Care of the Self

Michel Foucault: The Hermeneutics of the Subject

Socrates (in Alcibiades): One must care about oneself.

Different ways to say "care of the self": taking care of the self, withdrawing into oneself, retiring into the self, finding one's pleasure in oneself, seeking no other delight but in the self, remaining in the company of oneself, being the friend of oneself, devoting oneself to oneself, respecting oneself...

epimeleia heautou is an attitude towards the self, others, and world. It is a general standpoint that we should have and a certain ways for us to behave in the world, undertake actions, and have relations with other people.

epimeleia heautou asks us for certain form of attention or looking. Being concerned about oneself implies that we look away from the outside world to the inside towards ourselves, attending to what we think and what takes place in our thought.

epimeleia also designates a number of actions exercised on the self by the self, taking responsibility for oneself and by which changes, purifies, transforms, and transfigures oneself through meditation, memorization of the past, examination of conscience... 

Care of the self describes a fundamental philosophical attitude throughout Greek, Hellenistic, and Roman culture. (Plato, Epicurus, Epictetus, Seneca, Plotinus...)

From fifth century B.C. up to fifth century A.D， from the Greek to the first forms of Christian asceticism, with the notion of epimeleia heautou, we have a body of work that defines a way of being, a standpoint, and certain forms of reflections and practices.

Socrates in Apology: "Dear friend, you are an Athenian citizen of the greatest city, more famous than any other for its knowledge and might, yet are you not ashamed for devoting all your care to increasing your wealth, reputation and honors while not caring for or even considering your reason, truth and the constant improvement of your soul?" For Socrates, the care of oneself is a sort of thorn which must be stuck in men's flesh, driven into their existence, and which is a principle of restlessness and movement, of continuous concern throughout life.

Gregory of Nyssa On Virginity: "That the care of oneself begins with freedom from marriage."That has become the matrix of Christian asceticism.

Epicurus: "Every man should take care of his soul day and night and throughout his life."

Philosophy: the form of thought that asks what determines that there is and can be truth and falsehood and whether or not we can separate the true and the false.

Spirituality: the search, practice, and experience through which the subject carries out the necessary transformations on himself in order to have access to the truth.

Spirituality postulates that 1) the truth is never given to the subject by right; 2) for the subject to have right of access to the truth he must be changed, transformed, shifted, and become, to some extent and up to a certain point, other than himself (through love-eros and ascesis), for as he is, the subject is not capable of truth; 3) the truth enlightens the subject, gives beatitude to the subject, the tranquility of the soul.

（In modern sense, if knowledge is the only necessity to truth, then without any request on the subject's being, the truth can't save the subject.)

(The Cartesian moment: know yourself, which overshadowed care of the self.)