WISDOM, SPIRITUALITY AND SELF-CARE: PERSPECTIVES FROM FOUCAULT'S ETHICS

PERSPECTIVAS DA ÉTICA FOUCAULTIANA

Abstract

The article addresses the articulation of concepts that were problematized by Foucault in his late thinking: wisdom, spirituality and ethics. Foucault analyzes spirituality characterized as a set of practices – purifications, renunciations, conversions, overcoming and modifications that make the subject capable of going beyond himself. In order to understand this experience, the concept of askesis, present in ancient pagan and Christian thought, is analyzed. Áskesis leads to a renunciation of the self that can be resumed as a constitution of the self, therefore inscribed in the realm of ethics.By dialoguing with the spiritual exercises of ancient philosophy and focusing on askesis understood as the experience capable of transforming the very being of the subject, Foucault rescues an ancient experience that can be inspiring for reflection on the possibilities unveiled for contemporary ethics, as it finds a a vanishing point that makes it possible to articulate an ethical reflection that is not reduced to proposing heteronomous moral codes that can harm an irrevocable achievement of western modernity, the autonomy of the subject.