Six Lecture Videos on Michel Foucault's Technologies of the Self

One of the texts that I've taught in my classes in the past, but never produced any lecture videos about until nowis Michel Foucault's piece, Technologies of the Self.  It fits in particularly well with one class I'm teaching this semester for Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design.  It's titled "Philosophy, Mindfulness, and Life, but the class mainly focuses on Philosophy As A Way Of Life.

That's a term popularized by 20th century French philosopher Pierre Hadot, but as as approach towards philosophy it goes far beyond the ambit of his works.  Foucault's study of technologies of the self covers much of the same ground (as does, I would argue, what Alasdair MacIntyre calls "tradition-constituted inquiry").  The focus is on how intentional ways of living develop, employ, borrow, and transform practices.

Foucault's own emphasis on technologies allows him to explain his own overarching projects, framing them particularly in terms of his earlier focus on technologies of power, and his later shift to examining what he calls "technologies of the self."

You can find the essay in multiple places - one of them is in the collection Ethics: Subjectivity and Truth.

Here are those six videos:

• Four Types of Technologies
• Care of the Self and Knowing Oneself
• Socratic and Platonic Care of the Self
• Hellenistic and Roman Care of the Self
• Stoic Care of the Self
• Early Christian Care of the Self

I hope you find them useful and interesting.  As always, if you'd like to make a contribution to helping me continue my work making classic philosophical texts, thinkers, and topics accessible for people worldwide, consider becoming a monthly supporter on Patreon. If you'd like to make a one-time donation, you can do so directly on Paypal, or on Buy Me A Coffee.