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Speaking the Truth about Oneself

Lectures at Victoria University, Toronto, 1982
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( 28 ratings, 4 reviews)
Book Hero Magic crafted this summary to help describe this book. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! Summary
Speaking the Truth about Oneself explores the intricate relationship between truth-telling and self-identity, delving into how individuals confess and reveal truths about themselves. Michel Foucault scrutinises the evolution of self-disclosure across different historical contexts, pondering the societal and philosophical implications of such revelations. This work offers a compelling examination of how speaking the truth about ourselves shapes personal and communal realities.
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Format: Hardback
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Book Hero Magic created this recommendation. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! IS THIS YOUR NEXT READ?

This book may appeal to you if you're interested in Foucault's exploration of the relationship between truth-telling, ethics, and subjectivity. It delves into his seminal lectures and offers profound insights into the ways individuals understand and articulate their own identities within the frameworks of power and truth. Ideal for enthusiasts of philosophy and psychology seeking a deeper understanding of self-examination and critical thought.

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A collection of Foucault's lectures that trace the historical formation and contemporary significance of the hermeneutics of the self.

Book Hero Magic formatted this description to make it easier to read. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! Description

A collection of Foucault’s lectures that trace the historical formation and contemporary significance of the hermeneutics of the self.

Just before the summer of 1982, French philosopher Michel Foucault gave a series of lectures at Victoria University in Toronto. In these lectures, which were part of his project of writing a genealogy of the modern subject, he is concerned with the care and cultivation of the self, a theme that becomes central to the second, third, and fourth volumes of his History of Sexuality. Throughout his career, Foucault had always been interested in the question of how constellations of knowledge and power produce and shape subjects, and in the last phase of his life, he became especially interested not only in how subjects are formed by these forces, but in how they ethically constitute themselves.

In this lecture series and accompanying seminar, Foucault focuses on antiquity, starting with classical Greece, the early Roman Empire, and concluding with Christian monasticism in the fourth and fifth centuries AD. Foucault traces the development of a new kind of verbal practice—“speaking the truth about oneself”—in which the subject increasingly comes to be defined by its inner thoughts and desires. He deemed this new form of “hermeneutical” subjectivity important not just for historical reasons but also due to its enduring significance in modern society.

Is another form of the self possible today?

Series: The Chicago Foucault Project

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  • Madness, Language, Literature
    Newly published lectures by Foucault on madness, literature, and structuralism. Perceiving an enigmatic relationship between madness, language, and literature, French philosopher Michel Foucault developed ideas during the 1960s that are less explicit in his later, more well-known writings. Collected here, these previously unpublished texts reveal a Foucault who undertakes an analysis of language and experience detached from their historical constraints....
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  • Speaking the Truth about Oneself
    Now in paperback, this collection of Foucault’s lectures traces the historical formation and contemporary significance of the hermeneutics of the self. Just before the summer of 1982, French philosopher Michel Foucault gave a series of lectures at Victoria University in Toronto. In these lectures, which were part of his project of writing a genealogy of the modern subject, he is...
    Paperback
    $4599
    Available
    Ships in 3-4 weeks
  • Speaking the Truth about Oneself
    A collection of Foucault’s lectures that trace the historical formation and contemporary significance of the hermeneutics of the self. Just before the summer of 1982, French philosopher Michel Foucault gave a series of lectures at Victoria University in Toronto. In these lectures, which were part of his project of writing a genealogy of the modern subject, he is concerned with...
    Hardback
    $6299
    Available
    Ships in 3-4 weeks
  • "What Is Critique?" and "The Culture of the Self"
    Newly published lectures by Foucault on critique, Enlightenment, and the care of the self. On May 27, 1978, Michel Foucault gave a lecture to the French Society of Philosophy where he redefines his entire philosophical project in light of Immanuel Kant’s 1784 text, What Is Enlightenment? Foucault strikingly characterizes critique as the political and moral attitude consisting in the “art...
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Book Hero Magic summarised reviews for this book. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! HOW HAS THIS BEEN REVIEWED?

Speaking the Truth about Oneself is considered essential for understanding Foucault's ideas on the self, particularly his exploration of parrēsia and the contrast between Greco-Roman and early Christian practices. Reviewers highlight its detailed exploration of self-examination and self-cultivation, emphasizing how the subject's relationship to truth involves social rather than individual actions. The compilation of lectures and seminars is praised for providing fresh insights into Foucault's late work, shedding light on his thoughts about truth, desire, and subjectivity.

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Book Details

INFORMATION

ISBN: 9780226616865

Publisher: The University of Chicago Press

Format: Hardback

Date Published: 07 October 2021

Country: United States

Imprint: University of Chicago Press

Contributors:

  • Edited by Daniele Lorenzini
  • Edited by Henri-Paul Fruchaud
  • Translated by Daniel Louis Wyche

Audience: General / adult

DIMENSIONS

Width: 140.0mm

Height: 216.0mm

Weight: 250g

Pages: 280

About the Author

Michel Foucault (1926–84) was a French philosopher and historian who held the Chair of the History of Systems of Thought at the Collège de France. His many books in English include The Order of Things, Discipline and Punish, The History of Sexuality, and “Discourse and Truth” and “Parrēsia,” the latter also published by the University of Chicago Press. Henri-Paul Fruchaud is an editor of Michel Foucault’s posthumous works. Daniele Lorenzini is assistant professor of philosophy and deputy director of the Centre for Research in Post-Kantian European Philosophy at the University of Warwick. Daniel Louis Wyche is visiting assistant professor of religious studies at Albion College.
 

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