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present. That the Epicureans also attached a great deal of importance to the thoughts formulated by their predecessors is a wholly different matter. But although hypomnemata deal with what has already been said, they do not deal with just anything "already said," the only merit of which would be that it is a part of the past. Rather, it is because one recognizes in this "thing already said" - which usually consisted in the dogmas of the school's founding members - that which reason itself has to say to the present. It is because one recognizes, in the dogmas of Epicurus or Chrysippus, an ever-present value, precisely because they are the very expression of reason. In other words, when one writes or notes something down, it is not an alien thought one is making one's own. Rather, one is utilizing formulae considered as apt to actualize what is already present within the reason of the person writing, and bring it to life.
According to M. Foucault, this method made a deliberate attempt to be eclectic, and therefore implied a personal choice; this then explains the
"constitution of the self."
Writing as a personal exercise, done by oneself and for oneself, is an art of disparate truth; more precisely, it is a way of combining the traditional authority of what has already been said, with the singularity of the truth which asserts itself in it, and the particularity of the circumstances which determine its utilization.
In fact, however, personal choice is not to be found in eclecticism, at least for the Stoics and Epicureans. Eclecticism is only used for converting beginners.
At that stage, anything goes. For instance, Foucault finds an example of eclecticism in the Letters to Lucilius, in which the Stoic Seneca quotes sayings of Epicurus. The goal of these letters, however, is to convert Lucilius, and to cause him to begin to lead a moral life. The utilization of Epicurus appears only in the first Letters, and soon disappears. 17 On the contrary, personal choice in fact intervenes only when' one adheres exclusively to a precise form of life, be it Stoicism or Epicureanism, considered as in conformity with reason. It is only in the New Academy - in the person of Cicero, for instance
- that a personal choice is made according to what reason considers as most likely at a given moment.
It is thus not the case, as Foucault maintains,18 that the individual forges a spiritual identity for himself by writing down and re-reading disparate thoughts. In the first place, as we have seen, these thoughts are not disparate, but chosen because of their coherence. Secondly, and most importantly, the point is not to forge oneself a spiritual identity by writing, but rather to liberate oneself from one's individuality, in order to raise oneself up to universality. It is thus incorrect to speak of "writing of' the 11el f": not only is it not the case t hat one 11write11 onc11t•lf," hut wh111 iN more, it iN not t he t�llsc
Reflections on the Idea of the "Cultivation of the Self"
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that writing constitutes the self. Writing, like the other spiritual exercises, changes the level of the self. and universalizes it. The miracle of this exercise, carried out in solitude, is that it allows its practitioner to accede to the universality of reason within the confines of space and time.
For the monk Antony, the therapeutic value of writing consisted precisely in its universalizing power. Writing, says Antony, takes the place of other people's eyes. A person writing feels he is being watched; he is no longer alone, but is a part of the silently present human community. When one formulates one's personal acts in writing, one is taken up by the machinery of reason, logic, and universality. What was confused and subjective becomes thereby objective.
To summarize: what Foucault calls "practices of the selr' do indeed correspond, for the Platonists as well as for the Stoics, to a movement of conversion toward the self. One frees oneself from exteriority, from personal attachment to exterior objects, and from the pleasures they may provide. One observes oneself, to determine whether one has made progress in this exercise.
One seeks to be one's own master, to possess oneself, and find one's happiness in freedom and inner independence. I concur on all these points. I do think, however, that this movement of interiorization is inseparably linked to another movement, whereby one rises to a higher psychic level, at which one encounters another kind of exteriorization, another relationship with "the exterior." This is a new way of being-in-the-world, which consists in becoming aware of oneself as a part of nature, and a portion of universal reason. At this point, one no longer lives in the usual, conventional human world, but in the world of nature. As we have seen above, 19 one is then practicing "physics" as a spiritual exercise.
In this way, one identifies oneself with an "Other": nature, or universal reason, as it is present within each individual. This implies a radical transformation of perspective, and contains a universalist, cosmic dimension, upon which, it seems to me, M. FoU<.-ault did not sufficiently insist.
lnteriorization is a going beyond oneself; it is universalization.
The preceding remarks are not intended to be relevant only to an historical analysis of ancient philosophy. They are also an attempt at defining an ethical model which modern man can discover in antiquity. What I am afraid of is that, by focusing his interpretation too exclusively on the culture of the self, the care of the self, and conversion toward the self - more generally, by defining his ethical model as an aesthetics of existence - M. Foucault is propounding a culture of the self which is too aesthetic. In other words, this may be a new form of Dandyism, late twentieth-century style. This, however, deserves a more attentive study than I am able to devote to it here. Personally, I believe firmly - albeit perhaps naively - that it is possible for modern man to l i ve, nor ns a Rage (.ffJphos) - most of the ancients did not hold this to be possible hut ''" 11 1m1cti1ioner of t he ever-fragile e.\'ercisc of wisdom. This can
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be attempted, starting out from the lived experience of the concrete, living, and perceiving subject, under the triple form defined, as we saw above, by Marcus Aurelius:
1 as an effort to practice objectivity of judgment; 2 as an effort to live according to justice, in the service of the human community; and
3 as an effort to become aware of our situation as a part of the universe. Such an exercise of wisdom will thus be an attempt to render oneself open to the universal.
More specifically, I think modern man can practice the spiritual exercises of antiquity, at the same time separating them from the philosophical or mythic discourse which came along with them. The same spiritual exercise can, in fact, be justified by extremely diverse philosophical discourses. These latter are nothing but clumsy attempts, coming after the fact, to describe and justify inner experiences whose existential density is not, in the last analysis, susceptible of any attempt at theorization or systemati7.ation. Stoics and Epicureans, for example -
for completely different reasons - urged their disciples to concentrate their attention on the present moment, and free themselves from worries about the future as well as the burden of the past Whoever concretely practices this exercise, however, sees the universe with new eyes, as if he were seeing it for the first time. In the enjoyment of the pure present, he discovers the mystery and splendor of existence. At such moments, as Nietzsche said,20 we say yes "not only to ourselves, but to all existence." It is therefore not necessary, in order to practice these exercises, to believe in the Stoics' nature or universal reason. Rather, as one practices them, one lives concretely according to reason. In the words of Marcus Aurelius:21 "Although everything happens at random, don't you, too, act at random." In this way, we <.-an accede concretely to the universality of the cosmic perspective, and the wonderful mystery of the presence of the universe.