Nietzsche's Dog, A Philosophy Study Circle: Reading Michel Foucault

Every fifth Saturday, from 3 p.m. to 5 p.m., join us on Google Meet: https://meet.google.com/tnt-fnkp-uhp.

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In this session, we will analyse two essays by Michel Foucault:

1. The Subject and Power

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1iraVsy5W366tvS3_p7UioP3SCaeVBprB/view?usp=sharing

2. About the Beginning of the Hermeneutics of the Self

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1_9ggpTNOgmayImyhjJiv0vQhjz_QoC2w/view?usp=sharing

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Nietzsche’s Dog is our philosophy study circle. We meet every fifth Saturday of the month, tackle some prominent texts and excerpts by acclaimed philosophers and try to grasp their meanings and limits.

Nietzsche called his pain and suffering a dog. His pain was as loyal, obtrusive, shameless, and clever as a dog. Coming together and reading philosophy is one way of doing away with some of that pain and suffering — the parts that come out of ignorance, the staleness of our thinking, and the rusting bolts of our old beliefs.

Ludwig Wittgenstein, the father of modern analytical philosophy, said that philosophy's task is to show the fly out of the jar. In other words, reading and practising philosophy translates to problem-solving and critical thinking.

As aspiring writers, we can never have enough of that.

The Text:

Everyone has to grapple with Foucault at some point.

In 'The Subject and Power', Foucault proposes that power is not something one possesses or a top-down repression, but a strategic relationship in which power operates through the actions of free subjects — shaping, guiding, or limiting what they can do, without removing their freedom entirely.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1iraVsy5W366tvS3_p7UioP3SCaeVBprB/view?usp=sharing

The other essay, 'About the Beginning of the Hermeneutics of the Self', traces how the ancient “know thyself” idea shifted to the Christian “confess all" motto, forging the modern subject through self-examination and truth-telling to a spiritual director.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1_9ggpTNOgmayImyhjJiv0vQhjz_QoC2w/view?usp=sharing

Both works show the self as historically constructed by power technologies.

The Host:

Tobias Freeman is the Professor of Philosophy and Religion at the American College of the Mediterranean in Aix-en-Provence. He studied at UCL, Cambridge, MIT, and the Pontificia Università Urbaniana in Rome.