Magazine: Social Research, Summer, 1994
Title: Thinking beyond the East-West divide: Foucault, Patocka, and
the care of the self.
Subject(s): PATOCKA, Jan -- Criticism & interpretation; FOUCAULT,
Michel -- Criticism & interpretation; SELF (Philosophy); POLITICAL
science -- Philosophy
Source: Social Research, Summer94, Vol. 61 Issue 2, p297, 27p
Author(s): Szakolczai, Arpad
Abstract: Examines the works of Czech philosopher Jan Patocka in
relation to Foucault's works about the transformation of the self and
its link to politics. Patocka's reliance upon personal experiences and
reflections on his earlier work; Patocka's involvement in politics
during his later years; Foucault's first-hand knowledge of Eastern
Europe; Common preoccupations between Patocka and Foucault.
AN: 9410115869
ISSN: 0037-783X
Full Text Word Count: 9061
Database: Academic Search Elite
THINKING BEYOND THE EAST-WEST DIVIDE: FOUCAULT, PATOCKA, AND THE CARE
OF THE SELF
Introduction
FOR decades now, Foucault's work has elicited all sorts of
controversy. This controversy, however, contains one constant element
shared by all participants--they all focus on the books written in the
1970's, the works which are most widely read and are usually
associated with his name.[1] Unfortunately, much less attention is
paid to his later works, which focus on the question of the self and
subjectivity. Because Foucault was constantly revisiting the same
themes, trying both to distance himself from his earlier statements
and at the same time to refine his approach, it is reasonable to
expect that his later work has much to say about his earlier work.
This is especially so in his last years, when Foucault was explicitly
using reflection upon his former writings, a work upon his own work,
as a strategy to overcome his crisis and gain momentum in research.[2]
The relative neglect of this later work is all the more surprising as
the problem of the self returned to the center of interest in
political theory.[3] Foucault's name in fact does appear in this
debate,[4] but the discussion is firmly rooted on both sides of the
controversy surrounding it in the perspective he provided in the books
of the mid-1970s.
Two significant recent contributions further support this claim of
neglect. The first are two articles written by Mark Warren that
reintroduce the concept of self-transformation into the literature on
participatory democracy (Warren, 1992, 1993). The idea of the
transformation of the self and its link to politics was at the center
of Foucault's interest during his late period. Although Warren
discusses Discipline and Punish, he fails to mention any of Foucault's
later work. The second contribution is a book by Fred Alford that
attempts to bring together the conceptualization of the self in
political philosophy, analyzing Plato, Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau, and
Rawls, and the psychoanalytic approach of Kohut and Lacan (Alford,
1991). Alford briefly alludes to Foucault's work, specifically the
Vermont seminars, considering them as the exposition of a short
research program (Alford, 1991, p. 21). The topic of these seminars,
however, was not the outline of a future research project but rather a
short summary of work previously done. Though the whole work did
remain unfinished, large portions have been presented in lectures
delivered at the College de France and elsewhere.[5] One obvious
reason why Foucault's late work is little known is that much of the
material is still unpublished. However, without going into the highly
controversial topic of posthumous publications, in these lectures
Foucault did in fact publicly present his own work. It is available,
on tape or sometimes in a typescript version, in the Foucault Archives
in Paris. Therefore, it is not only the supply that is missing, but
there seems to be a problem with demand as well.
The use of Foucault's late writings, and indeed of the whole of his
work, could be much helped by situating them in a proper context.
Though Foucault's work regularly appears in a number of contemporary
debates (post-modernism, post-structuralism, or post-Marxism) and is
contrasted or compared with that of other thinkers (Habermas, Deleuze,
Derrida, or Lyotard), these' references fail to appreciate the
difference Foucault's work made with respect to these approaches.
Weber or Elias look much more promising, and there is some work done
along these lines.[6] But none of the presumed connections is
stronger, more direct and perplexing, than the elective affinities
that exist between the works of Foucault and the Czech philosopher Jan
Patocka, especially as relates to the concept of the care of the self.
Until now, this connection has gone unnoticed.[7] The purpose of this
article is to introduce the works of Patocka into the discussion on
Foucault in order to give this literature a novel angle and also to
increase interest in the detailed study of the last period of
Foucault's work.
Jan Patocka: Life and Works
As Patocka's name is little known outside the small circle of experts
on East-Central European politics and philosophy, a short account must
be given of his life and work. In the presentation, special emphasis
will be placed on Patocka's reliance upon personal experiences and
reflections on his earlier work in developing his project and driving
it toward completion.
Jan Patocka (1907-1977) as a philosopher is virtually unknown both in
England and the United States; there are few English publications of
his works.[8] If his name sounds somewhat familiar, however, it is
because of his death, not his life and work. In 1977, he became one of
the three spokesmen of Charter 77. After being subjected to exhaustive
police investigations, he developed cardiac problems and died in early
March of that year. This and the concept of "living in truth" Havel
took from Patocka became standard themes in the literature on East
European dissidence. Paradoxically, these tributes to Patocka and the
association of his name with moralism and anti-politics made him look
more like a respectable person, though too much of an idealist, than
an original thinker.[9]
Patocka's work is more recognized in continental Europe. For instance,
his complete works are translated into German, and in France most of
his writings have appeared since 1981 and are widely read and
discussed by phenomenologists. In fact, he seems to be the only East
European thinker who, solely on the basis of work accomplished behind
the Iron Curtain, receives serious contemporary attention.[10]
Patocka was born and raised in a typical East-Central European elite
intellectual milieu.[11] After receiving his first university degree
in Prague, he continued his studies in Paris; he was fortunate to be
there when Husserl delivered his famous lectures. On defending his
thesis in Prague on "The Concept of Evidence and its Significance for
Noetics," he went abroad again, first to Berlin in 1932-33 and then to
Freiburg, in order to study with Husserl and also to become acquainted
with Heidegger. These years were crucial for him not only for academic
reasons, but also for the exposure and experience he received in
politics.
A full-scale existential transformation followed. In an interview
given and published in 1967, he described his return to Prague in 1934
with the following words: "When I returned to Czechoslovakia with all
these [ideas] I was almost completely isolated, and hardly anyone
succeeded to understand what I wanted, even my friends from my
generation with whom I was strongly related, and who to a large extent
were more able than me" (Patocka, 1981, p. 170).[12] He settled down
when he met emigrants from Nazi Germany and organized a philosophical
circle with them. This activity was suspended by the Munich treaty of
1938.
In 1936, Patocka defended his habilitation thesis on the "Natural
World," but due to the economic crisis, he failed to obtain a
university position. He got his chance after the war. Between 1945 and
1949, realizing long-cherished plans, he taught four courses on the
origins of philosophy dealing with the pre-Socratics, Socrates, Plato,
and Aristotle. He was preparing a comprehensive work on the basis of
his lecture notes when the Communist takeover occurred in 1948-49.
Patocka was dismissed from the University and was not allowed to
publish. He found refuge first at the Masaryk Institute as an
archivist and then at the Comenius Archives. At first he continued his
work, and in the early '50s he wrote "Negative Platonism," one of his
most significant writings that was intended as part of a larger
project formulating his own philosophy.[13] This project, however, was
never completed. Instead, using his meager but real possibilities,
Patocka soon turned to those subject areas where he would have a
chance for open work and publication, even at the price of temporarily
giving up his own idiom: to the work of Comenius and the history of
science.
Doing so, Patocka did not just succumb to the limits imposed by the
system. He simply took the existence of the Communist regime for
granted as an externally imposed reality and tried to make the most of
his work given this fact. The crucial point is that he continued
working without making the slightest gestures toward the regime and
without taking part in the favorite game of intellectuals and
ideologues regarding the limits of the forbidden and permitted. Though
this game may have contributed to the loosening and eventual demise of
the system, it also had the lasting effect of making all participants
dependent on it, unable to preserve autonomy and internal composure.
The significant consequences of such in-depth personality
transformations are only becoming visible today.
It was in the mid-1960s that new opportunities opened up for Patocka.
In 1964, he published a book on Aristotle, summarizing a decade of
work. Soon he was allowed to lecture abroad on phenomenology. In 1966,
he taught a course at Charles University about Husserl, Scheler, and
Heidegger, and in 1968 he returned on a regular basis. But, more
importantly, he was finally able to return to the work on his own
philosophy that was interrupted in the early 1950s. This did not
happen easily. A return to his former writings made it evident how
much he had changed--a change that was made possible because he kept
working, preserving his inner discipline. It was only in 1968-69 that
he began to publish and to talk about the more general concepts of his
philosophy and not simply to comment Hussefi and Heidegger.[14] At
this point, for the fourth time, external politics again interfered
with his work.
This time, however, Patocka's answer was different. He was already
over the age of sixty. His life was behind him, a life which he was
now in a position to summarize. If he was not allowed to teach in
public, he gave regular private seminars. If he was not allowed to
publish, he circulated his works in samizdat.[15] The result was
Patocka's most creative period. A first overview of his work, in the
context of a private seminar on classical Greek philosophy, was given
in the summer of 1973 (Patocka, 1983). Patocka then worked for two
years on a series of essays that were widely considered his chef
d'oeuvre (Patocka, 1981a).
After these accomplishments, Patocka returned to phenomenology in
order to find out where Husserl went wrong. But this was not the best
known or even the most important part of his last activities. As he
approached the age of seventy, Patocka did something he had never done
before: he became directly involved in politics. The decision
represented a break with everything he had done before in public.
Still, this move was not sudden but was carefully premeditated, as
shown by the text of the crucial Varna lecture Patocka gave in
1972.[16] After decades of unceasing personal work and the
accomplishment of what could be called, after Nietzsche, his "task,"
after a life spent with rigorous and unegoistic "care with the soul,"
Patocka thought the time had come to care directly for others by an
act of sacrifice so that they would care for themselves.
Links Between Foucault's and Patocka's Thought
On a first look, the lives and works of Patocka and Foucault seem to
be very different, even opposed. Patocka lived in the East under an
overtly repressive political regime. Foucault was a Western thinker
trying to come to terms with much subtler mechanisms of controlling
and shaping individuals. Patocka was a phenomenologist, a disciple of
Husserl, while Foucault singled out phenomenology as the line of
investigation to which he was most opposed.[17] Patocka was a
philosopher in the classical sense of the term, while Foucault long
rejected such an identification.
This apparent mutual neglect and opposition between them seems to have
been the standard reception perspective on the relationship between
the two.[18] Yet, on a more careful look, the oppositions begin to
falter. First, Foucault did have some first-hand knowledge of East
Europe. He spent the year 1958-59 in Warsaw, wrote most of Madness and
Civilisation there, and considered the experience crucial.[19] Second,
Foucault's hostility toward phenomenology should be qualified. While
Patocka's whole work revolved around Husserl and Heidegger, Foucault's
first publication, an "Introduction" to Dream and Existence by Ludwig
Binswanger, a Heideggerian psychoanalyst, contained several references
to Husserl. In an important piece detailing his intellectual
trajectory, Foucault starts the account with Husserl, considering him
the starting point of both contemporary French and German philosophy;
and in his last interview, he discussed in depth the profound
importance Heidegger had on his thoughts (Foucault, 1978b; 1988b, pp.
242-54). What he was most opposed to in phenomenology was the idea of
the transcendental subject, but, in fact, this was also at the heart
of Patocka's critique of Husserl; in his last years Patocka followed
Heidegger much more than Husserl just as Foucault was using Heidegger
in his courses given between 1980 and 1984.[20] Finally, there is a
strong similarity between the ideal of the philosophic life in Patocka
and Foucault.
Thus, it is easier to understand why some of the key ideas of Foucault
and Patocka are perplexingly close. Both were much concerned with the
way their work could be connected to the present and were conscious
about effects. Their attitude can be characterized by two common
preoccupations. First, their aim was to question the "taken for
granted," to shake evidences. To this end, Patocka talks about "the
enormous task of the revision and destruction of all 'evidences',"
while Foucault talks about the "unmaking of evidences," of those
subtle moments when "evidences are lost," and even the lesson of
Merleau-Ponty, according to whom "the essential philosophical task is
never to consent completely to one's own evidences" (Patocka, 1985,
pp. 137-38; Foucault, 1979a, pp. 82-3).[21] Second, they intended to
take this line of questioning to the limit, not shying away from
dangers--not just in the evident political sense but concerning the
most cherished views and assumptions one holds.[22]
If their joint aim was an in-depth analysis of the present, of our
"taken-for-granted" reality, they also chose an identical and not
self-evident manner to analyze the present: doing reconstructive
studies in history. Though the concrete areas of investigation were
often quite different, the strategy of research was the same. They
were not trying to read solutions from history but were concerned with
questions and problems. According to Patocka, history began with the
discovery of problematicity; Foucault stated in his last year that the
common notion of all his work was a conception of history (or the
history of thought) as problematization[23]
Not only the modality of their approach to history was identical but
also the main topic. Foucault often defined his work as a "history of
truth" or a "history (or genealogy) of subjectivity." Beginning in the
1980s, he also stated that the general problem underlying his work is
the question of the links between truth and subjectivity[24]
"Subjectivity" and "truth" are also central terms for Patocka, and,
just like for Foucault, the basic question is the exact link between
the two terms. It is well-known that the concept "living in truth" was
one of the most important concepts of Patocka, taken up by Havel and
repeated ad nauseam by the literature on East European dissidence. But
the question of truth-telling and of living in truth was the central
preoccupation of Foucault in his last two years at the College de
France. In one of the last lectures, he even made
the--tentative--remark that a topic he would like to cover the
following year, but for which he still did not feel up to, was the
question of the "true life."[25]
The question of subjectivity and the links between truth and
subjectivity have a dual role in the works of Patocka and Foucault.
The first concerns the role of subject in modern philosophy. They
agree in a critique of the subjectivist turn and in the assessment of
Husserl. Even for Patocka Husserl never managed to overcome the
concept of transcendental subjectivity, in spite of his late attempt
in this direction with the concepts of "intersubjectivity" and
"life-world," concepts which Patocka, in contradistinction to
Habermas, considered still inadequate (Patocka, 1989a, pp. 223-38;
1989b, pp. 285-326; 1988, pp. 189-215). But, second, linking truth and
subjectivity was not simply an abstract matter for them, but something
which, for better or worse, they also tried to pursue in their lives.
They were certainly not just professional philosophers, though their
extreme erudition is mentioned by everyone who knew them closely; they
tried to live a philosophical life in the old, classical, original
Socratic sense.[26]
Finally, the manner in which the unity of such a philosophical life
and work could be realized was also the same in both cases. It was
identical in terms of statements, the emphasis laid on a life of
relentless work, a life of ascesis and discipline. Thus, for Patocka,
"culture is a work, it is an ascesis"; for Foucault, philosophy is
work, "an "ascesis," an exercise of oneself in the activity of
thought" (Patocka, 1991, p. 194; Foucault, 1986, p. 9). And both
Patocka and Foucault did in fact live their lives according to this
ideal.
It should be repeated that these points are both specific to and
crucial for the works of Foucault and Patocka. However, of all
commonalities, nothing is more central than the concept of the care of
the soul, or the self.
Patocka and the Care of the Soul
The care of the soul (le soin de l'ame) was not simply a concept used
by Patocka but his most important one. It is the guiding theme of his
last two summary works, Plato and Europe and The Heretical Essays, and
has been selected as the title of the six-volume samizdat edition of
his collected works.[27] Patocka makes rather strong claims for the
general importance of this concept: it is the care of the soul that is
the central element in the heritage of Europe. The destiny of Europe,
or Western civilization, is linked to the fate of the care of the
soul.
This is not just an isolated remark but returns, and is stressed,
throughout Plato and Europe. Most of the individual chapters, or
seminars, close with a reference to the link between the care of the
soul and Europe. The care of the soul is "at the basis of the European
heritage" (Patocka, 1983, p. 21). "The history of Europe, in a great
part, up to about the fifteenth century, is the history of attempts
made to realize the care of the soul" (1983, p. 45). "What is
constituted here, with this philosophy of the care of the soul, will
make the specificity of the European [form of] life. . . . [here lies]
not just the specificity, the autonomy, but also the continuity of the
European [form of] life. . . . Europe as Europe was born out of the
theme of the care of the soul" (1983, p. 79). "Europe--Western Europe
first of all, but also what is called the "other Europe"--is issued
from the care of the soul" (1983, p. 99). The list could be continued.
These formulations are summed up in the last seminar:
The task we set for ourselves was to reflect upon the beginning of
history. Now, history is the history of Europe, there is no
other one. The rest of the world knows annals, historiography,
but not the continuity of an unitary mission, susceptible of
universalisation. And what is at the source of European
history? We have said that it is the idea of the care of the
soul, the idea in which there are reflexively summed up all the
aspirations of Europe up to the present (1983, p. 225).
The Heretical Essays take up and elaborate on the same theme: "The
care of the soul is . . . what gave birth to Europe--we can maintain
this thesis without the slightest exaggeration" (Patocka, 1981, p.
93).
Such statements should strike any Western social scientist as
incredibly naive: a peculiar mixture of Hegelian idealism and early
modernization theories. And yet Patocka realizes the stakes of his
claims. That is why he states so unequivocally "without the slightest
exaggeration." And that is why he takes the trouble of qualifying
carefully, once the radicality of the claims is maintained, both
controversial elements: the reality as opposed to the idealism of the
concept and the unique position of Europe.
First, Patocka repeatedly stresses that his is not an idealist thesis
(Patocka, 1983, p. 79). First, the care of the soul is not an
autonomous mental activity but a specific practice, "the praxis of
intellectual life" (Patocka, 1981, p. 92). This practice is a
reflection on what one is actually doing, leaving a mark on all
activities. The care of the soul "enters in the circle of all other
human possibilities and . . . obliges [them] to reflect. In this way,
it leads even what is not philosophic to a degree and state different
from where it was before the reflection" (1983, p. 79). But, second,
the care of the soul is not just a correlate but a direct activity, a
work on the agent that is able to effectuate reflection: the soul. In
order to perform its task, the soul must guard its own forces, must be
vigilant and wakeful: "So that we could effectuate this brand new and,
in a sense, pitiless work of thought, there must be a discipline of
the soul, we have to take care of the soul" (1983, p. 87). The care of
the soul is not just a universal lateral activity but first of all
involves taking care of itself.
Finally, this practice of the care of the soul has a specific target:
truth. This was first just the correlate of Greek cosmology, as
Patocka shows for the case of Democritos (1983, Ch. 5). With Socrates
and Plato, however, a new demand emerges: truth, instead of being the
intellectual condition of the soul that makes access to truth
possible, becomes replaced by the stronger exigency of the true life.
The crucial point of any philosophy of the care of the soul is the
extent to which a philosopher validates his principles by his own
life.
The practice of the care of the soul emerged as a response given to a
concrete challenge: This challenge, however, also has direct relevance
for our own daily life. It is the link between these two moments in
history that is at the center of Patocka's attention.
Two possible paths can be chosen to study these links: one could start
with the present, with us, on an involving, personal, and
self-referential note, or one could start with the past, the moment of
emergence, using the most detached and classical philosophical
language. In his two main works, if only to indicate their
complementarity, Patocka chose alternative paths, paying attention to
the circumstances in which his ideas were put forward: the first, in
Plato and Europe, a private seminar; the second, in The Heretical
Essays, a wider audience.
The Heretical Essays start with Patocka's reading of the Husserlian
concept of the "natural world," or the Lebenswelt, used to describe a
primary situation, the starting point of general analysis. This
"natural world" was used by Heidegger, shifting the emphasis, as the
background against which, according to the Greek word aletheia, truth
became manifest. Patocka takes a further step. He claims that the
problem that phenomenology set out for itself to solve, forming a
precise description of this "natural world," is impossible: "the
problem of the natural world does not seem for us susceptible to be
resolved" (1981, p. 24). Instead of an exhaustive description, he opts
for a negative definition: the natural world is the world before
problematicity, that is, before history. He indexes the problem of the
emergence of the manifestation of truth to the birth of history, the
realization of problematicity.
This specific configuration explains the sudden and joint emergence of
three different but connected sets of concerns: the search for the
order of the cosmos (cosmogony); the search for a stable political
order (politics); and, finally, the search for internal stability
(philosophy as the care of the soul). In this context, the specificity
and significance of the new practice becomes visible. Philosophy is
not simply reflection about the meaning of life or the order of the
world; it is a practice to shape the soul (the self) not simply in
order to attain an abstract and eternal truth but to realize a true
life: a life that is stable, is able to withstand the loss of meaning,
of disorder, without closing the opening of freedom and receding into
an ossification of social and human existence.
This practice of strengthening the soul proved to be extremely
powerful and lasting. It was this practice that made the civilization
in which it was born able to withstand a number of ensuing crises, the
collapse of all those political projects that were defined
correlatively with the philosophical practice of the care of the soul:
the Greek polis, the Roman Empire, and, finally, the Holy Roman
Empire. It was this practice that has been taken over by Christianity,
providing it with its ground, so that it "represents the strive that
is up to the present the most powerful--never surpassed, but never
even thought until the end--that makes man capable of fighting against
decay" (1981, p. 117).[28]
At this point, Patocka qualifies his story with a surprising turn.
Everything said about the destiny of the care of the soul and Europe
holds true only up to a moment--the disruptions around the sixteenth
century. It is with the beginning of the early modern period, however,
with the period of science, discoveries, economic and colonial
expansion, that Patocka locates the disappearance of the care of the
soul, the moment of betrayal, the source of our present condition.
This is where the private seminars take off, running the same circle
from the other end. Patocka begins with a diagnosis on two levels,
whose exact links are suspended. He elaborates on the environmental,
political, economic crises of the present but even more on the
dominant current mood, a sense of helplessness. This is what makes the
situation truly intolerable, not the objective circumstances. This is
the configuration that is comparable to the conditions of emergence of
Europe; and this is the reason why as a way out he is proposing to
re-launch the project: "The question that we will pose is the
following: the care of the soul, that is at the basis of the European
heritage, isn't today again for us to recur to, us who are in need of
finding support amidst the general weakness and the resignation to
decline?" (1983, p. 21).
On stating Patocka's rather startling claims about the specificity of
Europe, two possible charges were immediately voiced: idealism and
Euro-centrism. We have seen that Patocka was well aware of these
objections and was trying to anticipate and meet them. Still, his
arguments need additional support. It is this reinforcement that is
provided, however surprisingly, by a thinker hardly known to Patocka:
Michel Foucault.
Foucault and the Care of the Self
The care of the self (le souci de soi) was not just a concept used by
Foucault but had a central place in his most important last period.
First, it became the title of volume three of the sexuality series.
This, in itself, should not be underestimated, as Foucault was always
quite concerned with precise title selection. But there is more. He
originally planned to publish the book outside the sexuality
series.[29] It was supposed to be based on his 1982 course entitled
"The Hermeneutics of the Subject," which was not at all about
sexuality but which discussed the care of the self. In this course,
Foucault was not just working on the theoretical and methodological
problems related to the sexuality project, as was the case with the
1980 course, but was already going beyond what he considered at that
time burdensome homework and tried to tackle directly the broader
question of the history of subjectivity.
Second, this concept is not only similar but is identical to Patocka's
"care of the soul." First, the Greek word used for "care" is identical
in both thinkers. Patocka is using the Greek expression epimeleia tes
psyches, while Foucault uses the phrase epimeleia heautou.[30] The
second word is different but names the same thing. Patocka is
emphasizing that in Plato, as opposed to the previous tradition, the
soul is not simply the source of intellectual knowledge and truth as
seen from the perspective of others but is the "soul that I am"
(Patocka, 1983, pp. 78-9). Foucault, when analyzing the meaning of the
term heautou, immediately shows that it is the "soul." At this point,
his analysis must be presented in some detail.
Foucault opens the first lecture of 1982 with three broad claims,
situating the topic.[31] He begins with the distinction between the
care of the self and the knowledge of oneself, putting the emphasis on
the former as opposed to the standard reading of the history of
philosophy. He then connects this tradition to Socrates. On the basis
of three passages in the Apology, Foucault makes three points. First,
the care of the self was the mission Socrates received from the
gods--not caring for others but inciting them to care about
themselves. Second, this poses the question of the link between the
care for oneself and the ability of making others care for themselves.
Third, the role of Socrates is restricted to the first moment, the
awakening. The project which Foucault locates in Socrates and which he
claims to lie at the heart of European philosophy is to wake others up
from the slumber in which they conduct their everyday existence in
order to live differently: not following any precept but starting to
be concerned with themselves. The third main opening claim in the 1982
lecture is that though this idea started with Socrates, it was not
restricted to him but was widespread in ancient philosophy, and a
number of different practices emerged related to it.
In the second hour of the first lecture, Foucault starts his analysis
by using Plato's Alcibiades as his source material, a text he called
"the very theory" (la theorie meme) of the care of the self. According
to Foucault, this text is divided into two parts, defining first the
meaning of "self" and then of "care."[32] Concerning the first,
Foucault starts with emphasizing the way Plato introduced the
definition of the "self" into the dialogue; this starts with a second,
stressed, reflexive, and elaborate reference to the famous Delphic
statement, defining the mission of Socrates. Second, he states that
the definition of the "self" is given quickly: it is the soul, defined
as one's own soul. Third, the most important point in this definition,
according to Foucault, is the way Plato arrives at the definition. It
starts with a number of questions, indicating that the specificity of
the soul is located in the act of questioning. The capacity of posing
questions is located in language, the grammatical subject, and this
subject is defined through the use of language as an instrument.
Foucault is elaborating on the Greek word for use, chrestai, a term
that will serve as the title of the second volume of the sexuality
series. Finally, in this way, Plato arrives at the definition of the
soul, which is, therefore, not a "soul-substance" linked to the
problem of eternity and immortality but a "soul-subject" defining the
singular and transcendent position of the subject in relation to what
surrounds him.
In specifying the meaning of heautou, a definition of its care is
already implied. If the soul is the relation one has to the
surroundings, then "care" defines its modality. The different
expressions used in French or given in the English translations
provide a good indication of this meaning of epimeleia: it is to take
care of, to be concerned with, to take pains at. But this refers to
the surroundings and not to the soul itself. The second part of the
definition deals with the meaning of the care applied to the self. And
here, according to Foucault, Plato is immediately evoking the
principle of "know yourself," defining the soul as the divine in man.
With this act, Platonic philosophy lapsed back into metaphysics and
idealism.
The rest of the 1982 course takes a clue from this claim, studying the
resurgence of the care of the self in the Roman period, while a good
part of the 1983 course represents a more nuanced reading of Plato.
But, in the 1984 course, the problematics of the care of the self in
Socrates returns in a slightly different form and with extreme
emphasis (Foucault Archives, C 69 [3] and C 69 [4]).
The death of Socrates, analyzed in the third lecture, is the
paradigmatic starting point for the course, an introduction to
Foucault's main concern: the connection of the 1982 and the 1983
lectures, the care of the self and the telling of truth (parrhesia).
This connection is made in the fourth lecture through an analysis of
Laches. This, rather than Alcibiades, is the dialogue where Foucault
now traces the tradition in philosophy to which he claims to belong.
Its importance is shown by its position in the course and also spelled
out explicitly by Foucault on several occasions.[33] And it is at that
very point, at the end of the introductory remarks on Laches, that
Foucault is making reference to a philosopher, the only philosopher
who, according to him, read Plato and, therefore, European philosophy
in the same manner. This philosopher is Patocka and specifically his
book Plato and Europe.[34]
Thus far, we have shown that the philosophies of Foucault and Patocka,
far from being opposite, were rather mutually the closest. Our second
point is that Foucault elaborated a concept that provided a crucial
supplement to Patocka's work, establishing a solid ground against
charges of idealism. This was the concept of the "techniques of self."
The place of this concept is again crucial in Foucault's work. It has
been emphasized in his most important methodological writing, the
introduction of The Use of Pleasure, where the concepts
problematization and techniques of self are singled out as the most
important theoretical benefits gained through the carrying out of the
sexuality project (Foucault, 1986, pp. 10-11). Foucault has defined
this concept several times. Let us single out the one given in the
Vermont seminars: "technologies of the self . . . permit individuals
to effect by their own means or with the help of others a certain
number of operations on their own bodies and souls, thoughts, conduct,
and way of being, so as to transform themselves in order to attain a
certain state of happiness, purity, wisdom, perfection, or
immortality" (Foucault, 1988c, p. 10). The presence of these
techniques permits something that has been central, in many different
forms, in all the writings of Foucault: the shaping and the
transformation of individuals. But this term, as opposed to the
earlier term "techniques of power," also points out the specificity of
such techniques in the West. They are never simply imposed or
internalized forms of domination, but techniques that always involve
and rely upon the very freedom of the individual as an agent in their
operation, and which present opportunities that are not possible to
eliminate. If, according to Patocka, the history of Europe is the
history of the care of the self, then for Foucault, supporting and
supplementing Patocka, the history of the West is the history of the
way in which the techniques of self were used and deployed,
"democratized," connected but never reducible to the systematization
of the government of others. Far from being a category of post-modern
aestheticism, as it is often alleged, Foucault's "care of the self"
goes to the heart of Western rationality, precisely in the sense of
Max Weber.[35] And far from being a category of Hegelian idealism,
Patocka's "care of the soul" is as much in touch with reality as
Foucault's most empirical and institutional undertakings.
Conclusion
This article has argued that the similarities between the works of
Patocka and Foucault are extremely strong. They may be closer to each
other than any other major post-war philosophers. This point is not
exegetical. Direct links among them were minimal.[36] It is that both
Foucault and Patocka independently tried to gain access to the heart
of the present and with much success. This raises fundamental
questions of method. How did all this become possible? What made
Foucault and Patocka able to gain this insight? What can we learn
about the proper conduct of research?
The first thing Foucault and Patocka shared concerning their conduct
of research was that it was personal.[37] This did not mean that they
were only pronouncing personal opinions. Quite the contrary, personal
research for them meant the opposite: the lonely, arduous pursuit of a
singular, specific line of investigation; the study of a number of
different, seemingly disparate themes. Instead of building up a theory
or system or pronouncing subjective judgments, they did hard work on
different texts, the connection between them often difficult to
perceive. The first necessary condition for an access to the heart of
the present, therefore, seems to be long, persistent, lonely, and
isolated work, far from the noisy debates of the intellectual scene,
far from the Habermasian public sphere that only leads to the
reduction of all discussion to the smallest common denominator.
But, second, this does not mean opting for narrow professional
research. Distance from current debates does not necessarily lead to
distance from the concerns of the present. Access to its heart for
Foucault and Patocka was provided, paradoxically, by the pursuit and
then transcendence of two perspectives that seem opposite to an
investigation seriously concerned with the social and political issues
of the day: the pursuit of a project based on personal experience
through lonely, isolated investigation and then transcending both
limitations. It is only by starting from personal experience that one
could see deeply, could motivate all energies for the pursuit of a
problem, and eventually see and analyze from the inside those problems
that are also bothering others; and only through lonely, isolated work
can one find a way to formulate and deal with these problems properly.
The task of an intellectual (in the Foucaldian and Patockian sense of
Spirituality) is to drive this line of investigation, personal
research, the pursuit and formulation of one's own problem, to the
end.[38] It is only when this task is accomplished that political
action becomes possible. One must be persevering and patient. The
trajectories of Foucault and Patocka provide crucial lessons in this
regard.
Patocka relentlessly pursued his project; therefore, by the time open
public action against the communist regime became possible, he had
finished his work and was ready to act. Through this, he left a
crucial legacy. Foucault, however, got lost in mid-life. In the
mid-1960s, he got carried away on the wave of structuralism,
anticipating the fashion and meeting early public success. He soon
realized his error but compensated for it with an even bigger mistake:
by a singular decision, he gave up personal work and became active in
politics, something he had never done before, without finishing his
task and, therefore, was forced to rely on excessive rhetoric. He got
out of the mess he created for himself only in the last years of his
life and only with considerable difficulty. But the earlier impatience
seriously jeopardized the work, both in terms of its completion and
its public reception. It is not accidental that for years he did not
publish under his own name.[39] But, in spite of all he has done
before and after, his work is judged even today by friend and foe
alike on the basis of the most questionable aspects of his works
produced in the mid-1970s.
Notes:
* This paper revises the Stein Rokkan Lecture, University of Bergen,
October 1993. I am grateful to members of the Roundtable on
Political Economy (Northwestern University. Meredith
Woo-Cumings, director). the International History Workshop
(University of Chicago, Bruce Cumings, director), and the
Bergen audience (Stein Kuhnle, chair) for reactions to earlier
drafts. to John Wiersma for pointing out the similarity of my
conception of time to that of Norbert Elias. to John Lynn for
spirited dissent and permission to draw on unpublished
material, to Ron Aminzade for line-by-line criticism. and to
Viviana Zelizer for advice on form and content.
1 For a bibliography of Foucault's work, see Bernauer and Rasmussen
(1988). Concerning the range of his influence, see, for
example, the special issue of Critique (1986); Megill (1987);
and the three recent biographies by Eribon (1991), Macey
(1993), and Miller (1993). Concerning the 1970s, see Foucault
(1977, 1978a).
2 See especially the three different versions of the Preface or the
Introduction prepared for the oncoming volume of the History of
Sexuality project. See Foucault (1988g, 1984, 1986).
3 This is true especially after the study of Taylor (1989).
4 See the debate between Taylor and Connolly: Taylor (1984), Connolly
(1985), Taylor (1985). See also Connolly (1993).
5 See especially the 1980 and 1982 courses delivered at the College de
France and also a series of 1981 lectures at Louvain. The
recently published, carefully edited Dartmouth lectures are
also important in this respect; see Foucault (1993).
6 See Rabinow (1984), Gordon (1987), Pasquino (1986) concerning Weber,
and van Krieken (1990).
7 In his excellent study on Patocka and dissident politics, Vaclav
Belohradsky, a former student of Patocka, discusses Foucault's
work, but this only refers to the period of the mid-1970s. See
Belohradsky (1981).
8 It was not possible to trace an English language reference to
Patocka's in the SSCI. For the scarce English translations, see
especially Kohak (1989) and also Patocka (1977, Chapter 6 of
Heretical Essays) and Skilling and Precan (1981).
9 Havel's famous essay "The Power of the Powerless" was dedicated to
Patocka as was Skillings book (1981), the standard accoount on
the early history of Czech dissidence.
10 The only other thinker who would deserve it is Bela Hamvas. But as
publication of his work started in Hungary only in the
mid-1980s and some of his most important writings are still in
manuscript, it is not surprising that he is less known abroad,
though his works are about to appear in Italian and French.
11 For biographical references, see "Jan Patocka: A Philosophical
Biography" in Kohak (1989), Skilling (1981, pp. 128-31) and
(1989, pp. 20-3, 235-44), and Patocka (1981, pp. 163-83). As I
do not read Czech, I had no access to part of the literature.
12 This says much about the idea that "really" East-Central Europe was
at the heart of Europe at that time.
13 See Kohak (1989, pp. 175-206). The intended table of contents is of
particular interest for the purposes of this paper: 1. Negative
Platonism: The Concept of Freedom with Respect to What Exists,
2. The Problem of Truth, 3. The Problem of the Subject, 4. The
Suppression of Ontological Dualism, 5. Inanimate Nature and
Life, 6. Anthropology, 7. History, 8. Constructions of History.
14 Because abroad he started with Husserl and Heidegger, he was
classified for a long time as a mere commentator.
15 According to several accounts, he had in this way a singular role
in starting the whole samizdat movement.
16 See Patocka, 1989c, pp. 327-39. About the context of the lecture,
see also pp. 114-6.
17 See Foucault, 1973, xiv.
18 There seems to be no reference to Patocka whatsoever in the
literature on Foucault; while, though not mentioning Foucault
by name, Marc Richir's Preface to a collection of essays by
Patocka (1988) makes some evident hidden remarks against
Foucault.
19 About this, see Foucault (1988a, p. 98): Question: "Because behind
Histoire de la folie lay the problem of Eastern Europe."
Foucault: "Of course. I finished writing that book in Poland and I
could not fail to think, as I was writing, of what I could see
around me."
20 Concerning Patocka, see especially the first two of the Heretical
Essays. Concerning Foucault, see Foucault, 1988c, pp. 12-3, but
especially the fifth lecture of the 1982 course (February 3,
1982, C 65 [5]) in which, in answer to a question, Foucault
claimed that there were two possible ways of studying the links
between subjectivity and truth, either by using Lacan or
Heidegger, and he chose the latter.
21 It is to be noted that both are widely acknowledged as crucial
texts, even if the ideas are enveloped in a commentary (Patocka
discusses Masaryk, while Foucault a book by Jean
Daniel--perhaps because neither of them were able or willing to
formulate directly such a personal statement about the guiding
force of their work).
22 See Patocka, 1985, p. 137, and see also his ideas about the
experience of front in Patocka, 1977, pp. 119 ff. The best
confirmations of Patocka's thesis seem to be the philosophies
of Hamvas and Wittgenstein, though these are not mentioned by
him. On the Foucaldian concept of "limit experience," see
especially the essay "What is Enlightenment" in The Foucault
Reader, 1984 as well as the long discussion in Miller, 1993,
though it has a preconceived focus.
23 For Patocka, see especially the Heretical Essays. For Foucault, see
1988n and the `Introduction' to the Use of Pleasure. The
concept of "problematisation" was used later by translators of
Patocka; see, for example, Patocka, 1990a.
24 This was first stated on the first lecture of 1981--the first
course since 1075 in which the topic discussed was identical
with the projected title--and never questioned later. See the
lecture of January 6, 1981, Foucault Archives, C 63 (1).
25 See the fifth lecture of 1084, February 29, 1984, Foucault
Archives, C 69 (05).
26 They both had the honor of being called Socratic figures, a
description that could not be applied to many contemporaries.
(This happened--only?--with Elias and Hamvas.)
27 See Abrams, 1990, p. 5.
28 This is almost identical at all points with the views of Hamvas.
29 See, for example, Eribon, 1991, p. 319.
30 See, for example, Patocka, 1983, p. 87 and Foucault, 1989, p. 145.
31 See Foucault Archives, casette C 65 (1). For related publications,
see Foucault, 1988c, the outline of the 1982 course in
Foucault, 1989, and Foucault, 1988d, pp. 44-68, a publication
based on incomplete student notes.
32 The skeleton of this analysis, taking up a good two hours of
lectures, is given in four paragraphs in Technologies of the
Self; see p. 25.
33 About this, see also Flynn, 1988, a useful but very short account
of this course.
34 It should be emphasized that no similar claim has ever been made by
Foucault previously, while here it was done at the focal point
of his most important and explicitly conclusive course.
35 This is especially true for the Weber reconstructed recently by
Tenbruck and Hennis (Tenbruck, 1980; Hennis, 1988).
36 Patocka read The Order of Things and wrote a review in 1967 but was
evidently not acquainted with the whole work. Foucault studied
Patocka in depth in the last year of his life but probably not
before.
37 For Patocka, see Kohak's Introduction, 1989. Concerning Foucault,
see, for example, Foucault, 1988e, p. 156: "Whenever I have
tried to carry out a piece of theoretical work, it has been on
the basis of my own experience, always in relation to processes
I saw taking place around me. . . . [his work is] a few
fragments of Autobiography." See also Foucault, 1988c, p. 11:
"Each of my works is a part of my own biography. For one or
another reason I had the occasion to feel and live those
things." The point, of course, is that this personal research
is complemented by a passionate interest in the present and
with ascesis.
38 A reinterpretation of the term "spirituality" is another common
point between the two thinkers. For Patocka, apart from the two
major books, see especially Patocka, 1990b. For Foucault, see
the first lecture of 1982, January 6, 1982 (Foucault Archives,
C 65 [1]).
39 After the period of the article "Pour un morale de l'inconfort"
(April-May 1979) that often reads as an intellectual testament,
Foucault fails to publish anything in his name for two years up
to an interview given in May 1981 (this is the "Practicing
Criticism" interview given to Eribon, first defining his work
as autobiographical). In this period, however, publications
appear in which Foucault remains anonymous. See Foucault,
1979b, Foucault, 1988f, pp. 323-30, and also the story told by
Guibert about Foucault submitting an anonymous article on
criticism but failing to get it published due to the peculiar
pseudonyn chosen (Guibert, 1990, pp. 26-7).
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~~~~~~~~
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