Our purpose in this paper is to argue how the idea of affirmation of life embodies the practice of the art of life. The yes-saying attitude towards life can provide an enormous support for the self-formation practices. Our attempt, then, consists of demonstrating the subjective character of the aesthetic marked by pleasure, and especially a new approach to the relationship between “I” and the other. We comprehend that this sort of life is individually relative or subjective. Meanwhile, there is a (...) political reconfiguration of “I” and the other which ends in freedom. Politics becomes possible in a simultaneous caring for I and the other through the practices of self-constitution. In order to clarify our discussion further, this challenge is accompanied by a presentation of three real lives that are exemplary for us in the art of life; a way of being that stands for a political affirmation of life. (shrink)

This paper explores the general characteristics of the aesthetics of life. Our approach will be in thinking about the aesthetics of life as a domain independent from the realms of ethics and morality. This thesis discusses some of the theoretical debates around those concepts. The notion of ‘pleasure’ in those practices will be discussed as the one that gives shape to ‘the art of life’. Pleasure also makes it possible for a person to perform these practices for a long period (...) of time; what we call the ‘life-long character of the aestheticization of life’.However, this effort endeavors to demonstrate another central theme of this style of life; the individual/social character of those practices is the one that exemplifies ‘the art of life’. Thinking simultaneously about ‘oneself’ and the ‘other’ is the main concept that helps us the most to appreciate these practices. These debates are elaborated further in some case studies that have been researched between 2016 and 2019. These are real examples of peoples’ lived experiences who, in different ways, try to give meaning to their lives by turning their existence into a work of art. (shrink)

La recherche actuelle cherche à démontrer qu'il existe une sociologie chez Foucault et l'oeuvre foucaldienne est aussi une oeuvre sociologique. L'oeuvre de Foucault offre plusieurs avantages conceptuels à la pensée sociologique et sa pensée peut être entendue comme une expérience qui nous conduira aussi à une pratique autoréflexive de la sociologie. Mais ce qui rapproche le plus Foucault des sociologues, c'est toujours sa tentative de comprendre le sujet à travers un social qui est devenu historique et cette Histoire nous revient (...) à chaque fois en tant que forme culturelle. La question centrale de Foucault est ce social qui occupe une place considérable dans la constitution de l'individu, pourtant l'individu n'est jamais complètement contraint. Les grandes lignes de la pensée foucaldienne consistent à élaborer une pensée critique, une pensée qui est parvenue finalement à réunir l'objectivation et la subjectivation. La sociologie foucaldienne a pour objectif de mettre en lumière la question "qui sommes-nous en train de devenir?" pour construire un diagnostic sociologique d'une modernité paradoxale. (shrink)