The Return of the Limits

Abstract

At a conference held in California in 1981, followers of Foucault’s work were more than a little surprised to learn that Foucault’s real intention was not to analyse ‘power’ but ‘to create a history of the different modes by which, in our culture, the human being is made “subject”’.1 What was more, he repeated these claims the following January in his course at the College de France, a course uncharacteristically titled The Hermeneutic of the Subject. Admittedly, Foucault did concede rather grudgingly that he had been ‘quite involved with the question of power,2 but it looked suspiciously likely that this involvement was drawing to an end. For those (particularly in America) who had invested so much time and interest in the notion of power, this sudden change of tack on Foucault’s part was somewhat alarming. Indeed, by the time the second and third volumes of Histoire de la Sexualité appeared, it had become apparent that Foucault’s work had undergone yet another of its famous mutations, even if as before, not all critics could agree on its importance.KeywordsMoral ActionEthical SystemMoral SubjectIncurable TendencyFree SubjectThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.