O cuidado de si em Michel Foucault: entre a questão da ética e a análise genealógica

Abstract

This thesis investigates Michel Foucault's (1926-1984) study of the ethics of self-care. It aims to demonstrate that, far from being an ethical proposal by the philosopher, it is the result of his genealogical research – especially on government, desire, and ethics – and contributes to the analysis of processes of subjectivation. This proposal is based on the following question: why is a critical philosophy, such as Michel Foucault's, taken by many of its researchers as a normative proposal? To what extent can Foucault's self-care be seen as a resource for critical analysis of the forms of subject constitution, as opposed to the interpretations that identify it as the philosopher's ethical proposal? The aim here is to present the ethics of self-care (epiméleia heautoû) as a critical Foucauldian investigation that contributed to the unveiling and denaturalization of processes of subjectivation, rather than as the philosopher's ethical proposal. To this end, three specific objectives were defined, observable in each of the thesis's three chapters. The first aims to analyze the Brazilian reception of the concept and its interface with the idea of normativity. The second aims to expose the genealogical analyses (governmentality, desire, and ethics) that served as the basis for the emergence of Foucault's studies on self-care. The third aims to examine the configurations of self-care (classical, Hellenistic-Roman, and Christian), exposing it as

a contingent and situated experience. The research is bibliographical and analytical- interpretative in nature, grounded in the investigation of various studies conducted by

Michel Foucault, such as the four volumes of The History of Sexuality, texts contained in collections such as the collection Ditties and Writings, and courses such as The Hermeneutics of the Subject, Telling the Truth About Oneself, Subjectivity and Truth, and On the Government of the Living. The work of researchers of Foucault's thought was also drawn upon, such as Alfredo Veiga-Neto, Celso Kraemer, César Candiotto, Cristiane Marinho, Edgardo Castro, Kleber Prado Filho, Márcio Alves da Fonseca, and Sylvio Gadelha. In addition to these authors, the research of Christian Laval, Pierre Dardot, Thomas Lemke, and Wendy Brown was also relevant. The bibliographical database allowed for the examination of primary sources and the Brazilian reception of the study of the ethics of self-care, discussing the effects of the reader's will that induce researchers of Foucault's thought to project normative expectations unrelated to their critical project. The results confirm the hypothesis that, in Foucault, self-care does not correspond to a normative ethics of the philosopher. The analysis highlights

that some of the works available in the Brazilian publishing market may reproduce this normative tendency by taking the ethics of self-care as an ethical model, while others, in contrast, preserve its analytical function more clearly. The thesis concludes that recognizing self-care as a critical and historical instrument that allows us to undo interpretative errors, while also opening space for future investigations into its relationship with contemporary forms of subjectivation, such as those linked to neoliberalism, as well as for a possible creative reading will, which treats Foucault's work in order to investigate ethics in the present.