Michel Foucault

Michel Foucault enters the depth-psychology corpus primarily through the later, genealogical phase of his career — the lectures at the Collège de France and the volumes of the History of Sexuality — where he undertook a sustained engagement with ancient Graeco-Roman practices of self-cultivation. The corpus treats Foucault not as a theorist of power-knowledge in the strictly disciplinary sense, but as a thinker who reinvented philosophy as a way of life, translating ancient spiritual exercises into a modern, Nietzschean askēsis. What emerges across the passages is a Foucault who identifies 'spirituality' as the pre-philosophic condition for truth-access, argues that modernity severed knowledge from the transformation of the subject, and reframes genealogical inquiry as his own ascetic practice — a 'passion for knowledge' that seeks to free the self from itself rather than complete or restore it. The key tension the corpus registers is between Foucault's appropriation of Stoic and Hellenistic techniques of the self and his radical divergence from their therapeutic telos: where ancient philosophy aimed at self-sufficiency and tranquility, Foucault's askēsis cultivates perpetual self-estrangement. Sharpe and Ure are the dominant voices, situating Foucault within the broader tradition of philosophy as a way of life and measuring the distance between his vision and the Stoic ideal he studied so carefully.

In the library 18 passages

In the last few years of his life, Michel Foucault unexpectedly changed his research focus from the history of modern sexual discourses to ancient Graeco-Roman sexuality and, in turn, to the techniques of the self or spiritual exercises that were central to ancient philosophy.

This passage frames Foucault's late pivot to antiquity as the defining event for his reinvention of philosophy as a way of life, establishing the chapter's central thesis about his engagement with ancient spiritual exercises.

Sharpe, Matthew and Ure, Michael, Philosophy as a Way of Life: History, Dimensions, Directions, 2021thesis

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In the last few years of his life, Michel Foucault unexpectedly changed his research focus from the history of modern sexual discourses to ancient Graeco-Roman sexuality and, in turn, to the techniques of the self or spiritual exercises that were central to ancient philosophy.

Duplicating the thesis of the parallel Sharpe passage, this version confirms that Foucault's late turn to antiquity is the axis around which the corpus's entire treatment of him revolves.

Matthew Sharpe and Michael Ure, Philosophy as a Way of Life: History, Dimensions, Directions, 2021thesis

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Foucault identifies two distinct elements of pre-philosophic 'spirituality': (a) the conditions of access to truth and (b) the effects of obtaining truth … 'there can be no truth without a conversion or transformation of the subject.'

This passage expounds Foucault's category of 'spirituality' — the claim that truth-access requires subjective transformation — as the conceptual foundation for his reading of ancient philosophy.

Sharpe, Matthew and Ure, Michael, Philosophy as a Way of Life: History, Dimensions, Directions, 2021thesis

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Foucault identifies two distinct elements of pre-philosophic 'spirituality': (a) the conditions of access to truth and (b) the effects of obtaining truth … 'there can be no truth without a conversion or transformation of the subject.'

Parallel to the Sharpe version, this passage foregrounds Foucault's structural definition of spirituality and its indispensability for ancient philosophical self-transformation.

Matthew Sharpe and Michael Ure, Philosophy as a Way of Life: History, Dimensions, Directions, 2021thesis

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'Knowledge of intellectual knowledge', or knowledge for its own sake, he argues, 'gradually limited, overlaid, and finally effaced the "knowledge of spirituality"' (Foucault, 2005: 308).

Foucault's genealogical diagnosis of modernity holds that the Cartesian moment severed epistemic access from the spiritual transformation of the subject, making asceticism appear superfluous to knowledge.

Sharpe, Matthew and Ure, Michael, Philosophy as a Way of Life: History, Dimensions, Directions, 2021thesis

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'Knowledge of intellectual knowledge', or knowledge for its own sake, he argues, 'gradually limited, overlaid, and finally effaced the "knowledge of spirituality"' (Foucault, 2005: 308).

This passage argues that for Foucault the modern epistemological turn rendered obsolete the ancient bond between truth and the care of the self.

Matthew Sharpe and Michael Ure, Philosophy as a Way of Life: History, Dimensions, Directions, 2021thesis

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Foucault accords genealogy a position analogous to the ancient spiritual exercises of 'conversion'. Genealogy is Foucault's spiritual exercise.

The passage identifies Foucault's genealogical method as the functional equivalent of ancient practices of conversion, positioning it as a modern askēsis rather than a purely cognitive procedure.

Sharpe, Matthew and Ure, Michael, Philosophy as a Way of Life: History, Dimensions, Directions, 2021thesis

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Foucault accords genealogy a position analogous to the ancient spiritual exercises of 'conversion'. Genealogy is Foucault's spiritual exercise.

Parallel to the Sharpe version, this passage confirms the central interpretive claim that genealogy functions as Foucault's personal spiritual discipline.

Matthew Sharpe and Michael Ure, Philosophy as a Way of Life: History, Dimensions, Directions, 2021thesis

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Foucault stresses that for him philosophical curiosity only has value to the extent that it is a work on oneself, and that this practice is not a return to (epistrophe) or rebirth of oneself (metanoia) … but the paradoxical practice of freeing oneself from oneself.

This passage articulates Foucault's distance from ancient models: his askēsis aims not at self-completion or return but at an endless self-estrangement.

Sharpe, Matthew and Ure, Michael, Philosophy as a Way of Life: History, Dimensions, Directions, 2021thesis

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Foucault stresses that for him philosophical curiosity only has value to the extent that it is a work on oneself, and that this practice is not a return to (epistrophe) or rebirth of oneself (metanoia) … but the paradoxical practice of freeing oneself from oneself.

Mirrors the Sharpe version in locating the central novelty of Foucault's philosophical practice: liberation from the self rather than its restoration or completion.

Matthew Sharpe and Michael Ure, Philosophy as a Way of Life: History, Dimensions, Directions, 2021thesis

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Foucault's own notion of askēsis, in other words, seems to take up the Hellenistic and Stoic conception of philosophy as a work on the self, yet he severs it

The passage identifies the fundamental tension in Foucault's project: he appropriates Stoic self-cultivation while excising its normative telos of self-sufficiency and tranquility.

Sharpe, Matthew and Ure, Michael, Philosophy as a Way of Life: History, Dimensions, Directions, 2021supporting

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From the Stoic perspective, Foucault's askēsis of going astray from oneself is symptomatic of a failure to care for oneself.

This passage stages the critical contrast between Foucault's perpetual self-displacement and the Stoic ideal of self-completion, judging his askēsis pathological by ancient standards.

Matthew Sharpe and Michael Ure, Philosophy as a Way of Life: History, Dimensions, Directions, 2021supporting

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In his lectures on the Cynics, Foucault conceives this new philosophical heroism then as a transmutation of the archaic Greek aesthetics of existence.

Foucault's reading of Cynicism is invoked to illustrate how ancient philosophy sublimated rather than simply rejected the pagan ethics of honour, an argument central to his late genealogical work.

Matthew Sharpe and Michael Ure, Philosophy as a Way of Life: History, Dimensions, Directions, 2021supporting

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Michel Foucault shows how Hellenistic philosophers characterized their ideal of complete, untroubled self-sufficiency as analogous to 'old age' (2005: 108).

A footnote reference deploying Foucault's scholarship on Hellenistic self-sufficiency to contextualize the Stoic and Senecan aspiration to complete one's life before death.

Sharpe, Matthew and Ure, Michael, Philosophy as a Way of Life: History, Dimensions, Directions, 2021supporting

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Michel Foucault shows how Hellenistic philosophers characterized their ideal of complete, untroubled self-sufficiency as analogous to 'old age' (2005: 108).

Parallel footnote citation confirming Foucault's authority as a scholar of Hellenistic conceptions of self-sufficiency and temporal completion.

Matthew Sharpe and Michael Ure, Philosophy as a Way of Life: History, Dimensions, Directions, 2021supporting

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Testa, Federico. 2016. 'Towards a History of Philosophical Practices in Michel Foucault and Pierre Hadot'. PLI: the Warwick Journal of Philosophy, 168–90.

A bibliographic citation pointing to scholarship comparing Foucault and Hadot on philosophical practices, signalling the secondary literature in which this debate is conducted.

Matthew Sharpe and Michael Ure, Philosophy as a Way of Life: History, Dimensions, Directions, 2021aside

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Testa, Federico. 2016. 'Towards a History of Philosophical Practices in Michel Foucault and Pierre Hadot'. PLI: the Warwick Journal of Philosophy, 168–90.

Bibliographic reference to the Foucault–Hadot comparison literature, contextualizing the corpus's sustained engagement with both thinkers.

Sharpe, Matthew and Ure, Michael, Philosophy as a Way of Life: History, Dimensions, Directions, 2021aside

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Foucault, Michel. 1985 (orig. 1984). The Use of Pleasure: Volume 2 of The History of Sexuality. Trans. Robert Hurley. New York: Pantheon Books.

A bibliographic citation of The Use of Pleasure in a work on ancient Greek emotions, marking Foucault's presence as a scholarly reference on ancient sexuality.

David Konstan, The Emotions of the Ancient Greeks: Studies in Aristotle and Classical Literature, 2006aside

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