Philosophical Militantism and Political Spirituality in Foucault

Abstract

In the last courses he taught at the Collège de France, between 1980 and 1984, Michel Foucault gave increasing prominence to ancient cynicism in his research. His historical study of ancient ethics, oriented first towards the moral experience of pleasures, and then towards the theme of selfcare and ascetic practices within the framework of an aesthetic of existence, ends with the example of the cynics following Foucault’s death in June 1984. Nevertheless, the cynics seem to represent at the end of these analyses a privileged moment, in a way a culmination. This article seeks to explore the reasons for this privilege over the hypothesis that, in cynics, Foucault finds an answer to the problem of the voluntary aspect of resistances to power.