Foucault’s Hermeneutics of the Subject: Care of the Self, Truth and the Art of Existence

Abstract

This paper examines Michel Foucault's interpretation of the subject, with a particular focus on the complex relationship between the subject and truth. Foucault’s approach analyses how individuals historically conduct themselves as subjects in relation to truth through specific techniques and within frameworks of power and knowledge. It identifies three primary historical modes of self-formation: the gnomic self, the gnostic self, and the epistemological self. Foucault argues that across these modes, subjects are shaped by the interplay between the techniques of domination and the techniques of the self. The paper traces Foucault’s intellectual trajectory, showing how his earlier work on power/knowledge dynamics and discursive formations laid the groundwork for his later turn to the subject. His ultimate concern is the “care of the self” (epimeleia heautou), an ancient Greco-Roman concept he revitalises against Platonic recollection and Christian renunciation models. Care of the self involves spiritual practices (askēsis), such as studying nature, self-knowledge, and truth-telling (parrhesia), aimed at achieving self-mastery, freedom, and an aesthetic of existence. For Foucault, this art of living, where the subject actively shapes itself as a work of art oriented towards truth and virtue, represents the path to restoring the subject’s fundamental relationship with itself.