Philosophy as a way of life

At that stage, anything goes. For instance, Foucault finds an example of eclecticism in the Letters to Lucilius, in which the Stoic Seneca quotes sayings of Epicurus. The goal of these letters, however, is to convert Lucilius, and to cause him to begin to lead a moral life. The utilization of Epicurus appears only in the first Letters, and soon disappears. 17 On the contrary, personal choice in fact intervenes only when' one adheres exclusively to a precise form of life, be it Stoicism or Epicureanism, considered as in conformity with reason. It is only in the New Academy - in the person of Cicero, for instance

- that a personal choice is made according to what reason considers as most likely at a given moment.

It is thus not the case, as Foucault maintains,18 that the individual forges a spiritual identity for himself by writing down and re-reading disparate thoughts. In the first place, as we have seen, these thoughts are not disparate, but chosen because of their coherence. Secondly, and most importantly, the point is not to forge oneself a spiritual identity by writing, but rather to liberate oneself from one's individuality, in order to raise oneself up to universality. It is thus incorrect to speak of "writing of' the 11el f": not only is it not the case t hat one 11write11 onc11t•lf," hut wh111 iN more, it iN not t he t�llsc

Reflections on the Idea of the "Cultivation of the Self"

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that writing constitutes the self. Writing, like the other spiritual exercises, changes the level of the self. and universalizes it. The miracle of this exercise, carried out in solitude, is that it allows its practitioner to accede to the universality of reason within the confines of space and time.

For the monk Antony, the therapeutic value of writing consisted precisely in its universalizing power. Writing, says Antony, takes the place of other people's eyes. A person writing feels he is being watched; he is no longer alone, but is a part of the silently present human community. When one formulates one's personal acts in writing, one is taken up by the machinery of reason, logic, and universality. What was confused and subjective becomes thereby objective.

To summarize: what Foucault calls "practices of the selr' do indeed correspond, for the Platonists as well as for the Stoics, to a movement of conversion toward the self. One frees oneself from exteriority, from personal attachment to exterior objects, and from the pleasures they may provide. One observes oneself, to determine whether one has made progress in this exercise.

One seeks to be one's own master, to possess oneself, and find one's happiness in freedom and inner independence. I concur on all these points. I do think, however, that this movement of interiorization is inseparably linked to another movement, whereby one rises to a higher psychic level, at which one encounters another kind of exteriorization, another relationship with "the exterior." This is a new way of being-in-the-world, which consists in becoming aware of oneself as a part of nature, and a portion of universal reason. At this point, one no longer lives in the usual, conventional human world, but in the world of nature. As we have seen above, 19 one is then practicing "physics" as a spiritual exercise.

In this way, one identifies oneself with an "Other": nature, or universal reason, as it is present within each individual. This implies a radical transformation of perspective, and contains a universalist, cosmic dimension, upon which, it seems to me, M. FoU<.-ault did not sufficiently insist.

lnteriorization is a going beyond oneself; it is universalization.

The preceding remarks are not intended to be relevant only to an historical analysis of ancient philosophy. They are also an attempt at defining an ethical model which modern man can discover in antiquity. What I am afraid of is that, by focusing his interpretation too exclusively on the culture of the self, the care of the self, and conversion toward the self - more generally, by defining his ethical model as an aesthetics of existence - M. Foucault is propounding a culture of the self which is too aesthetic. In other words, this may be a new form of Dandyism, late twentieth-century style. This, however, deserves a more attentive study than I am able to devote to it here. Personally, I believe firmly - albeit perhaps naively - that it is possible for modern man to l i ve, nor ns a Rage (.ffJphos) - most of the ancients did not hold this to be possible hut ''" 11 1m1cti1ioner of t he ever-fragile e.\'ercisc of wisdom. This can

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Figures