gnóthi seautón/epiméleia heautoú: Michel Foucault and the Two Paths of Western Thought
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.24193/subbphil.2025.1.02Keywords:
Foucault, Subjectivity, Truth, Socrates, DescartesAbstract
Although it is not possible to conceive of the history of Western thought as a continuous and linear (let alone progressive) process of development, some paths seem to have been historically dominant, while other possible developments, however potentially fruitful, seem to have turned out to be “interrupted paths”. This paper is concerned with the interpretation offered by Foucault in the early 1980s, according to which Socrates on the one hand and Descartes on the other would have opened up two discordant paths to the key relationship between subjectivity and truth. In both cases, the starting point is the maxim gnóthi seautón. In Socrates, however, it is linked to (and subordinated to) the question of epiméleia heautoú, which in Descartes’ case would disappear completely. The modern-Cartesian approach would thus lead to a purely theoretical-gnoseological-epistemological conception of philosophy, which would lose sight of the strong practical scope of Socratic discourse. Contrary to this interpretation, an attempt is made here to show that, in fact, even at the heart of Cartesian thought one can trace an all but secondary attention to the ethical-practical dimension of philosophy and, albeit in a modified form, to the principle of the necessary “care of the self”.
References
Changeux J.-P.-Ricoeur P., What Makes Us Think?: A Neuroscientist and a Philosopher Argue about Ethics, Human Nature, and the Brain, transl. by M.B. DeBevoise, Princeton University Press, Princeton and Oxford 2000
Defradas J., Les thèmes de la propagande delphique, Klincksieck, Paris 1954
Descartes R., Meditations on First Philosophy, With Selections from the Objections and Replies, transl. by M. Moriarty, Oxford University Press, Oxford-New York 2008
Descartes R., Passions of the Soul, https://TheVirtualLibrary.org
Foucault M., History of Madness, ed. by J. Khalfa, transl. by J. Murphy and J. Khalfa, Routledge, London and New York 2006
Foucault M., My Body, This Paper, This Fire, transl. by G. Bennington, in Aesthetics, Method, and Epistemology, ed. by J.D. Faubion, transl. by R. Hurley et al., Essential Works of Foucault 1954-1984, Vol. II, The New Press, New York 1998, pp. 393-417
Foucault M., The Hermeneutics of the Subject: Lectures at the Collège de France 1981-1982, ed. by F. Gros, transl. by G. Burchell, Palgrave Macmillan, New York 2005
Foucault M., The Government of Self and Others: Lectures at the Collège of France 1982-1983, ed. by. F. Gros, transl. by G. Burchell, Palgrave Macmillan, New York 2010
Foucault M., The Courage of the Truth (The Government of Self and Others II): Lectures at the Collège of France 1983-1984, ed. by. F. Gros, transl. by G. Burchell, Palgrave Macmillan, New York 2011
Foucault M., About the Beginning of the Hermeneutics of the Self: Lectures at Dartmouth College, 1980, ed. by H.-P. Fruchard and D. Lorenzini, transl. by G. Burchell, University of Chicago Press, Chicago and London 2016
Foucault M., Discourse and Truth and Parrēsia, ed. by H.-P. Fruchard and D. Lorenzini, transl. by N. Luxon, The University of Chicago Press, Chicago and London 2019
Hadot P., Exercises spirituels et philosophie antique (1981), Albin Michel, Paris 2002
Hadot P., What is Ancient Philosophy?, transl. by M. Chase, The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, Cambridge (Mass.)-London 2002
Heidegger M., The Age of the World Picture, in Off the Beaten Tracks, transl. by J. Young and K. Haynes, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 2002, pp. 57-85
Lacan J., Transference: The Seminar of Jacques Lacan, Book VIII, ed. by J.-A. Miller, transl. by B. Fink, Polity Press, Cambridge-Oxford-Boston-New York 2017
Lorenzini D.-Revel A.-Sforzini A. (dir.), Michel Foucault: éthique et vérité (1980-1984), Vrin, Paris 2013
Nietzsche F., The Gay Science: With a Prelude in German Rhymes and an Appendix of Songs, ed. by B. Williams, transl. by J. Nauckhoff, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 2001
Nietzsche F., Beyond Good and Evil: Prelude to a Philosophy of the Future, ed. by R.P. Horstmann, transl. by J. Norman, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge-New York 2002
Plato, Complete Works, ed. by J.M. Cooper, Hackett Publishing Company, Indianapolis/ Cambridge 1997
Roscher W.H., Weiteres über die Bedeutung des E[ggua] zu Delphi und die übrigen grammata Delphika, “Philologus”, 60, 1901, pp. 81-101
The Correspondence between Princess Elisabeth of Bohemia and René Descartes, ed. and transl. by L. Shapiro, The University of Chicago Press, Chicago and London 2007
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2025 Studia Universitatis Babeș-Bolyai Philosophia
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
