The Late Foucault

Michel Foucault is one of the most important and controversial thinkers of the twentieth century and one of the leading figures in contemporary Western intellectual life and debate. The recent publication of his last lecture courses at the Collège de France (1981-1984), together with the short texts, essays, and interviews from the same period, have sparked new interest in his work, allowing for a new understanding of his philosophical trajectory and challenging several interpretations produced over the last few decades. In this later phase of his thinking, Foucault deepens and expands the course of his preceding works on the genealogy of subjectivity, while at the same time adding a significant ethical and political dimension to it. His focus on the ancient ethics of care of the self and technologies of self-constitution during this period adds important nuances to his previous positions on power, truth, and subjectivity, shedding new light on his philosophical endeavour as a whole and situating his reflections at the centre of current moral debates. Focusing on the last stage of Foucault's thought, this book brings together international scholars to relaunch the critical debate on the significance of Foucault's so-called “ethical turn” and to discuss the ways in which the perspectives offered by Foucault in this period might help us to unravel modernity, giving us the tools to understand and transform our present, ethically and politically.

The first full treatment of truth as a core philosophical concept in the late Foucault, this volume examines his work on the ancient world and the early church. Each essay features a deep examination as to how the topics of truth and sexuality intersect with and focus on Foucault's engagement with ancient philosophy and thought. Truth in the Late Foucault offers readings on Plato, Artemidorus, Cicero, Sophocles and the Stoics, and pays close attention to Cassian, Paulinus of Nola, and early Christian practices of confession. With the publication of the long-awaited volume 4 of the History of Sexuality: Confessions of the Flesh, the shape of the final Foucault is now brought into stark relief. As well as looking at ancient thought, the contributors explore Foucault's work in relation to philosophers such as Gadamer, Heidegger, Derrida and Descartes. Foucault's long-running and often contentious dialogue with psychoanalysis, on the relation between truth and the subject, is also examined. Each essay not only makes an important statement, but also is part of an interconnected arc of topics and understanding, covering both the ancient and modern periods. This book reveals that Foucault's concern with antiquity raises questions deeply pertinent to the present moment.

Michel Foucault is one of the most important and controversial thinkers of the twentieth century and one of the leading figures in contemporary Western intellectual life and debate. The recent publication of his last lecture courses at the Collège de France (1981-1984), together with the short texts, essays, and interviews from the same period, have sparked new interest in his work, allowing for a new understanding of his philosophical trajectory and challenging several interpretations produced over the last few decades. In this later phase of his thinking, Foucault deepens and expands the course of his preceding works on the genealogy of subjectivity, while at the same time adding a significant ethical and political dimension to it. His focus on the ancient ethics of care of the self and technologies of self-constitution during this period adds important nuances to his previous positions on power, truth, and subjectivity, shedding new light on his philosophical endeavour as a whole and situating his reflections at the centre of current moral debates. Focusing on the last stage of Foucault's thought, this book brings together international scholars to relaunch the critical debate on the significance of Foucault's so-called “ethical turn” and to discuss the ways in which the perspectives offered by Foucault in this period might help us to unravel modernity, giving us the tools to understand and transform our present, ethically and politically.

​For decades Foucault was mostly known for his diagnosis of modernity as a form of entrapment, both in our modes of thought and our behaviors. This book argues that Foucault's reappraisal of modernity occurs with the 1978 and 1979 lectures, in which he sketches modern power as governmentality and neoliberalism. From this perspective, Foucault’s once surprising studies on the Greeks' constitution of the ‘self’ can be seen as a continuation of his diagnosis of late modernity, and as an attempt to retrieve a form of autonomy for our modern selves. One finds in the late Foucault a postmodern conception of reason and not a destruction of reason; but this is possible only if postmodernity is seen as a critical exercise of reason in the analysis of norms.

This study proposes a revised interpretation of Foucault’s views on literature. It has been argued that the philosopher’s interest in literature was limited to the 1960s and of a mostly depoliticized nature. However, Foucault’s previously unpublished later works suggest a different reality, showing a sustained interest in literature and its politics. In the light of this new material, the book repositions Foucault's ideas within recent debates on the politics of literature.

Based on extensive new research and a bold interpretation of the man and his texts, The Passion of Michel Foucault is a startling look at one of this century's most influential philosophers. It chronicles every stage of Foucault's personal and professional odyssey, from his early interest in dreams to his final preoccupation with sexuality and the nature of personal identity.

Why does Foucault's work continue to be of central importance in current debates in sociology, political science and philosophy? Why do we still read him as a guide to contemporary social and cultural life? Foucault's work presents a provocative challenge to orthodox, habitual forms of belief and practice. The Later Foucault," "with an impressive interdisciplinary focus, argues that one of the keys to understanding Foucault is his political thought. It is this which he expressed clearly in his last writings and which pulled together his earlier interests in power, agency and subjectivity. In this volume a distinguished array of Foucauldian scholars and commentators on politics explore the significance of these last writings. They examine such key issues as the question of Foucault and human rights; his relationship to ethical thought, power and freedom; his relationship to feminism; and comparisons of his work with Levinas and Rawls.

"The first intellectual history of Foucault's early career"--