PHILOSOPHY AS AN ART OF LIVING. SITUATING THE METHOD OF SOCRATIC DIALOGUE WITHIN A FRAMEWORK OF “CARE OF THE SELF”

Abstract

Modern philosophy has departed from the classical conception of philosophy as the art of living. By rearticulating this conception, the late Foucault marks a mode of relating to contemporary life of which Socratic dialogue can be seen as both a manifestation and a metaphor. In this article I discuss the relationship between Michel Foucault’s revival of the Greek notion of “care of the self” and the method of Socratic dialogue as developed by Leonard Nelson with the intent of sketching a practical hermeneutics of the self. The article will show how Foucault’s genealogical thoughts on “care of the self” provide a theoretically solidifying framework for Socratic dialogue making some of its characteristic features even more explicit. It will also explain Socratic dialogue as an ethical practice, or a technology of the self, for an individual’s self-formation within a sociality and a personal striving towards self-transformation and living well.