On Foucault’s difficulties in his interpretation of the thesis of the Cartesian rupture between method and spirituality, philosophy and way of life

Authors

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.3989/isegoria.2023.68.21

Keywords:

Method, Spirituality, Care of the self, Askésis, Meditation, P. Hadot

Abstract


Foucault’s position on Descartes, about the rupture that he had represented regarding the relationship between access to truth and transformation of oneself, between method and spirituality, was not unequivocal. Formulations of it varied, sometimes surprisingly. Foucault saw that the author of the Meditations maintained a complex relationship with the tradition of spirituality, which required specifying the well-known thesis of rupture in more than one aspect. Here we will try to examine that the difficulty in which Foucault found himself.

Downloads

Download data is not yet available.

References

Álvarez Yágüez, J. (2023), "La debatida tesis de la ruptura en Descartes entre método y espiritualidad, entre filosofía y forma de vida", Agora, vol. 42, 2, pp. 1-16. https://doi.org/10.15304/ag.42.2.8346

Beyssade, J. M. (1973), "«Mais quoi, ce sont des fous»: Sur un passage controversé de la Première Méditation". Revue de métaphysique et de morale 78 (3), pp. 273-294

Boubaker-Triki, R. (2008), "Notes sur Michel Foucault à l'Université de Tunis», Rue Descartes, 61, pp. 111-113. https://doi.org/10.3917/rdes.061.0111

Cottingham, J. (2013), "Philosophy and Self-improvement Continuity and Change in Philosophy's Self-conception from the Classical to the Early-modern Era", en M. Chase, S. R. L. Clark, M. Mcghee (Editors), Philosophy as a Way of Life: Ancients and Moderns. Essays in Honor of Pierre Hadot, Malden, Blackwell, pp. 149-166. https://doi.org/10.1002/9781118609187.ch9

D'Agostino, S. (2017), Esercizi spirituali e filosofia moderna. Bacon, Descartes, Spinoza, Pisa, ETS.

Davidson, A. I., Worms, F. (2013), Pierre Hadot. L'enseignement des antiques, l'enseignement des modernes, Paris, Les racontres de Normales.

Derrida, J. (1979 [(1a ed. 1967]), "Cogito et histoire de la folie", en L'ecriture et la différence, Paris, Seuil.

Descartes, R. (1977), Meditaciones metafísicas con objeciones y respuestas, edición de Vidal Peña, Madrid, Alfaguara.

Descartes, R. (1987 [orig. 1925]), Discours de la méthode, ed. E. Gilson, Paris, Vrin. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-476-03261-4_11

Dreyfus, H., Rabinow, P. (1983), Michel Foucault: Beyond Structuralism and Hermeneutics, 2º ed. University of Chicago Press. https://doi.org/10.7208/chicago/9780226154534.001.0001

Dreyfus, H., Rabinow, P. (1984), Michel Foucault. Un parcours philosophique, trad. F. Durand- Bogaert, París, Gallimard. https://doi.org/10.7208/chicago/9780226154534.001.0001

Foucault, M. (1966), Les mots et les choses, Paris, Gallimard.

Foucault, M. (1972), Histoire de la folie à l'age classique, Paris, Gallimard (1º ed. 1961).

Foucault, M. (1994), "Mon corps, ce papier, ce feu", 1972, en Dit et écrits, D. Defert, F. Ewald (ed.), Paris, Gallimard, t. II, pp. 245-268.

Foucault, M. (1994), Dits et écrits, D. Defert, F. Ewald (ed.), Paris, Gallimard, t. II, IV.

Foucault, M. (2001), L'Herméneutique du sujet, Cours au Collège de France 1981-1982, Paris, Gallimard.

Foucault, M. (2004), Sécurité, Teritoire, Population, Cours au Collège de France, 1977-1978, Paris, Gallimard.

Foucault, M. (2008), Le gouvernement de soi et des autres, Cours au Collège de France, 1982-1983, Paris, Gallimard.

Foucault, M. (2009), Le courage de la vérité, Le gouvernement de soi et des autres II, Cours au Collège de France, 1984, Paris, Gallimard.

Foucault, M. (2011), "Retour sur la Première Meditation de Descartes", en Ph. Artières, J-F.Bert, F. Gros, J. Revel (dir.), Michel Foucault, Paris, L'Herne, pp. 92-94.

Foucault, M. (2012), Du gouvernement des vivants, Cours au Collège de France, 1979-1980, Paris, Gallimard.

Foucault, M. (2015), "Acerca de la genealogía de la ética. Un panorama del trabajo en curso", en M. Foucault, La ética del pensamiento, edición de J. Álvarez Yágüez, Madrid, B. Nueva.

Gilson, E. (1950), The Unity of Philosophical Experience, New York, Scribner's Sons.

Guenancia, P. (2002), "Descartes/Foucault: La question de la subjectivité", Archives de Philosophie, PUF, 2, pp. 239-254. https://doi.org/10.3917/aphi.652.0239

Gutiérrez Pozo, A. (2017), "Evidencia y ascesis como modos de acceso a la verdad. Teoría y praxis en el modo de evolución de la idea de meditación filosófica", en Nuevo Pensamiento. Universidad del Salvador, dic., pp. 41-71.

Hadot, P. (1998 [orig. 1995]), ¿Qué es la filosofía antigua?, trad. Eliane Cazenave, Madrid, FCE.

Hadot, P. (2002), Exercices spirituels et philosophie antique, Paris, Albin Michel.

Hadot, P. (2009), La filosofía como forma de vida. Conversaciones con Jeannie Carlier y Arnold I. Davidson, trad. M.ª Cucurella Miquel, Barcelona, Alpha Decay.

Hatfield, G. (1986), "The Senses and the Fleshless Eye: The Meditations as Cognitive Exercises", en A. O. Rorty (ed.), Essays on Descartes' «Meditations», Berkeley, University of California Press, pp. 45-80. https://doi.org/10.1525/9780520907836-006

Hatfield, G. (2014), The Routledge Guidebook to Descartes' Meditations, New York, Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315797878

Heidegger, M. (1997), Nietzsche 2, Gesamtausgabe, Band 6.2, Francfort, Klosterman.

Jiménez Vilar, B. (2023), "Foucault, Descartes y la búsqueda de la verdad como forma de vida", Daimon. Revista Internacional de Filosofía, 88, pp. 69-80. https://doi.org/10.6018/daimon.436501

Jones, M. L. (2001), "Descartes's Geometry as Spiritual Exercise", en Critical Inquiry, Autumn, pp. 40-71. https://doi.org/10.1086/449032

Jones, M. L. (2006), The The Good Life in the Scientific Revolution, Descartes, Pascal, Leibniz and the Cultivation of Vitue, London, The University Chicago Press. https://doi.org/10.7208/chicago/9780226409566.001.0001

Jusmet, L. R. (2017), Ejercicios espirituales para materialistas. El diálogo (im)posible entre Pierre Hadot y Michel Foucault, Barcelona, Terra Ignota.

Kobusch, T. (2013), "Descartes' Meditations: Practical Metaphysics. The Father of Rationalism in the Tradition of Spiritual Exercises", en M. Chase, S. R. L. Clark, M. Mcghee (Editors), Philosophy as a Way of Life: Ancients and Moderns. Essays in Honor of Pierre Hadot, Malden, Blackwell, pp. 167-183. https://doi.org/10.1002/9781118609187.ch10

Lorenzini, D. (2015), Éthique et politique de soi : Foucault, Hadot, Cavell et les techniques de l'ordinaire, Paris, Vrin.

Lorenzini, D. (2021), "Philosophical Discourse and Ascetic Practice on Foucault's Readings of Descartes' Meditations", Theory, Culture & Society, pp. 1-21. https://doi.org/10.1177/0263276420980510

Macherey, P. (2016), "The Foucault-Derrida debate on the argument concerning madness and dreams", en O. Custer, P. Deutscher y S. Haddad (eds), Foucault/Derrida Fifty Years Later: The Futures of Genealogy, Deconstruction and Politics, New York: Columbia University Press, pp. 3-20. https://doi.org/10.7312/columbia/9780231171953.003.0001

McGushin, E. F. (2007), Foucault's Askēsis. An Introduction to the Philosophical Life, Evanston, Northwestern University Press.

McGushin, E. (2016), "Deconstruction, care of the self, spirituality: Putting Foucault and Derrida to the test", en Y. Aryal, V. W. Cisney, N. Morar y Ch. Penfield (eds) Between Foucault and Derrida, Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, pp. 104-122. https://doi.org/10.1515/9780748697700-009

McGushin, E. (2018), "The role of Descartes's dream in the Meditations and in the historical ontology of ourselves", Foucault Studies 25, pp. 84-102. https://doi.org/10.22439/fs.v0i25.5575

Medien, K. (2020), "Foucault in Tunisia: The encounter with intolerable power", The Sociological Review 68 (3), pp. 492-507. https://doi.org/10.1177/0038026119870107

Monod, J-C. (2013), "La méditation cartésienne de Foucault", Les Études philosophiques, PUF, 3, pp. 345-358. https://doi.org/10.3917/leph.133.0345

Rekret, P. (2017), Derrida and Foucault: Philosophy, Politics and Polemics. London, Rowman & Littlefield.

Séglard, D. (2007), "Foucault à Tunis: À propos de deux conférences". Foucault Studies 4, pp. 7-18. https://doi.org/10.22439/fs.v0i4.892

Tierney, Th. F. (2018), "The Best doctor for my soul", Angelaki, 23,5, 2018, pp. 94-111 https://doi.org/10.1080/0969725X.2018.1513203

Published

2023-08-24

How to Cite

Álvarez Yágüez, J. (2023). On Foucault’s difficulties in his interpretation of the thesis of the Cartesian rupture between method and spirituality, philosophy and way of life. Isegoría, (68), e21. https://doi.org/10.3989/isegoria.2023.68.21

Issue

Section

Other papers

Most read articles by the same author(s)