«Vraie vie» and «pathos»: The Insufficiency of Stoicism in the Last Foucault

Abstract

The aim of this article is to reflect on the reasons why M. Foucault decided, in the course of 1984, to focus on the study of Cynicism. The hypothesis put forward in this article is that Stoicism, to whose analysis the course of 1982 is dedicated, is insufficient to articulate an ethic of resistance based on the indissoluble nexus between truth and alterity, among other reasons, because of the absolute negation of passions that characterizes Stoicism. However, Cynicism, as analysed by M. Foucault, implies a transvaluation of the stoic ideal of true life, through a procedure of dramatization, which points to a theatrical use of specific passions, by which true life is transformed into a radically different life, into a radically other life.