in their philosophical execution and terminology. As Amy Allen points out, when comparing the two thinkers it is often thought that,
…Foucault is an anti-metaphysical, anti-essentialist post-structuralist, whereas Arendt’s Aristotelianism seems to commit her both to essentialism and to metaphysics; Foucault is the prophet of post-modern bodies and pleasures, whereas Arendt is the champion of the pre- modern polis; finally, in life, Foucault was often on the side of the post-modern left, whereas Arendt seemed, at times, dangerously close to the anti-modern right. Taken together, these considerations make it difficult to see how the insights of these two thinkers can be brought together in a coherent and convincing way.410 One such example is the absence of an account of the self-subject, as discussed by Foucault, in Arendt’s work. Arendt talks of people revealing their individuality publicly through actions and deeds, or she states that the self and action are one and the same, but nowhere does she provide an account of the constitution of the self-subject. Furthermore, based on her reading of Augustine, when referencing the “self” Arendt talks of it in terms of love of the self and love of the world, rather than anything resembling the complex amalgam of systems of knowledge, power, and self-constitution that Foucault presents.
Despite Arendt’s apparent lack of interest in exploring subjective constitution, she and Foucault unite around the belief that a person is always a part of a socio-historical time and place, and that there is no innate, timeless or true self. Despite this shared non-essentialist understanding of the self, due to the absence of an overt account of the constitution of the self-subject, it is possible to make an argument that Arendt would forcefully oppose notions of self-care because of her rejection of any idea of the self other than that which manifests publicly though action, a self that extends beyond personal interests and is directed towards a love of the world.
However, if looking beyond Arendt’s direct terminology and particular examples to her underlying concerns, it is possible to see that her ideas on a “love of the world” are not that dissimilar to Foucault’s care of the self. At the risk of getting side tracked by themes outside the parameters of this thesis I will briefly sum up that Arendt draws on Augustine’s religious discourse (just as Foucault draws on religious discourse to develop his idea of care of the self) to expand her account of social action by extending on his account of the love of the self and world. In Love and St Augustine, Arendt presents two different meanings of love of the self. The first gives rise to “perplexed self-searching” where a person becomes a question to
410 Allen, 2002, p.37 166 herself, and the second results from what Arendt references as “ordered caritas” (or ordered transit). In this second meaning a person no longer loves in reference to herself but to her whole existence, forgetting personal existence to become “loving”.411 In Arendt, this love of the world becomes sacrificing oneself through social action, even at the risk of personal safety and well-being.412
It is easy to see how the first meaning of love of the self resembles Foucault’s self-care in that in both the self is turned into a question for critical concern. The second point on self- sacrifice through political action is not as neatly aligned with Foucault, but nor is it in conflict. Without forgetting or sacrificing personal existence, Foucault’s self-care extends beyond personal interests to take account of the current arrangement of forces at play in the world. In developing a critical attitude concerning the relationship between self, truth and world, the possibility for active resistance opens up as personal opinions and governing systems are tested. Although self-care is not primarily about self-sacrifice, personal sacrifice through social action is always a possibility—for example, where it is deemed that dominant systems of knowledge and power need to be resisted and discarded.
Arendt and Foucault might disagree on the particulars presented in their work, but to view their aims as conflictual is, as Allen rightly identifies, “altogether too hasty”.413 Arendt’s restriction of the social realm to secure a forum for public action and speech can, for example, be read in opposition to Foucault’s unmasking of the social to secure a place for resistance. Where Arendt stresses the importance of action, thinking and judgment as the birthplace of something new, Foucault suggests the possibility to bring about transformative events is in the practical resistance to strategic relations that already ‘exists’. Yet, as I have argued throughout this thesis, despite a difference in scope and different specific proposals, and although the two thinkers’ works are by no means identical, they unite in their broad themes and underlying concerns. Each shares a commitment to historicizing philosophical inquiry, is critical of forms of normalization, and is interested in the interrelationship between ethics, politics and the self. Furthermore, both Arendt and Foucault appeal to a dynamic model of ethics and politics, and
411 In Augustine caritas concerns craving the love of God, where “transit” is achieved to future eternity where personal existence if neither mortality nor the divine. As Arendt writes, “Insofar as human existence is temporal, its mode of being is from an origine towards an end…Extended (extentus) towards what lies ahead (ante) and is not yet (nondum)…the “transit” consists in transcending temporality, and what needs to be forgotten, is mortality. Just as the lover forgets himself over his beloved, mortal, temporal man can forget his existence over eternity”. (Love and St Augustine, p.28- 29) 412 Kemple, 2011, p.98 413 Allen, 2002, p.38 167 reject traditional metaphysical accounts of truth and foundational epistemologies. Despite the particular execution of their respective proposals the overarching narratives in Arendt and Foucault are centred on themes of critical self-reflection, resistance, transformation and multiplicity.
The critical task for both Arendt and Foucault is to question and challenge oppressive systems of power and control. The ability to refuse, to judge particulars, to identify forms of domination, all contribute to the opening-up of the space of freedom. Freedom is the capacity to refuse to participate and say “No! I cannot”, and to sound a warning through actions and deeds. It is the freedom to judge particulars independently, regardless of governing dictates. Freedom is the capacity to identify personal and cultural contingencies, to discard that deemed unnecessary, and retain that which is not. In both Arendt’s life of the mind and Foucault’s care, ethics and politics cannot be separated, because both are constitutive features necessary for informed civic activity. Both Arendt’s and Foucault’s later works develop an account of self- constitution centred on the critique and analysis of self, world and others. Most simply, each presents an idea of personal existence as a willingness and openness to put even the most sacred ideas to the test, and this offers possibilities for transformation, political resistance and change.
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