Michel Foucault's Conception of Ethics
Journal Title: Beytulhikme An International Journal of Philosophy - Year 2011, Vol 1, Issue 2
Abstract
Foucault’s conception of ethics is closely related to the political and intellectual structure, dominant in France in his youth. Foucault’s work can be regarded in general as a history of thought. Foucault aims at investigating our position today in the face of the historical foundations of contemporary culture. Hence, Foucault criticizes modern philosophy as well as the intellectual economical and political history of European culture. In the essence of Foucault’s criticism lies the denial of the idea of the constitutive subject, which has dominated the philosophy since Descartes. Foucault’s work is based on Nietzsche’s work which stands simply as a denial of Enlightment’s belief in the reason and in universal principles of humanistic values and rights. Foucault also, regards himself as a follower of Nietzsche and accepts his genealogical method, his conception of power and his views that ethical life is related with the aesthetics of self. We found, in Nietzsche, the foundations of Foucault’s subjectivity and its relation with language. Foucault, instead of developing a normative ethics, which could be true for anyone, is after developing a specific style which stems from individual freedom and intellectual development. For Foucault, ethics is investigating the relationship of the self with itself. Foucault regards ethics as a part of morality, which has the relationship of the self with itself as a subject matter. Foucault, in his conception of ethics does not deny the law of morality, that is, philosophy of morality, nor he denies the importance of the actual behavior of individuals. What Foucault particularly emphasizes is the style of self constituting of the individual as an ethical subject of his/her own actions, that is the style of developing his/her self. In this context, Foucault’s conception of ethics is based on the analysis of the relationship between self technologies and power forces.
Authors and Affiliations
Kamuran Gödelek
Keywords
Related Articles
- EP ID EP134844
- DOI -
- Views 86
- Downloads 0
The Problem of Relationship between Philosophy and Religion in Nurettin Topçu
We see that both religion scholars and philosophers have made analysis on the relationship between religion and philosophy. In the twentieth century, westernization movements reached its peak, we find that the various id...
Philosophical Background of Justice and Freedom Concepts in Koroglu Epic
Each individual and social form, depending on its social conscience and common sense, reflects its own concepts that carrying the same intentional emphasis, conception, comprehension and emotion in a specific expression...
Foucault and Foucault Bibliography in Turkish Language
Foucault, a prominent philosopher of the twenteeth century, had quite on impact on philosophy, politics, history, sociology, literature, art and so on. Foucault’s works were translated into Turkish in the late 1980s and...
The Effect of Social Paradigm to Philosophical Thaught: The Case of Stoa and Kant
With the city government in Ancient Greek giving its place to the central empire, human being should be redefined according to the new social paradigm. Hellenistic philosophy could be considered as a product of this effo...
Avicenna’s Interpretation of Hudūth
In this article, I shall deal with the concept of hudūth (origination) as contextualized by Avicenna, which emerges in the context of relation between God and the world, while relating the coming into existence of the wo...