The idea of philosophy as a kind of therapy, though by no means standard, has been present in metaphilosophical reflection since antiquity. Diverse versions of it were also discussed and applied by more recent authors such as Wittgenstein, Hadot and Foucault. In order to develop an explicit, general and systematic model of therapeutic philosophy a relatively broad and well-structured account provided by Martha Nussbaum is subjected to analysis. The results obtained, subsequently, form a basis for a new model constructed around (...) the set of notions intrinsically connected with any, philosophical, psychological, or medical, form of therapy. The conceptual framework of: disease and its symptoms, the health ideal, the process of treatment with its techniques, therapeutic theory, physician, patient, and the physician-patient relationship is constructed and investigated in the context of its possible metaphilosophical use. An illustrative application of this scheme to philosophical therapy developed by Stoicism is, then, discussed. Finally, the issue of the therapeutic metaphilosophy's scope as well as the problem of therapeutic philosophy's specificity and integrity are briefly indicated. (shrink)

In this paper, I seek to present the range of issues involved in the efforts of sixteenth‐century kabbalists to understand the nature of selfhood, and the paths prescribed for the formation of an ideal life. I reflect on the mystical writings of Moshe Cordovero, Eliyahu de Vidas, andayyim Vital—probing their conceptions of core identity, the polarity between body and soul, and the ethical guidance for a life well lived. In so doing, I consider the following additional themes, and their relation (...) to the matrix of self‐formation and religious identity: reincarnation and rebirth; the virtue of humility and self‐effacement; the cultivation of wisdom; ideals of piety and prophetic experience; asceticism; and the spiritual transcendence of desire. In presenting this wide range of constituent themes, I argue that sixteenth‐century kabbalists understood the soul to be the ultimate marker of personal identity (nuanced and complicated by the doctrine of reincarnation), and that they formulated a vision of an ideal ethics in which the human being functions as an earthly vessel for the divine presence. What is more, the preparation of that vessel required a degree of humility so extreme that the attainment of ideal personhood ultimately involved the effacement of that very identity. (shrink)

Massimiliano Simons provides the first systematic study of Serres' work in the context of late 20th-century French philosophy of science. By proposing new readings of Serres' philosophy, Simons creates a synthesis between his predecessors, Gaston Bachelard, Georges Canguilhem, and Louis Althusser as well as contemporary Francophone philosophers of science such as Bruno Latour and Isabelle Stengers. Simons situates Serres' unique contribution through his notion of the quasi-object, a concept, he argues, organizes great parts of Serres' work into a promising philosophy (...) of science as well as a challenge to the narrower field of French epistemology, to which it has often been limited. Simons highlights how the concept encompasses Serres' commitment to positive relations between science and culture and his rejection of pleas to purify the scientific self from imaginative and cultural elements. It helps to situate Serres between the distinct traditions of Bachelard and Latour as well as progressing the innovative aspects of Serres' philosophy for current debates in the philosophy, history, and sociology of science. Showing how Serres' philosophy can serve as a normative approach to science and technology, Michel Serres and French Philosophy of Science takes in themes of materiality, religiosity, modernity and ecology to advance a timely alternative to philosophy of science for contemporary life. (shrink)

This paper analyzes the entanglement of the modern concepts of freedom, autonomy, and the modern notion of the subject and how a passion for and insistence on freedom has undermined the reconstruction of human subjectivity in Heidegger and Foucault, and how such passion has also limited the educational effort at addressing the problems brought to education by the modern notion of the subject. Drawing on Levinas, it suggests that a new understanding of freedom as heteronomy will allow us to envision (...) an open subjectivity that is essential for education. Particularly, it looks at Gert Biesta’s recent campaigns for “subjectification” and “the gift of teaching” to analyze the underlying contradictions caused by the entanglement of freedom and subjectivity. (shrink)

Biesta has suggested that education after humanism should be interested in existence, not essence, in what the subject can do, not in what the subject is—the truth about the subject—and this is the way inspired by Foucault and Levinas. In this article, I analyze Foucault’s alleged deconstruction and reconfiguration of the subject and Levinas’ approach to human subjectivity and suggest that Foucault’s early and later works have already implied certain concepts of the subject and that Levinas’ approach to human subjectivity (...) does not, as has often been perceived in educational circles, avoid theorizing about human subjectivity. Drawing on the French philosophy of difference, particularly Levinas’ ideas of alterity and subjectivity, I propose a post-humanist subject as a singular existence that ‘announces, promises, and at the same time conceals’, that cannot be exhausted, totalized, and replicated. The singular and unique subject, open and responsible to the world and beyond, is indispensible to the educational mission of subjectification. (shrink)

In this paper, I examine Foucault’s ideas concerning the care of the self. What exactly is this ideal that Foucault describes in his last two books? Do these books represent a break or a continuation with the earlier writings on knowledge and power? Most important, I consider whether the care of the self could ever be a significant ethical ideal given some of the objections that have been raised against Foucault’s position. I also look at the care of the self (...) as the focus of Foucault’s own views on spiritual life. I argue that Foucault’s later work offers the basis for a secular or non-theistic spirituality which is especially relevant today. (shrink)

So much of what we experience in neoliberal capitalism resembles the operation of the camp. How then can we understand the camp as a political technology of labour control recurrent in historical capitalism, and why would we want to? Driven by the perennial imperatives to govern and to accumulate, the camp as a modulation of social control allows us to explore the role of ‘meta-disciplinary’ technique in the ‘real subsumption of labour’. The aims here are to question the sanguine expectations (...) of a liberal pastorate that is inextricable from the needs of capital; to articulate the ‘techniques of domination’ experienced in the idiom of neoliberal capitalism; and to find inspiration for corresponding counter-conducts and ‘techniques of the self’. This article offers a kind of historical archaeology of ‘meta-disciplinary’ technique by resuscitating Solzhenitsyn’s The Gulag Archipelago, a surprisingly rich source of insight into the operations of the camp modulation and the counter-conducts it engenders. The analysis to follow works in the space between Marxian and Foucauldian political thought opened up by the new materialisms, and draws upon the recent works of Lordon, Lazzarato, Negri, inter alia, that are currently enriching critical theory. (shrink)

Ancient philosophy is often distinguished from modern philosophy regarding its affinity to spirituality. In antiquity, philosophy meant a way of life rather than a body of knowledge. Yet according to Michel Foucault, Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit constitutes an important exception to modern philosophy’s break with spirituality, as it integrates structures of spirituality into modern forms and ideals of philosophy. This article builds on Foucault’s analysis by revealing the structures of spirituality that are present within the Phenomenology of Spirit. It argues (...) that in Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit the exercise of reason is itself understood as a spiritual exercise. The case of Hegel shows that modern philosophy is not as a whole opposed to the conception of philosophy as a way of life but contains strands that are in line with the ancient tradition. (shrink)

This article compares the ways in which Saba Mahmood’s The Politics of Piety and Cressida Heyes’ Self-Transformations: Foucault, Ethics, and Normalization, unlike current governmentality studies, employ the later Foucault’s ethical theory. By explaining the theoretical framework of the ‘middle’ Foucault and the ‘later’ Foucault and then comparing Mahmood and Heyes’ use of Foucault’s work, it is argued that Mahmood and Heyes’ analyses, though thought-provoking and incisive, overlook aspects of Foucault’s later work, ultimately preventing them from offering productive ‘feminist strategies’. The (...) author seeks to link this discussion to contemporary debates and analyses of agency, freedom and Muslim women in the media. The article concludes with an assessment of how Foucauldian feminist perspectives might be drawn on to establish effective ‘cross-cultural feminist strategies’, and closes by presenting a case of a cross-cultural media strategy aimed at countering the stereotypical images of Muslim women in the media. (shrink)

My intention in this paper is to reframe the practice of veiling as an embodied practice of self-development and self- transformation. I argue that practices like these cannot be handled by the choice/chance distinction relied on by those who would restrict religious minority accommodations. Embodied self- transformation necessarily means a change in personal identity and this means the religious believer cannot know if they will need religious accommodation when they begin their journey of piety. Even some luck egalitarians would find (...) leaning exclusively on preference and choice to find who should be burdened with paying the full costs of certain choices in one’s life too morally harsh to be justifiable. I end by briefly illustrating an alternative way to think about religious accommodation that does not rely on the choice/chance distinction. (shrink)

Nowadays there is a renewed interest in philosophy as art-of-living. Several prominent authors have pointed out the return of the notion of the good life in philosophy, particularly understood as a form of normative ethics. Questions such as: how should I live have been taken up as a resistance against the dominances of a neo-liberal discourse in all areas of life. This paper is concerned with this renewed interest in philosophy as art-of-living and the form of education that supports this. (...) The main idea is that the commitment from which we live is a subject of change. This way, art-of-living comprises the possibility and the effort to lead on’s life in a reflective way, and not to let it simply go by. Historically this has been connected to the process of becoming educated. In this paper I will take a closer look at this renewed interest in philosophy as the art-of-living by contrasting two different readings of philosophy as the art-of-living. One that is inspired by Oscar Brenifier and one that is inspired by the late Foucault. (shrink)

A wave of interest in Hannah Arendt and Michel Foucault as bio-political thinkers was initiated by publication of Giorgio Agamben’s Homo Sacer. 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. 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: a shared suspicion of ethical or political systems presented as universally applicable; the attempt to undermine prescriptive moral and political models by fostering a dynamic and critical self-relationship. 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. (shrink)

Books and journal articles have become the dominant modes of presentation in contemporary philosophy. This historically contingent paradigm prioritises textual expression and assumes a distinction between philosophical practice and its presented product. Using Socrates and Diogenes as exemplars, we challenge the presumed supremacy of the text and defend the importance of ways of life as modes of practiced presentation. We argue that text cannot capture the embodied activity of philosophy without remainder, and is therefore limited and incomplete. In particular, we (...) contend that a static text is essentially alienated from our practices of philosophising, words cannot unambiguously represent lives, and practiced presentation enriches our understanding beyond words alone. After discussing some pedagogical implications, we conclude with a plea for a pluralistic approach that recognises lives as legitimate and valuable modes of philosophical presentation. (shrink)

Michel Foucault acknowledged that the Reformation was a pastoral battle and a reorganization of pastoral power. He did not, however, analyze Protestantism much further. This article broadens the scope of critical research on Protestantism, focusing on Lutheranism. Preaching is a fruitful way to overcome overemphasis on confession. In this endeavor I apply Foucault’s concept of “master’s discourse.” I argue that while, in Lutheranism, conversion through comprehensive soul-searching is an individual matter, at the same time it relies on technologies aimed at (...) a collective audience, such as preaching. Since preaching is divine speech, the Lutheran priest wields enormous spiritual power: the preacher is the truth-teller and the subject is required to listen to and internalize the proclaimed truth, instead of confessing their sins. (shrink)

In this paper, I address the question of how a philosophically enriched view of method might inform both educational theory and educational research. The first part of the paper elaborates recent discussions on “philosophical method” in the educational–philosophical discourse. These discussions point toward the importance of analyzing the conceptual or categorical frameworks of educational processes. The second part of the paper discusses Martin Heidegger’s work Being and Time to capture fully the challenges that a philosophical method faces in investigations of (...) subjectivity: The focus lies on Heidegger’s strategy to situate his philosophical work as a descriptive undertaking and simultaneously as a categorical outline of human existentiality (“ Dasein ”). This work serves to reflect a philosophical as well as empirical attitude or conduct in the final part of the paper, which briefly introduces “categorical research” with some examples. (shrink)

Drawing on Michel Foucault's writings as well as the writings of feminist scholars bell hooks and Jane Gallop, this paper examines faculty–student sexual relations and the discourses and policies that surround them. It argues that the dominant discourses on professor–student sex and the policies that follow from them misunderstand the form of power that is at work within pedagogical institutions, and it examines some of the consequences that result from this misunderstanding. In Foucault's terms, we tend to theorize faculty–student relations (...) using a model of sovereign power in which people have or lack power and in which power operates in a static, stable, and exclusively top-down manner. We should, however, recognize the ways in which individuals in pedagogical institutions are situated within disciplinary and thus dynamic, reciprocal, and complex networks of power, as well as the ways in which the pedagogical relation may be a technique of the self and not only of domination. If we reconsider these relations in terms of Foucault's accounts of discipline and technologies of the self, we can recognize that prohibitions on faculty—student sexual relations within institutions such as the university are productive rather than repressive of desire, and that such relations can be opportunities for development and not only for abuse. Moreover, this paper suggests that the dominant discourses on professor—student relations today contribute to a construction of professors as dangerous and students as vulnerable, which denies the agency of (mostly female) students and obscures the multiplicity of forms of sexual abuse that occur within the university context. (shrink)

This paper explores a novel philosophy of ethical care in the face of burgeoning biomedical technologies. I respond to a serious challenge facing traditional bioethics with its roots in analytic philosophy. The hallmarks of these traditional approaches are reason and autonomy, founded on a belief in the liberal humanist subject. In recent years, however, there have been mounting challenges to this view of human subjectivity, emerging from poststructuralist critiques, such as Michel Foucault's, but increasingly also as a result of advances (...) in biotechnology itself. In the face of these developments, I argue that the theoretical relevance and practical application of mainstream bioethics is increasingly under strain. Traditionalists will undoubtedly resist. Together, professional philosopher-bioethicists, public health policymakers, and the global commercial healthcare industry tend to respond conservatively by shoring up the liberal humanist subject as the foundation for medical ethics and consumer decision-making, appealing to the familiar tropes of reason, autonomy, and freedom. (shrink)

Political theorists continue to be provoked by Giorgio Agamben’s disturbing diagnosis that ‘bare life’ – human life that is excluded from politics yet exposed to sovereign violence – is not a sign of the malfunction of modern politics but rather a revelation of how it actually functions. However, despite the enormous amount of attention this diagnosis has received, there has been relatively little discussion of Agamben’s proposed ‘cure’ for the problem that he diagnoses. In this article, I analyze the three (...) main concepts of Agamben’s positive philosophical program – ‘infancy,’ ‘potentiality,’ and ‘form-of-life’ – in order to show how he attempts to subvert the sovereignty of law over life with his idea of a life of habit in which life is sovereign over law. In addition to analyzing these concepts, I engage in an immanent critique of Agamben’s philosophy and contrast his vision of politics with those of other influential contemporary political theorists. I find that while Agamben’s philosophical program is almost undone by internal difficulties, it still radically challenges current theories of subjectivity, humanity, and community. (shrink)

This paper examines the central criticisms that come, broadly, from the modern, ‘analytic’ tradition, of Pierre Hadot’s idea of ancient philosophy as a way of life.: Firstly, ancient philosophy just did not or could not have involved anything like the ‘spiritual practices’ or ‘technologies of the self’, aiming at curing subjects’ unnecessary desires or bettering their lives, contra Hadot and Foucault et al. Secondly, any such metaphilosophical account of putative ‘philosophy’ must unacceptably downplay the role of ‘serious philosophical reasoning’ or (...) ‘rigorous argument’ in philosophy. Thirdly, claims that ancient philosophy aimed at securing wisdom by a variety of means including but not restricted to rational inquiry are accordingly false also as historical claims about the ancient philosophers. Fourthly, to the extent that we must (despite (3)) admit that some ancient thinkers did engage in or recommend extra-cognitive forms of transformative practice, these thinkers were not true or ‘mainline’ philosophers. I contend that the historical claims (3) and (4) are highly contestable, risking erroneously projecting a later modern conception of philosophy back onto the past. Of the theoretical or metaphilosophical claims (1) and (2), I argue that the second claim, as framed here, points to real, hard questions that surround the conception(s) of philosophy as a way of life. (shrink)

Foucault is typically seen as having rebelled against the previous generation of French philosophy, which was dominated by existential phenomenology, and by Sartre in particular. However, the relationship between these two generations and between these two philosophers is more complex than one of simple opposition. Through a refracted focus on Foucault’s late work on Greco-Roman philosophy and on the themes of the practice of the care of the self and the freedom associated with that practice, I argue that Foucault—whose philosophy (...) is centered around the problematization of site-specific processes of subjectification— is closer to existentialism than he seems. (shrink)

This critical review focuses on the problems of modernity as outlined by Žižek and Milbank in The Monstrosity of Christ: Paradox or Dialectic? It argues that both Žižek’s nihil-a-theology and Milbank’s radical orthodoxy cannot provide satisfactory resolutions to the problem of the universal and the particular in both its epistemic and ethical inflections on account of being unable to make intelligible the deeper problem of order and chaos. Both authors generate a flat actualist ontology characteristic of the epistemic fallacy, and (...) hold to some form of either perspectival realism or superidealism. It is argued that it is only by affirming something like a dialectical critical realist ontology that these problems are able to be addressed while maintaining the intelligibility of scientific understanding, paradox, progress, the universal and the particular and our ethical relation to the Other. (shrink)

This paper provides examples of how a teacher and a principal construct their ‘ethical selves’. In doing so we demonstrate how Foucault's four-part ethical framework can be a scaffold with which to actively connect emotions to a personal ethical position. We argue that ethical work is and should be an ongoing and dynamic life long process rather than a more rigid adherence to a ‘code of ethics’ that may not meaningfully engage its adherents. We use Foucault's four-part framework of ethical (...) practice as a framework through which an ‘ethical self’ can be purposely constructed. This is important work, as those who have authority over others must know how to monitor themselves against the misuse of the power of their positions. (shrink)

Michel’s Foucault’s later work has been the subject of much critical interest regarding the question of whether it provides a normative stance that prescribes how the self ought to act. Having first outlined the nature of the debate, I engage with Foucault’s comparative analysis of the ethical systems of ancient Greeks and Christianity to show that he holds that the former maintains that the ethical subject was premised not on adherence to a priori rules as in Christianity, but from and (...) around an on-going process of practical experimentation. From this, Foucault goes on to describe the practices through which the self acted to make and re-make itself, which leads to the question of whether such descriptions also contain prescriptions as to how the self should act. I argue that they do contain a prescriptively normative stance, but in a very specific sense. Rather than delineating the specific ethical commitments we should adopt, Foucault takes off from the example of the ancient Greeks to insist that individuals should adopt an indeterminate orientating principle based on absolute openness to each context, with this principle given content through a context-specific, spontaneous, on-going, and inherently individual, albeit socially situated, process of practical experimentation. The result is a highly original account of normativity that makes individuals absolutely responsible for themselves and their ethical activities in each moment. (shrink)

The possibility of genetic enhancement to increase the likelihood of success in sport and life’s prospects raises questions for accounts of sport and theories of justice. These questions obviously include the fairness of such enhancement and its relationship to the goals of sport and demands of justice. Of equal interest, however, is the effect on our understanding of individual effort, merit, and desert of either discovering genetic contributions to components of such effort or recognizing the influence of social factors on (...) the development and exercise of individual effort. This paper analyzes arguments about genetic enhancement with the goal of raising questions about how sport and justice regard unchosen, undeserved inequalities and what is assumed to be their opposite—namely, the exercise and results of individual effort. It is suggested that contemplating enhancement of natural assets previously outside human control may reinforce recognition of responsibility to intervene with regard to social advantages so as to support individual effort and improve individuals’ life prospects. (shrink)

In his six 1983 lectures published under the title, Fearless Speech, Michel Foucault developed the theme of free speech and its relation to frankness, truth-telling, criticism, and duty. Derived from the ancient Greek word parrhesia, Foucault's analysis of free speech is relevant to the mentoring of medical students. This is especially true given the educational and social need to transform future physicians into able citizens who practice a fearless freedom of expression on behalf of their patients, the public, the medical (...) profession, and themselves in the public and political arena. In this paper, we argue that Foucault's understanding of free speech, or parrhesia, should be read as an ethical response to the American Medical Association's recent educational effort, Initiative to Transform Medical Education : Recommendations for change in the system of medical education. In this document, the American Medical Association identifies gaps in medical education, emphasizing the need to enhance health system safety and quality, to improve education in training institutions, and to address the inadequacy of physician preparedness in new content areas. These gaps, and their relationship to the ITME goal of promoting excellence in patient care by implementing reform in the US system of medical education, call for a serious consideration and use of Foucault's parrhesia in the way that medical students are trained and mentored. (shrink)

This article interrogates twelve step practice within Alcoholics Anonymous from the perspective of Foucault’s later work on governance, truth-telling and subjectivity. Recent critical studies of addiction tend to view self-help cultures like that of AA and related twelve step programs as integral parts of contemporary power/knowledge complexes, and thus as agents of the modern “will to knowledge” that Foucault often engages with. In line with the widespread Foucauldian critique of governmentality, addiction self-help culture is thus conceived as one that primarily (...) reproduces abstract, neoliberal norms on health and subjectivity. The argument put forward in this article aims to upset this framework attending to a number of features of twelve step practice that, arguably, bear striking resemblances to Foucault’s later discussions of ethics, care of self and truth-telling. In this, it is suggested that a close study of AA practices, might interrupt assumptions about contemporary addiction discourse and its relationship to issues of truth and power often reproduced in Foucauldian critiques. (shrink)

ABSTRACTIn this article, I demonstrate how Louise Bourgeois used her artworks not only to better understand herself but also to cultivate a self capable of taking control of and reshaping the material of her past. Exploring her artworks in the context of Michel Foucault's understanding of technologies of the self, I both contribute to the appreciation of Bourgeois’ work and show how visual artworks can be used to understand, cultivate, and transform aspects of the self. Foucault's understanding of our subjectivity, (...) as formed and deployed by power tactics, suggests the need for the formation of new subjectivities as a tactic of resistance. While his view of subjectivity as contingently created allows for the possibility that it could be different, his understanding of the conditions of its creation in terms of power tactics seems to constrain the possibilities for alternative subjectivities. I argue that artworks can help us understand the contingency of our subjectivity and illustrate how something new can be created out of existing conditions, in ways that may disrupt those very conditions. Further, in addition to bringing us to an awareness of the possibility of creating new subjectivities, artworks can directly contribute to this process for both artists and audience members. Turning to Foucault's own understanding of Stoic writing practices as a means of knowing and controlling the self, I use Bourgeois’ work to illustrate how artworks can operate as technologies of the self, which work directly on the self, extending Foucault's understanding of the role of writing to consider the particular contribution that visual artworks can make. I explore how the visual form, sculptural medium, and materials of Louise Bourgeois’ works contribute to their operation as technologies of the self which can allow one to relate to oneself differently. (shrink)

For the later Foucault, as for the early Foucault, the dream represents a privileged disclosure of the ethics of the self, and the relation to truth. What, then, is the function of the dream in the...

At once historical and philosophical, Michel Foucault used his genealogical method to expose the contingent conditions constituting the institutions, sciences and practices of the present. His analyses of the asylum, clinic, prison and sexuality revealed the historical, political and epistemological forces that make up certain types of subjects, sciences and sites of control. Although noting the originality of his work, a number of early critics questioned the normative framework of Foucault's method. Nancy Fraser argued that Foucault's genealogical method was ‘normatively (...) confused’ as it implied political critique yet claimed to be value-neutral. Jürgen Habermas and Charles Taylor also questioned the normative basis of Foucault's appeals to critique, arguing it was self-refuting as Foucault left no room for the subject to escape power. Although a debate among these scholars was planned for the mid-1980s, Foucault's death in 1984 meant this could not occur. A number of edited volumes sought to fabricate a debate, with defenders of Foucault excavating his published monographs to construct responses to his critics. While the monographs remain the central texts of Foucault's oeuvre, over the past decade his Collège de France lectures have been published and translated into English. This article offers a schematic survey of the influence of the Collège de France lectures in recasting different points in the debates over normativity, critique and resistance. (shrink)

This essay provides a close study of the international horizons of Kallol, a Bengali literary journal, published in post-World War I Calcutta. It uncovers a historical pattern of Bengali intellectual life that marked the period from the 1870s to the 1920s, whereby an imperial imagination was transformed into an international one, as a generation of intellectuals born between 1885 and 1905 reinvented the political category of . Hermeneutics, as a philosophically informed study of how meaning is created through conversation, and (...) grounded in this essay in the thought of Hans Georg Gadamer, helps to reveal this pattern. While translocal vistas of intellectual life were always present in Bengali thought, the contours of those horizons changed drastically in the period under study. Bengali intellectual life, framed within a center (the foreign) and tik (international), as opposed to bilāt (England, or the West), to name the world abroad. The world outside empire increasingly became a resource and theme for artists and writers. Major changes in global geopolitical alignments and in the colonial politics of British India, and the relations between generations within Bengali bhadralok society, provide contexts for the rise of this international youth imagination. (shrink)

The paper links a debate in the history of medical science between statistics and the experimental method with contemporary diabetes educational practices. An empirical example of a tension between neglect and concern in diabetes self-regulation frames the subsequent theoretical discussion between first, Claude Bernard and statistics and afterwards, Georges Canguilhem as a correlative to Bernard. Through these philosophers of medical science a connection between the experimental method and education is demonstrated. Finally, a case description of an experimental approach to alcohol (...) and experimentation frames and highlights the educational aspect of the methodological discussion. (shrink)

This article aims at showing that in spite of Michel Foucault’s violent rejection of phenomenology, this discipline never ceased to bear a crucial significance for his archaeological and genealogical analyses, in that it can be construed as a symptom indicating the most serious challenge that the contemporary philosophy has to meet: thinking together Experience and Knowledge. The author intends to prove, by resorting to the Marxian concept of ‘objectively necessary appearance’, that Foucault’s main opposition to phenomenology stems from his original (...) conception of the theory as a sort of experiment made by the philosopher on himself and on his own historical a priori. (shrink)

This article explores the Foucauldian notions of practices of the self and care of the self, read via Deleuze, in the context of Iyengar yoga (one of the most popular forms of yoga currently). Using ethnographic and interview research data the article outlines the Iyengar yoga techniques which enable a focus upon the self to be developed, and the resources offered by the practice for the creation of ways of knowing, experiencing and forming the self. In particular, the article asks (...) whether Iyengar yoga offers possibilities for freedom and liberation, or whether it is just another practice of control and management. Assessing Iyengar yoga via a ‘critical function’, a function of ‘struggle’ and a ‘curative and therapeutic function’, the article analyses whether the practice might constitute a mode of care of the self, and what it might offer in the context of the contemporary need to live better, as well as longer. (shrink)

In this essay, I examine the ‘Postulates of Linguistics’ chapter of A Thousand Plateaus. In regard to this chapter, I aim to demonstrate something that has remained unrecognised about minor language in Deleuze and Guattari. I aim to show not only the characteristics of Deleuzian speaking in tongues that overlap with Foucaultian speaking-freely and with Derridean speaking-distantly, but also and more importantly, I hope to show how it is possible for us to make a language speak in tongues. Derrida's way (...) of speaking is made only by forming an enunciation that states a self-contradiction, which thereby makes the enunciation imply more than it says. Foucault's way of speaking is made only by forming an enunciation that states the truth directly and loudly, which thereby makes the enunciation do more than it says. And finally, Deleuze way of speaking is made only by forming an enunciation that states a command abstracted from its context, which thereby makes the enunciation proliferate. All three ways of speaking are made not for the benefit of the speaker, but ‘in favour of’ others. And perhaps this speaking ‘in favour of’ others will allow us to come to understand the true meaning of the phrase ‘capitalism and schizophrenia’. (shrink)

It is twelve years since the article you are about to read was published. During that time, the philosophy in schools movement has expanded and diversified in response to curriculum developments, teaching guides, web-based resources, dissertations, empirical research and theoretical scholarship. Philosophy and philosophy of education journals regularly publish articles and special issues on pre-college philosophy. There are more opportunities for undergraduate and graduate philosophy students to practice and research philosophy for/with children in schools. The Ontario Philosophy Teachers Association reports (...) that in English-speaking Canada there are over 28,000 senior high school students studying philosophy in over 440 schools, and philosophy is now a Teachable Qualification. In the USA, the Philosophy Learning and Teaching Organization was founded in 2009 to create a network of pre-college philosophy teachers. With the loss of its founders—Matthew Lipman, Ann Margaret Sharp and Gareth Matthews —the Institute for the Advancement of Philosophy for Children is developing a digital archive in P4C. My original article was inspired by the design and pilot of a new philosophy elective for the Victorian Certificate of Education. This initiative garnered considerable interest from the P4C community because many believed that the decision to offer a VCE philosophy elective reflected the effectiveness and popularity of P4C in elementary schools, and the new philosophy elective would establish P4C as an essential prerequisite for the study of philosophy in senior secondary school and at university. In my view, enthusiasts overlooked an important difference in the conception of philosophy informing the new philosophy elective: it introduced students to the theoretical or academic discipline of philosophy, whereas P4C conceived of philosophy as a wisdom tradition—otherwise known as the art of living. (shrink)

This article addresses two questions related to the discrimination of homosexuals in the British Armed Forces as illuminated in the judgments of the European Court of Human Rights in the casesSmith and Grady v. the United KingdomandBeck, Copp and Bazeley v. the United Kingdom. First, how does the military organization obtain knowledge about its subjects? Two works by Michel Foucault concerning the thematic of confession—The Will to KnowledgeandAbout the Beginning of the Hermeneutics of the Self: Two Lectures at Dartmouth—provide a (...) foundation for answering this question. Second, what happens when this knowledge obtained by the military organization comes into contact with the legal system? In relation to this question, Foucauldian theories of law are discussed, namely the so-called ‘expulsion thesis’ and ‘polyvalence theory’. It is argued that the production of knowledge in the context of these cases is intertwined with the technique of confession. However, the confession does not only operate at the level of the military organization but also as an internal practice of the individual. When this knowledge then encounters the legal system, it appears that the law puts up a certain resistance towards other forms of power, e.g. disciplinary power. It is argued that this resistance is due to the law’s ‘strategic openness’, i.e. the possibility to harness the law to different strategic purposes, due to which law can never be fully subordinated by external powers. (shrink)

What makes an external whistleblower effective? Whistleblowers represent an important conduit for dissensus, providing valuable information about ethical breaches and organizational wrongdoing. They often speak out about injustice from a relatively weak position of power, with the aim of changing the status quo. But many external whistleblowers fail in this attempt to make their claims heard and thus secure change. Some can experience severe retaliation and public blacklisting, while others are ignored. This article examines how whistleblowers can succeed in bringing (...) their claims to the public’s attention. We draw on analyses of political struggle by Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe. Specifically, we propose that through the raising of a demand, the whistleblowing subject can emerge as part of a chain of equivalences, in a counter-hegemonic movement that challenges the status quo. An analysis of a high-profile case of tax justice whistleblowing-that of Rudolf Elmer-illustrates our argument. Our proposed theoretical framing builds upon and contributes to literature on whistleblowing as organizational parrhesia by demonstrating how parrhesiastic demand might lead to change in public perception through the formation of alliances with other disparate interests—albeit that the process is precarious and complex. Practically, our article illuminates a persistent concern for those engaged in dissensus via whistleblowing, and whose actions are frequently ignored or silenced. We demonstrate how such actions can move towards securing public support in order to make a difference and achieve change. (shrink)

In his very last, now famous, interview, Michel Foucault states that his philosophical thought was shaped by his reading of Heidegger, even though he does not specify what aspects of Heidegger’s philosophy inspired him in the first place. However, his last interview is not the only place where Foucault refers to Heidegger as his intellectual guide. In his 1981/1982 lecture course, The Hermeneutics of the Subject, Foucault confesses that the way Heidegger conceptualized the relationship between subject and truth was a (...) starting point for him for thinking about the relationship between truth, subject, subjective-transformation, and freedom. Accordingly, the aim of this paper is to reconstruct the Foucault-Heidegger encounter from the perspective of subject-truth relation. I will ask how Heidegger and Foucault conceptualized the relationship between truth, self-transformation, and freedom. And I will claim that for both Foucault and Heidegger, freedom lies in constantly and creatively repeating the traditional possibilities of existence in order to question the reified patterns of interpretation, and in order to reveal the anxiety–engendering–truth that what is regarded as natural and inevitable in human life is historically contingent and transformable. (shrink)

Self practices – mental and bodily activities through which individuals try to give a shape to their existence – have been a topic of interest in the social science literature for over a century now. These studies bring into focus that such activities play important roles in our relationship to our social environment. But beyond this general insight we still do not have a framework for elucidating what kind of roles/uses have been attributed to self practices by social theorists historically. (...) Through an analysis of the works of 5 major contributors to the literature (Durkheim, Mauss, Simmel, Giddens and Foucault), the article highlights three distinct conceptualizations, which draw attention to the adaptive, defensive and transformative uses of self practices. Adaptive uses allow individuals to adjust their conduct to collective norms; defensive uses serve the maintenance and protection of self-identity despite de-individualizing pressures; and transformative self practices target the development of alternative ways of living. It is further suggested that the framework developed in the article can provide important clues about the different ‘practical’ solutions offered by social theorists to the problems that modern individuals face in constituting themselves as autonomous subjects. (shrink)

The paper aims at analyzing the production of creditworthiness within the context of commercial banking in international banks. Taking the interim financing in the Polish automobile sector as an example, the paper reconstructs the process between legal framing of the financial instrument, marketing, and risk management. Firstly, it shows that changes in the state vehicle registry function as a prerequisite upon which the bank uses the newly introduced vehicle registration document as a security. Secondly, it analyzes the change of perspectives (...) which takes place between the marketing of the product and the analysis of documents . Thirdly, it argues that creditworthiness cannot be deduced from the economic representation of the enterprise but is the very result of negotiations between the actors involved. (shrink)

This text reflects about the need to consider an additional institutional alternative that matters, not only to the ones that advocate for pedagogy, but also to all of those involved in different educational processes. It is, so to speak, a Paideia that privileges the care of the self as a substantial value, and, as such, it is not dedicated to a unique moment on people’s lives and it does not correspond to a specific institution, but to the universal and singular (...) spirit of the human affairs. (shrink)

In this article I consider whether and how Husserl’s transcendental phenomenological method can initiate a phenomenological way of life. The impetus for this investigation originates in a set of manuscripts written in 1926 (published in Zur phänomenologischen Reduktion) where Husserl suggests that the consistent commitment to and performance of phenomenological reflection can change one’s life to the point where a simple return to the life lived before this reflection is no longer possible. Husserl identifies this point of no return with (...) becoming a transcendental idealist. I propose a way of understanding Husserl’s claim that transcendental idealism makes a simple return to life before phenomenological reflection impossible. I then suggest that a phenomenological way of life is characterized by an epistemic modesty that follows from Husserl’s transcendental idealism and consider whether and how such a phenomenological way of life is a life worth living. (shrink)

In this essay I discuss the historical adequacy of Charles Taylor's philosophical history of secularization, as presented in his A Secular Age . I do so by situating it in relation to the contextual historiography of secularization in early modern Europe, with a particular focus on developments in the German Empire. Considering how profoundly conceptions of secularization have been bound to competing religious and political programmes, we must begin our discussion by entertaining the possibility that modern philosophical and historiographic conceptions (...) of secularization might themselves be outcrops of this unfinished competition. Peter Gordon has rightly observed that Taylor's philosophical history of secularization is a Catholic one, and that this is bound up with a specific view of secularization as a theological and ecclesiological “disembedding” of rational subjectivity from its prior embodiment in a sacral body, community , and cosmos. Taylor delivers this history in his “reform master narrative”: that certain fundamental religious and cultural reforms or changes in early modern Europe wrought the secularization responsible for a modern epoch of “unbelief”. (shrink)

In this essay, my point of departure is Bernard Hodgson’s analysis of neo-classical economic theory and his demonstration that neo-classical economic thought is already a branch of normative theory. I undertake to broaden the demonstration by showing that other contemporary conceptions of economics are also irreducibly normative. The essay begins with an overview of Hodgson’s argument strategy, and a discussion of his thesis that economics is a moral science. This illustrates in what way moral presuppositions are at play as core (...) principles that both positivist and normativist economics take for granted. My strategy is to show that alternative conceptions of economics, in particular Schumpeterian accounts of evolution/innovation, and orthodox versions of ecological economics, share with classical and neo-classical economics normative assumptions about the common good, extending Hodgson’s thesis to one about moral science . For then these assumptions (both moral and scientific ) commit economics to unworkable notions of social and environmental optimization that ignore the pure historical contingency of physical, economic, social and cultural conditions. It is concluded that the relationship between facts and values must be fundamentally retheorized. (shrink)