A ética como subjetivação

Abstract

In the preface of the work "The Use of Pleasures", Foucault characterizes his own attitudes as a philosopher and his respect for philosophical traditions which he considers as an ethos, or a way of being a philosopher. His work doesn't develop as a theory or system, instead it makes several attempts at re-elaborating how to think in a different manner from that which one has thought of already but from a different perspective and from a clearer viewpoint. His own personal relationship which comes to light in his work will have therefore the form of an exercise at which he arrives at being what it means to be detached from oneself. Those whose ethos assimilates this detachment from self, says, Foucault, live "on a different planet" from those who try to find a fixed point of certitude, or an authentic way or decision. It is this manner of relating to oneself, as an ethos or way of being a philosopher, that is at stake in Foucault's efforts to reconsider the traditions we call ethical.