Foucault's Subject and Plato's Mind: A Dialectical Model of Self-Constitution in the Alcibiades

Albert Joosse

Research output: Contribution to journalArticleAcademicpeer-review

Abstract

In this article I engage with Foucault’s reading of the Platonic dialogue Alcibiades in his Hermeneutics
of the Subject, developing his view that this text offers a model of the self-constitution of the subject.
Foucault’s reading is part of his larger aim to find alternative conceptualizations of subjectivity
besides the Cartesian ones that he thinks have dominated modern thought. His reading has been
contested; but I argue that the Alcibiades does indeed develop a notion of subjectivity as reflexive
and self-constituting. Moreover, two aspects of the text that Foucault misrepresents make even
clearer the distance of its notion of subjecthood from a Cartesian view. First, the reflexive subject
of the Alcibiades, though viewed as essentially intellectual, is the result of an ascetic practice of selfconstitution.
Second, this practice is essentially interpersonal, operating through reciprocal and
equal dialectic.
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)159-177
Number of pages19
JournalPhilosophy and Social Criticism
Volume41
Issue number2
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2015

Keywords

  • Alcibiades
  • dialectic
  • Michel Foucault
  • self-constitution
  • subjectivity

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