The Concept of "Care of the Self" and the Matter of the Other: Dialogs, Letters and Maxims

Abstract

The following study begins with the reading and discussion of the lessons of the French philosopher Michel Foucault taught at the Collège de France (1981-1982) and published posthumously in the book Hermeneutics of the Subject (2001). These lessons elucidate the permanent link between philosophy and spirituality, the relationship subject-truth, that is resolved with the notion of epimeleia heautou, cura sui, “care of self”. The sources of this practice are recorded consecutively throughout the first millennium of philosophical history as paradigmatic representatives as Socrates and Plato, then going by the founders and followers of the Hellenistic philosophical schools stoicism, epicureanism, and cynicism- even up reach persons of Christian culture. In this world of text has been selected a very unique of these: the letter, the careful art of relationship in the distance. From Plato there are few letters, but there are, of Epicurus are there, these three that remains of his philosophy, as well as fragments and spread, and of Seneca are, among others, the 124 letters to Lucilius. The letter is a bare text, sincere, written in a relationship of self to very unique, compared for example with the treaty sealed, finished and true knowledge and knowledge for teaching purposes. From infancy to youth our modern societies have introduced a mass education system that starts from the pre-school through college, the figure of the teacher or principal which refers in part to the figure of the Other in the epimeleia heautou of the ancient Greek is increasingly obscured face communication systems, flatter and faster sparing.