‘FINDING FOUCAULT’ – FRAGMENTS FROM A BIOGRAPHY: A POSTSTRUCTURALIST STANCE ON CULTURES OF THE SELF
‘FINDING FOUCAULT’ – FRAGMENTS FROM A BIOGRAPHY: A POSTSTRUCTURALIST STANCE ON CULTURES OF THE SELF

Summary/Abstract: The idea of ‘finding’ Michel Foucault holds philosophical, professional and personal aspects for many writers, and in this paper, in effect a narrative that is part of ‘reading’ and ‘writing the self’, I begin by outlining something of my engagement with Foucault over many years. The paper uses Foucault’s own words from multiple texts to find the influences on Foucault – a whole raft of intellectual influences, including of course Nietzsche. It examines his critical history of thought, the orders of discourse, and the culture of self. It concludes by noting that education is centrally involved in the politics of subjectivity, in forming, shaping, and constituting and finding the self – a process that involves multiple aspects, multiple techniques, processes, questioning, thinking, discussing, critiquing, reflecting and writing the self; being influenced, deliberately or otherwise by myriad sources and in particular an awareness of the historico-cultural context one inhabits. A Foucauldian approach would likely see a person’s education involving self-mastery, not self-denial, in coming to know the self and to care for both self and others.

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