Foucault's Politics of Philosophy. Power, Law and Subjectivity

Oriented around the theme of a \u2018politics of philosophy\u2019, this book tracks the phases in which Foucault\u2019s genealogy of power, law, and subjectivity was reorganized during the 14 years of his teaching at the Coll\ue8ge de France, as his focus shifted from sovereignty to governance. This theme, Sandro Chignola argues here, is the key to understanding four features of Foucault\u2019s work over this period. First, it foregrounds its immediate political character. Second, it demonstrates that Foucault\u2019s \u201cGreek trip\u201d also aims at a politics of the subject that is able to face the processes of the governmentalization of power. Third, it makes clear that the idea of the \u201cgovernment of the self\u201d is \u2013 drawing on an ethics of intellectual responsibility that is Weberian in origin \u2013 an answer to the processes that, within neoliberal governance, produce the subject as an individual (as a consumer, a market agent, an entrepreneur, and so on). Fourth, the theme of a \u2018politics of philosophy\u2019 implies that Foucault\u2019s research was never simply scholarly or neutral; but rather was characterized by a speci c political position. Against recent interpretations that risk turning Foucault into a scholar, here then Foucault is re-presented as a key gure for jurisprudential and political-philosophical research