Taking care of the self (epimeleia heautou) is not just one of a great many topics associated with ancient ethics. Echoing Michel Foucault, we could say that the care of the self applies to all problematizations of life. Our relationship to our self, working on oneself, or making efforts to change one’s life are all motifs that were pondered by many ancient thinkers, from Socrates to the Roman Stoics. Ancient intellectuals created “a culture of the self” that would be developed by many other cultures, although they were not always aware of borrowing the concept. To understand the concept of ancient education, we ought to pay attention to – among other things – what the Greeks called askēsis, i.e. practices of the self, which they developed and applied to give their lives the right direction.
The studies included in this book focus on different manifestations of “taking care of the self” present in ancient and contemporary thought. Each of these studies approaches the issue of taking care of the self from a different perspective: Chapter 1 focuses on Socrates’ therapeutic education; Chapter 2 centres on Diogenes’ ascetic practices; and Chapter 3 concentrates on Henri Maldiney’s existential phenomenology.
Highlighting the therapeutic approach to reading Socratic literature of the 4th century bce, the first chapter is based on the assumption that the Socrates portrayed in the Socratic dialogues is not only a tireless examiner and a model of ethical conduct, but also a soul healer. Socratic dialogues frequently refer to therapeia when they attribute to Socrates the ability to heal, i.e. to help himself and others take care of themselves through conversations. Socrates encourages his associates to jointly examine life based on excellent conduct. Rather than seeking to gain knowledge of what excellence is, however, he engages his interlocutors to strengthen their wisdom. Socrates often stresses that he is not a teacher because he does not offer any ready-made knowledge. Nonetheless, he does help his associates seek a better way of life – thanks to the love that he feels for them. In addition to being a metaphor of intimate friendship, Socrates’ Eros also makes his educational mission different from other period forms of upbringing and education. Socrates practices his art by being a soul healer who, instead of offering generally valid solutions to problems, encourages those he is fond of to take care of their selves. In this sense, Socrates’ activity is therapeutic rather than pedagogic. The goal of Socratic upbringing is to make individuals seek ways of turning their lives into something that is both good and beautiful, the key excellence in this effort being practical wisdom (phronēsis). In other words, the therapeutic task of wisdom is to do away with all false assumptions about what it means to live a good life.
The second chapter of the book focuses on the care of the self in the Cynic tradition (Diogenes of Sinope and his followers), examining the way in which a Cynic philosopher seeks the truth, which is believed to be manifested in his life. Cynics’ efforts to live a good life could be understood as a set of individual practices (askēsis) aimed at the self – the kind of working on oneself that involves toils (ponoi) on a continual basis. In this sense, Diogenes’ care of the self does not only concern the truth, the soul and the reason (as Socrates puts it in Plato’s Apology), but also life (bios) as a whole. Diogenes lives his life out in the public eye so as to confront his life with his opinions and teachings. Speaking the truth (parrhēsia) is thus determined by the Cynic way of life: when it comes to Diogenes’ opinions, words, and deeds, there are no differences – and that is the only way his life can ever become a truly philosophical life that can serve as a paradigm. Moreover, the Cynic care of the self also involves taking care of others. Involving parrhēsia, Diogenes’ ascetic practices also have a significant educational function. Although he views the conventional way of life critically, Diogenes only rarely turns his criticism into systematic argumentation: he prefers to express his views through gestures and deeds, as well as the way he lives his life. In this sense, the Cynic way of life is a specific form of Socratic care of the self.
Foucault identifies the notion of the care of the self as a general cultural phenomenon existing throughout antiquity. As such, it is related to the ethical problematizations of life and the way the Greek and Roman philosophers approached the question of how to live a good life. Nowadays, the issue of the care of the self has quite different contours: it has acquired a different meaning; it is set in a different context within a different historical era; it is addressed by quite different (groups of) individuals, who understand themselves in quite different ways, etc. There are many ways of problematizing life in contemporary thought, and these ways differ from those of the ancients to a great extent. The same holds true about the way we understand the issue of the care of the self: although it appears very simple at first sight, closer reflection reveals just how penetrating and complex it is with regard to the way we understand ourselves, our lives, the world we live in, as well as our relation to the world. It can be said that the care of the self is not the same as it was in antiquity: the way we problematize it and the way we try to address it reflect our present situation (which is, in fact, also projected in our approach to history). In this connection, the third part of this book offers one possible way of problematizing the issue of the care of the self in contemporary thought. It serves as a particular example that provides a different approach to a question that shaped ancient ethical thought – a question that may, for instance, take the form of existential analysis today.
The third chapter of the book approaches the care of the self through an existential analysis of the way individuals are interested in their being, as presented in the works of the French phenomenologist Henri Maldiney. Breathing new life into an age-old metaphysical issue, the study examines the mystery of life in the context of psychotherapy and art therapy, harmonising the phenomenological approach with selected psychotherapeutic practices. These practices built on a phenomenological basis include, for example, the technique of self-awareness (in the sense of experiencing one’s own existence in relation to the world), which primarily aims to integrate observing behavioural patterns with experiencing deeper levels of the client’s individual expression in the course of the psychotherapeutic process with a view to getting as close as possible to the situation that is being experienced. This method is particularly exemplified by approaches merging Gestalt (especially its theoretical model of “fields”) and the modern phenomenological concept of “events”. Using the platform of Maldiney’s existential analysis, the study describes selected contemporary art therapy approaches, putting emphasis on some of the key terms of the whole process, such as “self-realisation”, “event”, and “openness”. Through an in-depth analysis of basic existential functions, the study seeks to expand the basic research of Maldiney’s phenomenology in the hope of enriching and providing ontological support for the standard understanding of the meaning and mission of psychotherapeutic work.
I believe that the studies included in this book will appeal to all readers interested in the role of ethics in contemporary life – both in the light of its history (which we try to reconsider here) and with regard to its contemporary shapes (which do not provide a framework that would be sufficient enough for us to problematize our lives).
The contributors would like to thank the following individuals for their generosity in finding time to read and comment on the book or its parts in Slovak or English: Hynek Bartoš, Maroš Buday, Jaroslav Cepko, Andrej Kalaš, Róbert Karul, Ulrich Wollner, David McLean. Finally, I would like to thank Marek Tomášik for translating the first and third parts of the book into English.
PrešovMarch 2017