This essay argues that the engagement with Greece and Rome after The Will to Knowledge allowed Foucault to bring clarity to his conception of limited freedom in complex societies. The Classical fulfilled this function paradoxically by being jarringly different from and integral to the discourses of modern sexuality. Foucault’s engagement with the Classical in The Use of Pleasure and The Care of the Selfcontinued his established method of uncovering the development of a discourse, or set of discourses, over time. He (...) thereby demonstrated the historical specificity of understandings of sexuality and the self. It follows that if the ancient self was a historical construct, then the modern self must also be such. But Foucault’s Classical engagement leads him to an innovative position in which the disciplinary dynamics of ancient self-knowledge offer a practical philosophy. Foucault’s Greek philosophy could have effects through two related mechanisms: the care of the self through askesis and the speaking of truth to power through parresia. Through the rigors of askesis, the self can be rendered an object of analysis and hence a critical position external to the self can be achieved. Externality allows the philosopher to exercise parresia since the constraints of society have been surpassed and consequently offers a prospect of agency and a measure of freedom. The second part of the essay questions the extent of that freedom by reading Foucault against Tacitus, particularly the Agricola and the mutinies episode in the Annales. These episodes show the limitations of parresia and how parresia is bound into the workings of imperial power. In the Tacitean model, externality is a viable political stance, but is problematic ethically. The essay concludes by contrasting Foucauldian and Tacitean models of historical change. (shrink)

This introductory chapter situates the Classical within Foucault’s philosophical work and summarizes the complex reaction of Classical scholars to Foucault’s work. To do so, it considers the issue of freedom of the self in society as explored by Foucault. This issue is, we suggest, the axis around which the Classical works operate: we argue that Foucault’s Classical turn was an encounter with the problematics and possibilities of freedom for and in the self. The possibility of discovering in the antique not (...) just a philosophy of freedom but a praxis of freedom that might be reformulated within the modern gives political and philosophical importance to Foucault’s Rome. Consequently, and as a first step in assessing the viability of Foucault’s project, it becomes crucial to understand whether these ethical practices could provide a measure of freedom in Imperial Rome itself, and secondarily, whether those ethics are desirable modes for modern life. (shrink)

Papers from a workshop held in 2003, Groningen.