Foucault, Subjectivity, and Identity: Historical Constructions of Subject and SelfAn examination of the notions of subject and self from the Sophists to Foucault. Although the writings of Foucault have had tremendous impact on contemporary thinking about subjectivity, notions of the subject have a considerable history. In Foucault, Subjectivity and Identity Robert Strozier examines ideas of subject and self that have developed throughout western thought. He expands Foucault's idea of the subject as historically determined into a wide-ranging treatment of ideas of subjectivity, extending from those expressed by the ancient Sophists to notions of the subject at the end of the twentieth century. Strozier examines these traditions against the background of Foucault's work, especially Foucault's later writings on the history of self-relation and the subject and his idea of historical subjectivity in general. Strozier explores various periods of western thought, notably the Hellenistic era, the early Italian Renaissance, and the seventeenth century, to show that almost every treatment of subjectivity is related to the Sophist idea of the originating Subject. Drawing on a wide spectrum of writings - by Epicurus and Seneca, Petrarch and Montaigne, Dickens and Conrad, Fr |
Contents
PREFACE | 9 |
Chapter 2 | 22 |
Gender Studies | 79 |
Chapter 5 | 120 |
Foucault Historical SelfRelation and the Ancients | 139 |
Chapter 6 | 166 |
Renaissance Humanism Interiority and SelfRelation | 175 |
Kant and Subjective Traditions | 235 |
CONCLUSION | 267 |
Common terms and phrases
agency analysis apperception arbitrary argues argument ascesis attempt becomes binary body Butler causality chapter Cicero claim clinamen common era conception configuration consciousness constituted construction contingent critique culture deployment of sexuality Descartes Descartes's desire determined difference Diogenes Laertius emergence Epicurus example existence external Father feminist Foucault Foucault says Freud Freud's narrative gender genealogy heterosexuality historical ontology History of Sexuality human nature human subject ibid identity imitation individual Isocrates issue Kant Kant's later Lucretius male material substratum materialist mind modern monogendering narratives of origin noumenon objective knowledge ontological opposition originating Subject passim perspective Petrarch philosophical pleasure political position poststructural potential practical reason prior problematic produced question relation representation represents resistance Secretum self-experience self-knowledge self-reflexive self-relation Seneca sense shift sixteenth century social Sophist theory specific split subject stage strategy structure subject of knowledge Subject/subject substratum theoretical thinking Totem and Taboo traditional transcendental volumes on sexuality western thought