Michel Foucault's attitude toward the Ancient Greek -Antiquity and Attitude of Modernity-

Abstract

Some says that Foucault has 'returned' to the ancient Greek morality and subject in the last two books published just before his death in 1984. Has Foucault really 'return' to the ancient Greek ethics and subject? In this article, the author tries to show that Foucault has never returned either to the ancient Greek or the morality and the subject. Foucault criticizes two nostalgias of the Occidental world: that of the ancient Greek and that of the Enlightenment. Foucault actually declines these two nostalgias from the Nietzschean point of view, the diagnostics of the present: the deep concern for today. Firstly, Foucault accepts the value of the ancient Greek world uniquely and exclusively on the ground that it has been one of the major influences for the Occidental world. Foucault examines the ancient Greek world simply because it has been one of the conditions of formation of the western societies. Secondly, Foucault declines the 'Habermasian' perspective which identifies the Hegelian rationality to the very reason itself. Foucault names this attitude 'Blackmail of the Enlightenment.' Now Foucault tries to interpret one of Kant's articles 'What is Enlightenment?' with Nietzschean interest in the present, the diagnostic of the present. The Enlightenment is now understood not by its dogmas or contents, but rather by its êthos, attitude toward the present. Foucault also associates this esprit of the Enlightenment with Baudelaire's notion of modernity. Foucault now characterizes the modernity not as a historical period but as an attitude toward one's own 'modernity', actuality, the present. Aude saper is now understood as "dare to think for yourself." As Foucault once said in his interview, "the only evidence that one can testify for one's respected thinker is to use him", he just tried to 'use' the ancient Greek, the Enlightenment, Kant, Nietzsche, Heidegger and Baudelaire. Foucault has 'returned' not to the ancient Greek morality and subject but to the 'problems' of the morality and subject through the Greeks and the Enlightenment. With this philosophical and critical attitude of modernity under his belt, Foucault became the first major thinker in the Occidental world who consciously declines the eulogy to the Greek and to the Enlightenment.