I believe too much in truth not to suppose that there are different truths and different ways of speaking the truth.[1]
What I wanted to try to recover was something of the relation between the art of existence and true discourse, between the beautiful existence and the true life, life in the truth, life for the truth.[2]
Reading Foucault’s final works, two developments strike me as central. First, while for a long time Foucault considered the subject merely as the after-effect of disciplinary practices – a subject constituted through techniques of domination – his work from the 1980’s onwards begins to conceive of a different, reflexive subject, constituted through techniques of the self – practices in which the self has a relation to itself. Second, as Gross notes, the 1982 course on The Hermeneutics of the Subject contains a new thinking of truth (525), further elaborated in his very last lectures, Fearless Speech and The Courage of Truth. Here, Foucault explicitly takes up the question of truth, or rather the question of a situated truth-teller: “who is able to tell the truth, with what consequences, and with what relations to power?” (Fearless 170). His conception of a new form of subjectivity thus seems to be related to a rethinking of the question of truth. In a 1983 interview, Foucault claimed that his “problem has always been the question of truth, of telling the truth, the wahr-sagen – what it is to tell the truth – and the relation between “telling the truth” and forms of reflexivity, of self upon self” (Politics 33). This relation between telling the truth and forms of reflexivity (i.e. subjectivity) – the question how true discourse relates to the practices and techniques of the self upon the self – is a key concern for the final Foucault. “I have tried therefore to find, with Socrates, the moment when the requirement of truth- telling and the principle of the beauty of existence came together in the care of self” (Courage 163).
Foucault’s final works thus circle around the constitution of a reflexive, ethical subject and its relation to truth or truth-telling. And yet, while the theme of ethical subjectivity has been taken up in order to promote contemporary “freedom practices”, and to elaborate new forms of subjectivity (c.f. Vintges; Luxon) the role of truth in Foucault’s works on ancient ethics is rarely commented upon.[3] This is quite remarkable given Foucault´s frequent mentioning of the topic, but is probably due to the widespread idea that Foucault was skeptical of anything related to truth. The reception of Foucault has been dominated by the so-called Foucault/Habermas debate (a debate that took place, as Amy Allen notes, primarily among habermasians (Allen 1)) which portrait Foucault as a relativist or skeptic with regard to any normativity, (universal) truth, and any conception of the good (c.f. Fraser, Habermas, Taylor). This, I think, has obfuscated the importance of the role of truth and truth-telling in Foucault’s readings of Greco-Roman ethics. While it is true that he does not believe in the existence of a universal, metaphysical Truth (and in this sense, the habermasian critique is fully justified), for Foucault, truths are not entirely relativistic (in the sense that they are all of equal value). They can and must have a force in ethical practice. As his final lectures make clear, truth plays an important role in of the constitution of the ethical subject through care of the self. However, because the question has been largely neglected, it remains unclear what precisely is the role and the status of this truth. The question, therefore, is as follows: what is the role of truth in the constitution of Foucault’s ethical subject?
First, I will show that Foucault regarded the subject he described in his middle works as an “objectivized” subject, a subject that was merely the effect of certain techniques and practices of discipline and domination, constituted through the production of supposedly objective knowledge and analytical truths. Second, I move to Foucault’s writings on ancient Greco-Roman ethics, and argue that the subject of the “care of the self” constitutes itself (i.e. reflexively) through a search for a different relation to truth. Finally, I will argue that Foucault aims to formulate a possibility for the self to constitute itself, rather than being constituted by techniques and practices of discipline and domination.
The objectivized subject and its relation to truth
In his article the Subject and Power Foucault discusses how he regards his early and middle works. He explains that his objective has been to write a history of the different modes by which human beings are made subjects. Up to this point (1982), his work, he writes, has dealt with “three modes of objectivation that transform human beings into subjects” (Subject 326). The first mode objectivizes human beings through various forms of scientific inquiry (in linguistics, economics or biology, for example, the subject is objectivized, i.e. constituted as an object of knowledge). The second objectivizes them through dividing practices (individuals are divided between the normal and the abnormal, e. g. the mad and the sane) . The third mode of objectiviation Foucault describes is the way a human being turns himself into a subject (the theme of his works on sexuality: “how men have learned to recognize themselves as subjects of ‘sexuality’” (327). According to Foucault, they impose a law of truth that objectivizes the individual as a subject, such that the subject becomes recognizable as a definite object (of law, of biology, of economics etc.): “This form of power that applies itself to immediate everyday life categorizes the individual, marks him by his own individuality, attaches him to his own identity, imposes a law of truth on him that he must recognize and others have to recognize in him” (331).
At this point, we can see that every mode of subjection objectivizes a human being through to a production of a truth: a scientific truth (e.g. a biological truth), a disciplinary or normalizing truth (e.g. the correct way of conduct) or a deep, hidden truth of the individual himself (e.g. a sexual truth to be confessed to the pastor). This truth is linked to a certain technique of power, and produces the “objectified” subjects in various fields. Subjects are constituted through a certain type of knowledge of human beings: “one, globalizing and quantitative, concerning the population; the other analytical concerning the individual” (335). An example of this globalizing and quantitative knowledge would be the mapping of types of races or ethnicities according to a certain standard (what counts and what doesn’t count as a race or ethnicity) and as such produces a certain “fact’s” about the population that are regarded as objective and true. The analytical knowledge concerning the individual is related to a production of a “truth” concerning the individual himself, for example, his health, his psychological type and his sexual identity (which, in turn, shapes his conduct). This then sums up how Foucault conceived of the subject in his early and middle works: as an effect of techniques of power related to a certain quantitative and analytical production of truth.
The crucial shift in Foucault’s final work is a new conception of the possibility of a subject that can constitute itself through a set of practices, a set of techniques of the self, irreducible to these objectivizing modes of subjection. While techniques of the self can be integrated into techniques of domination, they do not necessarily coincide with them (Subject and Truth 154). Resistance would imply a refusal of the objectified subject constituted through quantitative and analytical knowledge: “we have to promote new forms of subjectivity through the refusal of this kind of individuality that has been imposed on us for several centuries” (Subject and Power 336). I think that Foucault’s final works make clear that a new form of subjectivity, also implies a new relation to truth; a subject not constituted through techniques and practices in relation to a truth that consist of impartial, analytic objective knowledge (as in the case of the objectivized subject), but a subject constituted through techniques and practices in relation to a truth reached on her own, a reflexive subjectivity that constantly takes into account the context in which this truth is practiced and tested.
Care of the self and its relation to truth
Foucault finds these reflexive techniques and practices of the self in ancient Greco-Roman ethics, gathered under the general name “care of the self.” Interestingly, he locates the origin of these practices of the care of the self in Athenian democracy of the 5th century B.C., precisely at the moment where the question of truth was problematized. Before the advent of democracy, the question who was able to tell the truth was relatively unproblematic: “The parrhesiastes [truth-teller J.M.] spoke the truth precisely because he was a good citizen, was well-born, had a respectful relation to the city, to the law, and to truth” (Fearless Speech 72). However, in the Athenian democracy, where everyone was allowed to speak the truth, it became a problem on what basis one could judge if someone spoke the truth: “The crisis regarding parrhesia is a problem of truth: for the problem is one of recognizing who is capable of speaking the truth within the limits of an institutional system where everyone is equally entitled to give his own opinion” (73). How can one know who is able to speak the truth in a democracy, when truth-telling is no longer guaranteed by one’s privileged status? “The parrhesiastes’ relation to truth can no longer simply be established by pure frankness or sheer courage, for the relation now requires education or, more generally, some sort of personal training” (73).
This training was sought in taking care of oneself, an ethics that tries to find techniques and practices with the aim to be able to relate to truth, to be able to tell the truth, and to be able to distinguish between true and false speech. In order to tell the truth one cannot take recourse to one’s privileged status. Rather, one has to carefully examine one’s relation to truth (do I speak on behalf of my self-interest, someone else’s, or do I tell the truth?), and, through ethical practices, give place to truth as a force in one’s actions. This new ethical subjectivity – the care of the self – was thus directly linked to a new relation of subjectivity to truth.
It was Socrates who was the first model for the techniques and practices related to care of the self. First, Socrates questions his interlocutor on his presumed knowledge and wisdom on topics such as justice and courage. In the case of Alcibiades, for example, it becomes clear that his status as a general is not sufficient for him to know or tell the truth about these matters. The question is thus, is Alicibiades capable of true discourse (logos)?, and if not, Socrates will tell him to take care of himself. This technique of constant questioning if one’s discourse is indeed a true discourse will remain a constant in ancient ethics. Second, the reason the Greeks give why it is Socrates who is capable of true discourse, is that his logos is in harmony with his bios (life). In order to be able to tell the truth, one has to give force to truth in one’s actions. For the Greeks, Socrates was able to talk about courage, because he had shown to be courageous in battle. One can relate to truth only, if one practices it in one’s live, if it relates to one’s moral conduct. According to Foucault: “with Socrates the problematization of parrhesia takes the form of a game between logos, truth, and bios (life)” (Fearless 102). What is important is that the ethics of the care of the self is related to a problematization of truth: truth-telling is no longer self-evident on the basis of its institutional backup, which means that it requires a constant questioning and evaluation. Moreover (contrary to the dominant modern relation to truth), to be able to reach the truth, it is not enough to perform an “disinterested” analytics of truth: one must strive for a harmony between true discourse (logos) and life (bios).
Foucault’s description of the practices of the self of the Stoic philosopher Seneca focuses on this same relation of the subject to a truth. Foucault explains why Seneca uses a set of persuasive arguments, demonstrations and examples (i.e. true discourse) to evaluate his daily moral conduct: it is “a force, the force which would be able to transform pure knowledge and simple consciousness in a real way of living . . . Seneca has to give a place to truth as a force” (Beginning 207). Here, Foucault shows that Seneca uses techniques of reasoning (arguments, demonstrations, examples), in short, techniques to come to true discourse (logos). But Seneca’s objective is not to develop merely an analytical exploration of truth. Again, we see that the practices consist in giving true discourse (logos) a force in one’s way of living (bios), and it is the practicing of this relation that constitutes Seneca as an ethical subject.
Concerning the Cynics, Foucaults makes a similar analysis: “In short, Cynicism makes life, existence, bios, what could be called an alethurgy, a manifestation of truth . . . this is the kernel of Cynicism; practicing the scandal of the truth in and through one’s life” (Courage 173). For the Cynics, the test of their true discourse, the discourse that they practice in their way of living, is its scandalous character. In any case, what is clear is that truth plays an important role in the constitution of an ethical subjectivity. This ethical and lived conception of truth is, I think, what Foucault tries to excavate from ancient philosophy. Gross summarizes this nicely: “For Foucault then, truth is not displayed in the calm element of discourse, like a distant and correct echo of the real. It is in the most accurate and literal sense of the expression, a reason for living: a logos actualized in existence, which sustains, intensifies and tests it: which verifies it” (Gross 529).
The reflexivity of the self
The topic then forces us to not only given an analytic of the question of truth in Foucault’s writings, but also to raise the question in what sense the ethical practices, the care of the self, would mean for us today, as a praxis. In what sense can the practices of the Greeks be a model for us? I think that we, like the Greeks, should be aware of what kind of relation we have to truth, and in what sense we try to give force to truth in our actions (certainly in our modern democracies where all kinds of opinions, half truths, alternative facts and fake news abound). Today’s ethical self, I think, would refuse to subject itself to the fixed, institutionalized, objective truths that are already given (the objectivizing truths to which techniques of domination and discipline relate). But this does not mean that the self can refuse truth all together. The self can only come into being through techniques of the self, through which she works on herself, in order to create herself in a living practice. She has to act according to true principles (opposed to the principles of discipline and domination), elaborated in a true discourse that is her own, and practice them in her life. She has to come to the truth by herself, instead of subjecting herself to the regime of truth that constitute her as an objectivized subject. This means that she has to relate to truth in a different way. This reflexive relation to truth, in which the self is constituted through the process of finding a new truth that can have force in his practices, is what Foucault called a “political spirituality”: “The will to discover a different way of governing oneself through a different way of dividing up true and false — this is what I would call ‘political spiritualite’”(Method 82), “. . . the search, practice, and experience through which the subject carries out the necessary transformations on himself in order to have access to the truth” (Hermeneutic 15).
We can now understand what the reflexivity of self actually means. If Foucault’s genealogies shows the ways in which the subject is constituted as an object, the question of Foucault’s ethics is: how can the subject constitute itself as a self? The ethical task is to constitute a new subjectivity (in the sense of an active reflexive subject, rather than a fixated objectivized subject). How can the subject constitute itself, on its own terms, rather than being constituted through the techniques and practices that constitute it as an object? The possibility of a proper self-constitution, would imply that the self, through techniques and practices, elaborated in a true discourse that it brings to bear on itself, constitute itself. But what is the nature of this self that is constituted? It cannot be the constitution of another fixed object (i.e. a objectivized subject), because this would entail, not a self-constitution, but an object-constitution. It would mean that the self had again not constituted itself, but something other than itself.
The constitution of the self by the self cannot be the creation of another object in a single instance. Rather, the constitution of the self as self is a continuous process, in which the self continuously examines and tests his own relation to truth (logos) by practicing it in his life (bios). The self that is constituted is precisely this process of self-constitution. This is why it is reflexive: the self relates to itself, and it is this self relating that constitutes the self (and not another objectivized subject). What Foucault aims at with the care of the self, is the possibility of a constitution of a self as constituting. This, I think, is what Foucault means when he says: “The self with which one has the relationship is nothing other than the relationship itself . . . it is in short the immanence, or better, the ontological adequacy of the self to the relationship” (Gross 533). The ethical self is nothing other than the process in which the self forges a relation to itself.
What is interesting is that Foucault formulates a possibility of a reflexive self, as self that can constitutes itself on its own terms, and, in the process, can distance itself for the objectivizing practices and techniques of discipline and domination. However, it would be not entirely accurate to say that Foucault formulates a possibility of autonomy (auto-nomy, i.e. giving oneself one’s own law), or the more humble “relative autonomy”: it is not the case that the self can create a distance because it can give itself its own law. It is a process of autopoesis, of self-creation, rather than autonomy. What is truly innovative is that Foucault can conceive of a self that can create itself on its own terms, that can practice freedom, without presupposing a pre existing, autonomous, free subject.
All fine, but what does it mean today, concretely? This ethics of the care of the self dismisses two prevalent postmodern techniques of the self: on the one hand, the subject of identity (the search for the creation of one’s “true identity” through, for example, acts of consumption), and on the other hand, the “nomadic” subject (which precisely tries to relinquish any fixed identity and “dwell in a sea of mobility”). The first practices a technique of the self that constitutes itself merely as a new object: the proliferation of ever new identities, ever new styles of “objectivized subjects”. It does not constitute a self that has a relation to itself, rather it constitutes itself as a new identity, with definite objective qualities, that as such, must be recognized by others. The second postmodern subject practices a technique of the self that is exactly its opposite: it tries to neglect any change of forming a coherent identity. As such, it tries to circumvent every objectivizing practice, and in this way does refuse to subject itself to the fixed, institutionalized, objective truths that are already given. However, the nomadic subject does not try to develop a new relation to truth. It does not examine and develop a set of principles – elaborated in true discourse, tested in everyday practices – in short, is unable to relate logos (true discourse) to bios (life). It does not constitute its self as an ethical self, precisely because it actively refuses to constitute anything. There is no “relation between the art of existence and true discourse, between the beautiful existence and the true life, life in the truth, life for the truth” (Courage 163).
A true model for ethical subjectivity, I think, can be found in the revolutionary. Take the case of Nelson Mandela. First he refused the individuating and objectivizing practices of South African society (Blacks are inferior to Whites). But that was far from all. He forged new relation to truth, elaborated a true discourse (the discourse of equality), and gave it a force in his political practices (logos + bios). Contrary to dogmatic Marxist, he did not wait for the big revolution. Furthermore, his practices and techniques of revolution were constantly brought back to the question of the truth of his discourse and actions. First he tried peaceful protest, then he used selective violence, and in the end turned towards reconciliation. It shows that his relation to truth was not dogmatic or lawlike, but a constant reflection on the truth of his discourse – a constant evaluation and examination his ethical conduct – related to the specific relations of power at the particular historical conjunction.
In this paper I have tried to show that truth plays an important role in the constitution of Foucault’s ethical subject. In his early and middle works Foucault conceived of the subject as merely the effect of objectivizing techniques and practices of discipline and domination. Human beings, according to Foucault, were subjected by being objectivized through the imposition of a certain quantitative and analytical conception truth. In order to conceive of a subject able to constitute itself, rather than being constituted, Foucault turned to ancient Greco-Roman ethics. In the practices of the care of the self, the subject constitutes itself through forging a new relation to truth. This means an elaboration on, and constant evaluation of the truth of his discourse, a discourse that one must practice test in one’s life. What’s truly innovative, is that Foucault’s ethics can conceive of a reflexive subject that constitutes itself as constituting, rather than as another object. He formulates the possibility of true self-creation: the creation of a true life, a beautiful existence, rather than another simple, objective identity. Today, we can take this reflexive, ethical subjectivity that constitute itself as a self through forging a new relation to truth, as a model, in order to distance ourselves from the, objectivizing practices linked to quantitative and analytical truths. In order to grasp the importance, relevancy and radicalism of Foucault’s ethics, we cannot overlook the role that truth plays in it.
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Crude Thinking 