Chapter Conclusion

A combination of the two thinkers could account better for both aspects of subject-formation, providing a broad bases for constructing a theory of intersubjective ethical-subject formation.

Within Foucault, we see how both points of view – of external subjection and internal subjectivity – can be put together. We have seen Foucault consistently dealing with a changing knowledge of the subject leading to a change in the constitution of the subject.²⁰⁰ Knowledge of the subject that is central to its constitution cannot be thought of as simply external to that subject however. The constitution of the subject in Foucault involves both knowledge of the subject in terms of how it is conceptualised within its structural and historical context, as well as self-knowledge. As has been shown through the problematization of both the structural picture of DP and the individual picture of HotS, both aspects of knowledge of the subject are crucial to ethical-subject formation across Foucault’s work.

This is possibly explained by the fact that Foucault treats neither the subject, nor external institutions, structures, or discourse as reified entities. The subject is not a pre-given entity for Foucault, but is formed in a varying network of relations. Similarly, Foucault’s genealogical method emphasises the variability of the historical, institutional and discursive structures that make up that network. The link between external subjection and internal subjectivity for Foucault will therefore not be strictly determined. One way of framing this is that “the subject is always constituted in the power/knowledge networks of a culture, which provide its conditions of possibility.”²⁰¹ In this sense, subjects are shaped from the outside insofar as they are formed in relation with these external conditions. They may still be active in this process of self-formation, working on themself. However, this self-work is not separable from the background conditions. The techniques or practices that the subject carries out on themself are not, in Oksala’s words, “created or freely chosen. Rather they are culturally and historically intelligible conceptions and patterns of behaviour that subjects draw from their surrounding society.”²⁰² In this sense, “self-understanding is internally tied to

200 Recall for instance, that crucial to the practice of discipline is the formation of

knowledge of the subject through the processes exemplified in ‘the examination’These are hierarchical observation, normalizing judgement and the production of documents that constitute the subject as a case. See section 2.1.1.

201 J. Oksala, 2005, p. 4.

202 Ibid., p. 4.

historically varying social and discursive practices… The governing of oneself is tied to the governing of others.”²⁰³

We see then that the two aspects of the subject – its subjection and subjectivity – are fundamentally linked in Foucault through this notion of conditions of possibility, that limit what a subject intelligibly becomes. These conditions, and the network of power/knowledge relations that compose them, determine ethical-subject formation by regulating the conception of a subject that must be conformed to to be intelligible as one. At the same time, the subject is involved in a process of self-formation through their capacity for self-knowledge and ability to enact certain practices on themself.

In this way, whilst the subject is not autonomous under Foucault’s conception, it meaningfully possess agency. The two are not mutually exclusive. As Mark Bevir notes, “a rejection of autonomy need not to entail a rejection of agency: we can say the subject always sets off against a social background that influences him, and still insist he can reason and act in creative, novel ways so as to modify this background.”²⁰⁴ Thus we can note in conclusion that the ethical-subject for Foucault is by no means an autonomous one, owing to its constitution against certain background conditions, yet it is able to retain agency. Such a distinction represents a developed middle-ground position on ethical-subject formation, between a first and third-personal relation.

To return to the genie analogy, Foucault shows us how the limits of geniehood once it is called into the world are set. The genie can only take certain forms that are intelligible to those who summon it. However in taking these forms, there is still choice for the genie in how it appears, within limits. As genies we thus have a subjectivity that is limited, though able to excerpt agency, providing a potential basis for ethical and political subjectivity, no matter what critics of this postmodern image of the subject may say. Indeed, such limtis may even engender our agency on this Foucauldian picture. Just like musical creativity thrives within

203 Ibid., p. 4.

204 Ibid., p. 68. It is interesting to note that Bevir also characterises governmentality as allowing more room for subjectivity than other regimes of knowledge/power. Such a

comparison of the various regimes in Foucault could perhaps be fruitful territory for further research on subjectivity, but however lies outside the scope of the current project. For now, suffice it to say that Bevir’s suggestion is broadly in line with my own use of governmentality in section three of this chapter to point to the presence of individual subjectivity within power regimes, and the way these power regimes may inadvertently increase the capacities of the subject instead of being only repressive.

certain limitations of harmonics (if we simply played everything we liked together we would likely end up with white-noise), similarly we postmodern subjects may gain some creative power from limitations, Foucault (like Levinas) suggests.

Foucault’s account is not without problems. There are some who question the very normative foundation of his project.²⁰⁵ Such criticism on his normative raises potential problems of combining with the ethical Levinas. Foucault’s inability to account for the normative would suggest quite a gap there. The strength of these objections is an open question, and one for another time however.²⁰⁶ There are two things worth noting here, that tie these criticisms and their potential solutions back into the current work. Firstly, some of these problems, and their potential solutions, may lie in Foucault’s treatment (or lack thereof) of the Other. There are scholars who propose that Foucault’s work necessarily entails the Other. For instance, it has been suggested that “the care of the self is shot through with the presence of the Other.”²⁰⁷ At the same time, other scholar have pointed out that Foucault fails to adequately take the Other into account.²⁰⁸ There is thus a need to clarify Foucault’s thinking on the role of alterity, especially in subject constitution. And one of the ways to do so, and thus address some of the problems in Foucault’s account has been to put Foucault in conversation with the preeminent thinker on the Other, Emmanuel Levinas.²⁰⁹ This is exactly what will be attempted in the concluding chapter that follows. Furthermore, this interpretation will follow the route suggested by Judith Butler, whose interpretation of Foucault has itself been suggested as offering a solution to some of the problems with his account.²¹⁰

205 Such a criticism has perhaps most forcefully been put forward by Jurgen Habermas. For a good summary, see his entry ‘Taking aim at the Heart of the Present’, D.C. Hoy (ed.),

Foucault: A Critical Reader, Oxford, Blackwell, 1986, pp. 103-108. For a reconstruction of this debate more sympathetic to Foucault, see H.L. Dreyfus and P. Rabinow, ‘What is Maturity: Habermas and Foucault on ‘What is Enlightenment?’, in the same volume (pp.

109-122.)

206 For perhaps the most straightforward refutation of the criticisms of Foucault’s project, see G. Canguilhem, ‘The Death of Man, or Exhaustion of the Cogito?’, trans. C. Porter, in G.

Gutting (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Foucault, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1994, pp. 71 – 91.

207 F. Gros, in The Hermeneutics of the Subject, 2006,p. 536.

208 C.J. Heyes, Self-Transformations, 2007, p. 133.

209 Here I follow J. Oksala who fruitfully compares the two thinkers in her chapter ‘The Other’, in Foucault on Freedom, 2005, pp. 193-207.

210 J. Oksala, Foucault on Freedom, 2005, p. 108.