Final Report Summary - CRITICAL ATTITUDE (The practice of "critique" in the thought of Michel Foucault: historical, political and ethical dimensions) In the last part of his life, between the late Seventies and the early Eighties, Foucault developed a new definition of 'critique'. In his opinion, the current task of philosophical research is to take a specific 'critical attitude'. It must consist of a lucid questioning of our present and the 'deliberate undertaking', on the part of the philosopher, to accomplish a task in the current time. Thus, Foucault makes consistent theoretical sense of all of his earlier historical inquiries and of his genealogical and archaeological method. These had, in fact, shed light on the historical conditions for the emergence of the current configurations of knowledge and power and the modes of subjectivation. From this point of view, then, they constitute a questioning of our present. From this questioning derives the task that the philosopher must undertake: after throwing light on our historical limits, he must show the possibility of going beyond them. He must indicate those points whereby a change of the current configurations of knowledge, power, and the modes of subjectivation, becomes possible. The critical attitude as the current task of philosophy is thus defined by Foucault as the 'critical ontology of ourselves'. Foucault developed this concept of critique within his most recent research studies, which mainly focus on the classical Greek and Roman world. The purpose of this project was to explore Foucault's idea of 'critique' and to throw light on the relations that it has with Foucault's method (archaeological and genealogical) and theoretical goals ('a critical ontology of ourselves'). In order to achieve its objectives, this project analysed the three major series of elements that Foucault channels into his definition of critique: elements of the ancient world, interpretation of Kant's writing and elements of aesthetics and literature. Foucault uses many elements drawn from his interpretation of the ancient world. The ideas of askesis, ethos and parresia are key to Foucault's definition of the critical attitude. This project analysed the way in which Foucault uses these concepts and it made some comparisons with the way in which some influential historians, anthropologists and philologists made a similar philosophical use of such concepts. In particular, a comparison was made with P. Hadot and his idea of 'spiritual exercise', which had a very strong influence on Foucault's definition of askesis and ethos. This project also analysed Scarpat and Detienne's works, which are very important for Foucault's way of conceiving parresia and truth in the ancient world. Other important authors are P. Veyne (for Foucault's concept of ethos) and, in general, J. P. Vernant, P. Vidal-Naquet, L. Gernet and G. Dumézil: their works helped Foucault in his interpretation of some specific aspects of the ancient world (such as the Greek tragedy, the myth of Oedipus or some Socratic dialogues). Kant's political writings: Foucault grounds his proposed critique on a detailed interpretation of two of Kant's major short writings (I. Kant, 'An Answer to the Question: What is Enlightenment?' and 'The Conflict of the Faculties'). In Foucault's opinion, in these writings there emerges the first philosophical testimony of a philosophical attitude which has as its goal the questioning of the present and the setting out of a task towards it. This project focussed on the difference between the way in which Foucault reads Kant in his major books (such as History of madness and Discipline and Punish) and his new way of interpreting Kant in the last part of his life, as a possible origin of a contemporary philosophical task. The project also compared Foucault's interpretation of Kant's texts on the Enlightenment with other, contemporary readings of such writings (in particular, with Habermas and the Frankfurt School). Elements of aesthetics and literature: Foucault uses a specific reading of the figure of Baudelaire. In his opinion Baudelaire would have described C. Guys's work and dandyism as a way of reading the present and acting in it. This way of reading and action, strictly limited to aesthetics and literature, is based on the concept of 'transfiguration'. This project focussed on the way in which Foucault tries to apply this concept, belonging to the aesthetic and literary sphere, to the philosophical and political field. This project also compared the idea of 'transfiguration' with other similar concepts, such as the notion of 'estrangement', defined by C. Ginzburg, and the idea of 'alteration', developed by Foucault in his analysis of cynical way of life. After analysing the way in which Foucault builds his idea of critique and the three major conceptual lines which he channels into his definition, this project tried to outline and verify the current applicability of the concept of 'critical attitude'. In fact, Foucault clearly relates the construction of this concept to his analysis of a specific and contemporary practice of power, which he calls 'government' and 'biopolitics'. From this point of view, the critical attitude constitutes a possible answer, able not only to analyse, but also to counter some effects of government, understood as a modern apparatus of power, knowledge and modes of subjectivation. This project tried to answer a double set of questions. Firstly: why does Foucault construct this idea of critique as practice of resistance around elements lifted from different conceptual fields? Why, in his view, could such a concept be more effective against biopower and biopolitics? Secondly: can this critical attitude still constitute a tool in our present time, and why? As a first result and answer to those questions, this project suggests that this way of defining the critical attitude emerges in Foucault as a response to the current crisis of philosophical thought. At the present time, many thinkers commonly share the impression that the traditional conceptual tools of moral and political thought are often unable to analyse our current situation and to propose an effective answer to the questions and problems raised by the emergence of biopolitics. This critical diagnosis of the crisis of philosophy led Foucault and other French thinkers to renew our moral and political thought. In many cases, this fruitful renewal has required a 'contamination' of philosophy with other disciplines and fields. In line with this tendency, but in a very original way, Foucault proposed a renewal of the concept of critique, channelling into it a set of different elements - extraneous to the field of philosophy - which allowed him to render visible the new way of operating of the modern apparatus of power and to find out a possible field of resistance to it. As a first conclusion, this project wishes to suggest that Foucault's definition of critique could actually constitute a useful tool to understand our present and an effective response to the current configurations of our contemporary reality. This effectiveness in analysing the biopower apparatuses, and in facing them, is rooted in a strong and original renewal of our traditional philosophical tools, which are modified and reinforced by the use of other fields and disciplines.
