DOI: 10.4231/6j81-sm45
title: Foucault: Lecture 22, 6 May 1986

description: &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;The Deleuze Seminars&lt;/em&gt; is a collection of audio recordings, transcriptions, and English translations of, and supplemental materials from, the lectures French philosopher Gilles Deleuze gave during his career at the University of Paris 8.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&quot;Foucault&quot; was a 26-lecture seminar given from October 1985 to June 1986. In these lectures, Deleuze offers his interpretation and analysis of French philosopher Michel Foucault&#39;s work. Examining the theoretical foundations and major themes of Foucault&#39;s philosophy, Deleuze dedicates several lectures to each of what he calls the &quot;three axes&quot; of Foucault&#39;s thought. This seminar coincides with the publication of Deleuze&#39;s book &lt;em&gt;Foucault&lt;/em&gt; (1986).&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;In the 6 May 1986 lecture, still situated within the &ldquo;subjectification&rdquo; chapter in the &lt;em&gt;Foucault &lt;/em&gt;book, Deleuze moves from discussion of the Greeks toward complementary perspectives in Nietzsche, closing on subjectification and the fold (cf. &lt;em&gt;The Use of Pleasure&lt;/em&gt;). Starting not just regarding Foucault&rsquo;s turn to the Greeks but also with the historical response to this question of why philosophy and Greece, Deleuze links this question to reflections within German philosophy (notably, Hegel and Heidegger). Here Deleuze emphasizes that for the Greeks, there were new relations of forces between free men, and that only free men could govern free men, but only the one capable of self-governing was able to rise to governing others (&lt;em&gt;enkrateia, &lt;/em&gt;or power of the self). Deleuze maintains that for Foucault, this self-governing is the third axis of thought, force folding itself onto itself and affecting itself as a subjectification or doubling of force. Finally, distinct from the axis of knowledge or of power, the third axis is the bending of the relationship of forces or subjectification. Deleuze insists that subjectification as the production of a subjectivity takes place with four foldings that we live in, make and remake: first, the fold surrounding a determinable material part of ourselves; second, the fold as the rule according to which a fold is made; third, the fold concerning the relationship of myself with the truth (and vice versa); fourth, Finally, the fold as the interiority of waiting (&lt;em&gt;attente&lt;/em&gt;). Deleuze insists that an urgent question of sexuality&rsquo;s role in all this finds an immediate answer, that it is in sexuality that the relationship to the self is actualized. Providing details on this actualization in three forms of relationship (simple, composite, and cleft or doubled), Deleuze also traces the conundrum of the optional rules of self-governance being appropriated into constraining, constitutive rules of knowledge and power, concluding that through new folds taking shape, new forms of resistance can emerge. Hence a final question for the next session, what mode of subjectification can we hope for today and now?&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;This dataset for the new version includes four files, the translation and transcription of the session in Open Data Text (odt) format, an aggregate version of the audio recordings in a single mp3, and the original Paris-8 French transcription of the recorded lecture. The aggregate audio file has been downsampled.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;--&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Les S&eacute;minaires de Deleuze&lt;/em&gt; sont une collection d&#39;enregistrements audio, de transcriptions et de traductions en anglais et de documents compl&eacute;mentaires des conf&eacute;rences que le philosophe fran&ccedil;ais Gilles Deleuze a donn&eacute; lors de sa carri&egrave;re &agrave; l&#39;Universit&eacute; de Paris 8.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&laquo;Foucault&raquo; &eacute;tait un s&eacute;minaire de 26 conf&eacute;rences donn&eacute; d&#39;octobre 1985 &agrave; juin 1986. Dans ces conf&eacute;rences, Deleuze offre son interpr&eacute;tation et son analyse de l&rsquo;&oelig;uvre du philosophe fran&ccedil;ais Michel Foucault. En examinant les fondements th&eacute;oriques et les th&egrave;mes majeurs de la philosophie de Foucault, Deleuze consacre plusieurs conf&eacute;rences &agrave; chacun de ce qu&#39;il appelle les &laquo;trois axes&raquo; de la pens&eacute;e de Foucault. Ce s&eacute;minaire co&iuml;ncide avec la publication du livre de Deleuze &lt;em&gt;Foucault&lt;/em&gt; (1986).&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Dans la conf&eacute;rence du 6 mai 1986, les sujets de discussion comprennent: la question de l&#39;&ecirc;tre et les Grecs; Hegel; le pli de l&#39;&ecirc;tre; le subjet; Heidegger; la r&eacute;v&eacute;lation de l&#39;&ecirc;tre; la cit&eacute; grecque et la d&eacute;mocratie ath&eacute;nienne; la question platonicienne: sous quelles conditions l&#39;id&eacute;al de Clisthenes d&#39;isonomie (&eacute;galit&eacute; vis-&agrave;-vis du droit) peut-il se r&eacute;aliser s&#39;il ne peut exister dans la d&eacute;mocratie ath&eacute;nienne?; les guerriers ayant un type de parole qui n&#39;appartient qu&#39;&agrave; eux, et l&#39;espace grec; le parole des guerriers et le nouvel espace social; Nietzsche et la question des forces et des possibilit&eacute;s de la vie, plut&ocirc;t que la question de l&#39;&ecirc;tre; Platon, l&#39;invention d&#39;une nouvelle relation de forces entre les hommes libres, et la rivalit&eacute; plut&ocirc;t que la guerre; le gouvernement des hommes libres, le &lt;em&gt;se gouverner soi-m&ecirc;me&lt;/em&gt; et l&#39;asc&eacute;tisme; Foucault et d&eacute;crochant le savoir et le pouvoir; &lt;em&gt;L&#39;histoire de la sexualit&eacute;, vol. 2: L&#39;usage des plaisirs&lt;/em&gt;, et le troisi&egrave;me axe de sa pens&eacute;e; le statut des forces: o&ugrave; la force s&rsquo;est pli&eacute;e sur elle-m&ecirc;me, s&rsquo;est affect&eacute;e elle-m&ecirc;me, il y a eu subjectivation ou doublement de la force; le &lt;em&gt;se gouverner soi-m&ecirc;me&lt;/em&gt; et le pouvoir constituant; la cit&eacute; grecque et le rapport &agrave; soi-m&ecirc;me; les rapports de forces, la subjectivation et le pli des rapports de forces; le rapport &agrave; soi-m&ecirc;me d&eacute;rive des rapports avec les autres sous la condition d&#39;une r&egrave;gle facultative qui est le pli de la force sur soi-m&ecirc;me; le corps et ses plaisirs (termes grecs), et la chair et ses d&eacute;sirs (termes chr&eacute;tiens); l&#39;int&eacute;riorit&eacute; d&rsquo;attente; le pli et le d&eacute;pli; les quatre plis; subjectivation, et la longue dur&eacute;e des Grecs &agrave; nous; &lt;em&gt;L&#39;usage des plaisirs&lt;/em&gt;, le rapport &agrave; soi-m&ecirc;me ou la subjectivation qui n&#39;a plus rien &agrave; voir avec la sexualit&eacute;; le &lt;em&gt;se gouverner soi-m&ecirc;me&lt;/em&gt; et des Grecs; et le pouvoir d&#39;&Eacute;tat se faisant l&#39;individu depuis le XVIIIe si&egrave;cle, avec l&#39;exemple de la m&eacute;decine.&lt;/p&gt;
description: Lecture given by French philosopher Gilles Deleuze at the University of Paris 8, 6 May 1986. This is lecture 22 of a 26-lecture seminar Deleuze taught between October 1985 and June 1986.