III

    In my discussion of Platonic Alcibiades I have identified three central themes: first, the relationship between care for oneself and care for political life; second, the relationship between care for oneself and lack of education; and third, the relationship between care for oneself and consciousness. We can recognise these three themes in Plato, but also in the Hellenistic period and four or five centuries later in Seneca, Plutarch, Epictetus and others. Although the problems are the same, the solutions are of a completely different nature and in some cases, the opposite of the Platonic meanings.

First, in the Hellenistic and in the Roman period, the care for oneself was not exclusively understood as preparation for political life. The care for oneself became a universal principle. One must renounce politics in order to devote oneself more thoroughly to the care for oneself. Secondly, the care for oneself is not only obligatory for young people and their education; rather, it is a lifestyle to which everyone should commit themselves until the end of their days. Third, while consciousness plays an important role in the care for oneself, it also involves other relationships.

I want to discuss briefly the first two points: the universality of the self-care independent of political life, and the care of the self throughout one's life.

1) A medical model was substituted for Plato's pedagogical model. The care for oneself isn't another kind of pedagogy; but continuous medical care. It is necessary to become one's own doctor.

2) Since we will have to take care for ourselves all our lives, the goal is no longer to prepare for adulthood or for another life, but to prepare for a certain degree of achievement in life. This achievement is fulfilled immediately prior to death. The idea of a blissful nearness of death — of old age as completion — is an inversion of the traditional Greek values on youth.

3) Finally, we have various praxes to which the cultivation of the self has given rise, and the relationship of consciousness to these praxes.

In Alcibiades I, the soul had a reflective (mirror) relation to itself, which relates to the concept of memory and justifies dialogue as a method of discovering truth in the soul. But, from the time of Plato to the Hellenistic age, the relationship between care for oneself and consciousness changed. We may note here two perspectives.

In the philosophical movements of the stoicism during the imperial period we encounter a different conception of truth and memory and a different method of introspection . First of all, we see that dialogue disappears and in its place a new pedagogical interaction takes on increasing importance — a new pedagogical game in which a master/teacher speaks but does not ask questions, and the student does not give answers but has to listen silently. In Pythagorean culture, disciples kept silent for five years as a pedagogical rule. They didn't ask nor speak up during the lesson, but they developed the art of listening. This is the positive condition for acquiring truth. The tradition is picked up during the imperial period, where we see the beginning of the culture of silence and the art of listening rather than the cultivation of dialogue as in Plato.

To learn the art of listening, we have to read Plutarch's treatise on the art of listening to lectures (Peri tou akouein). At the beginning of this treatise, Plutarch says that, following schooling, we have to learn to listen to logos throughout our adult life. The art of listening is crucial so you can tell what is true and what is dissimulation, what is rhetorical truth and what is falsehood in the discourse of the rhetoricians. Listening is linked to the fact that you're not under the control of the masters but you must listen to logos. You keep silent at the lecture. You think about it afterward. This is the art of listening to the voice of the master and the voice of reason within yourself.

The advice may seem banal, but I think it's important. In his treatise De vita contemplativa, Philo of Alexandria describes banquets of silence, not debauched banquets with wine, boys, revelry, and dialogue.There is instead a teacher who gives a monologue on the interpretation of the Bible and a very precise indication of the way people must listen (De Vita Contemplativa 77). For example, they must always assume the same posture when listening. The morphology of this notion is an interesting theme in monasticism and pedagogy henceforth.

With Plato, introspection and care for oneself through dialogue are dialectically related to each other. Now, in the imperial age, we have on the one hand the obligation to listen to the truth, and on the other hand the commandment to look and listen to the self in order to discover the truth embodied in it. The difference between the two positions is one of the clearest indications on the disappearance of the dialectical structure.

What was introspection in this culture, and how did people look at themselves? For the Pythagoreans, introspection had to do with purification. Since sleep was related to death as a kind of encounter with the gods, you had to purify yourself before going to sleep. Remembering the dead was an exercise for the memory. But in the Hellenistic and the early imperial periods, you see this praxis acquitting new values and signification. There are several relevant texts: Seneca's De Ira, and De Tranquilitate and the beginning of Marcus Aurelius's fourth book of Meditations.

Seneca's De Ira (book 3) contains some traces of the old tradition. He describes an introspection as examination of the conscience. The same thing was recommended by the Epicureans, and the praxis was rooted in the Pythagorean tradition. The goal was purification of the conscience using a mnemonic device. Do good things, have a good introspection, and a good sleep follows together with good dreams, which is contact with the gods.

Seneca seems to use juridical language, and it seems that the self is both the judge and the accused. Seneca is the judge and prosecutes the self so that the examination is a kind of trial. But if you look closer, it's rather different from a court. Seneca uses terms related not to juridical but to administrative praxes, as when a comptroller looks at the books or when a building inspector examines a building. Introspection is taking stock. Faults are simply good intentions left undone. The rule is a means of doing something correctly, not judging what has happened in the past. Later, Christian confession will look for bad intentions.

It is this administrative view of life much more than the juridical model that is important. Seneca isn't a judge who has to punish but a stock-taking administrator. He is a permanent administrator of himself, not a judge of his past. He sees that everything has been done correctly following the rule but not the law. It is not real faults for which he reproaches himself but rather his lack of success. His errors are not of a moral character but strategic. He wants to make adjustments between what he wanted to do and what he had done and reactivate the rules of conduct, not excavate his guilt. In Christian confession, the penitent is obliged to memorise laws but does so in order to discover his sins. For Seneca it isn't a question of discovering truth in the subject but of remembering truth, recovering a truth which has been forgotten. Second, the subject doesn't forget himself, his nature, origin, or his supernatural affinity, but the rules of conduct, what he ought to have done.

Third, the recollection of errors committed in the day measures the distinction between what has been done and what should have been done. Fourth, the subject is not the operating ground for the process of deciphering but is the point where rules of conduct come together in memory. The subject constitutes the intersection between acts which have to be regulated and rules for what ought to be done. This is quite different from the Platonic and from the Christian conception of conscience.

The Stoics spiritualised the notion of anachoresis, the retreat of an army, the hiding of an escaped slave from his master, or the retreat into the countryside away from people, as in Marcus Aurelius's country retreat. A retreat into the countryside becomes a spiritual retreat into oneself. It is a general attitude and also a precise act every day; One withdraws into introspection to discover something — to remember rules of action, the most important laws of behaviour: We are dealing here with a mnemotechnical formula.

TECHNOLOGIES of the SELF
A Seminar with Michel Foucault