Maria Alyssa Rodriguez Section Y Group Number 5 October 13, 2012 The philosophical act is entitled to explore what

might be changed in its own thought through the practice of a knowledge that is foreign to it Michel Foucault Through the portal into thinking about what we are doing

provided by our own tree-planting activity, practices of the care of the self suggest themselves that involve developing an understanding and ethics of mastery over the self that blossom into the political agency in relation to which both Foucault and Arendt invite their readership play out to in gradually, their and with and

increasing communities.

resoluteness,

lives

Caring For Myself, My Trees, and Others

I.

Michel Foucault Revisited

One Sunday, my Philosophy 104 group and I took the afternoon off from our usual activities, not that my Sunday activities were all that grand anyway, in order to plant two trees over at the Cervini Field. We were directed by Fr. David to plant these two trees as part of our requirement for the course PH104. Fr. David mentioned that this was so that we could reflect better on Michel Foucaults Care of the Self when the time came that we would be discussing this work in class. I followed bodies instructions in such in the his fashion book that the and docile Punish Foucault describes Disciple

would have that is, to Foucault, that may be subjected, used, transformed, and improved.1 And through this disciplinary

action of making us plant trees, Fr. David seeks to improve us. Looking back, I honestly didnt get the whole point of the activity, apart from the positive fact that we would be,

hopefully, off shooting our carbon footprints from acquiring such a multitude of printed readings. I complied because I knew, like the prisoner in a prison ward, that Fr. David would be watching me and that he would definitely find out, by his tools of disciplinarity, if I didnt help plant those trees. I also didnt feel like I was taking care of myself in that moment very moment, I did however, feel like I was helping take care of mother Nature at least, even in the slightest way, by adding these two trees into the grounds of the Loyola Schools Campus.

1. Michel Foucault, Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison (New York: Vintage, 1995).

What I didnt expect was that for my case, this activity of taking care of the self would only make manifest to me in the coming days when I would be visiting these two plants which our group have decided (and which I may have slightly and imposingly suggested) to name Michie-foufou and Hanniarie, in recognition of the two great philosophers that we would be discussing throughout the duration of the semester. I, by way of being a dormer, should be able to easily check on our two dear plants everyday. However, like most students, I rush to school everyday always full of thoughts and anxieties and never as they say, stopping to smell the flowers. However, in even just one day from the week, I do make sure to create the time to stop by and check on Michie-foufou and Hanni-arie. And when I do, this is when the notion of taking care of the self as Michel Foucault has written, and as Fr. David has endeavored to make us understand, makes most sense. Michel Foucault writes on the practice of the care of the self as: This time is not empty; it is filled with exercises, practical tasks, various activities. Taking care of oneself is not a rest cure. There is the care of the body to consider, health regimens, physical exercises without overexertion, the carefully measured satisfaction of needs. There are the meditations, the readings, the notes that one takes on books or on the conversations one has heard, notes that one reads again later, the recollection of truths that one knows already but that need to be more fully adapted to one's own life.2 My action of stopping to check on our plants can be very much considered too, as an activity of taking care of the

2. Michel Foucault, The Care of the Self, vol. 3 of The History of Sexuality (New York: Vintage Books, 1988), 56.

self. And this activity is guided by my ethos. The discussion on ethos then points to another aspect of the thesis statement, which is found in the phrase that involves how the practices of the care of the self suggest themselves that involve developing an understanding and ethics of mastery over the self. The discussion on ethics is indeed one that is very much intertwined with the discussion of the practice of care of the self. According to Foucault, the Greeks understood the ethos to be a way of being and of behavior. It was a mode of being for the subject, along with a certain way of acting, a way visible to others.3 He goes on to saying, in the same interview which was published in a book, that: The care of the self is ethical in itself; but it implies complex relationships with others insofar as this ethos of freedom is also a way of caring for others.4 It is important to note that my activity of checking up on our young trees every once in awhile can be viewed more as a care of the self that is more introspective. having One must a

remember

that

Foucault

also

mentions

talks

with

confidant, a sort of mentor, or having talks friends as most beneficial for a person who seeks to practice the care of the self. Foucault says with that others this is is why the problem of the

relationships

present

throughout

development of the care of the self.5

3. Foucault, Michel, The Essential Works of Michel Foucault, 19541984 (New York: New Press, 1997), 286. 4. Ibid, 287. 5. Ibid. 6. Foucault, The Care of the Self, 56.

To push this further, Foucault writes: Here we touch on one of the most important aspects of this activity devoted to oneself: it constituted, not an exercise in solitude, but a true social practice.6 This is where the next phrase of the thesis statement, about how the practices of the care of the self blossom into the political agency, makes itself most evident. Foucault

drives the point that, more than just being an activity of the individual, the practice of the care of the self is actually really a form of true social practice. Foucault says that by taking care of ourselves we take care of our cities because we are better and are more able to relate to everyone else in the most proper manner. In his interview, Michel Foucault says that: But let me simply say that in the case of the free man, I think the postulate of this whole morality was that a person who took proper care of himself would, by the same token, be able to conduct himself properly in relation to others and for others. A city in which everybody took proper care of himself would be a city that functioned well and found in this the ethical principle of its permanence.7 This traction of how an individuals care of the self and how this directly affects the good of a whole city can be better understood and illustrated through Foucaults discussion of politicians. Foucault writes: A city could be happy and well governed only if its leaders were virtuous; and inversely, that a good constitution and wise laws were decisive factors for the right conduct of magistrates and citizens. The ruler's virtue, in an entire line of political thought in the

7. Foucault, The Essential Works, 287.

imperial epoch, is still regarded as necessary, but for somewhat different reasons in the difficult art of ruling, amid so many obstacles, the ruler will still have to be guided by his personal reason.8 And this is why it is of utmost importance that the ruler attends, cultivates and cares for him or herself. And

according to Foucault this principle applies to anyone who governs: he must attend to himself, guide his own soul,

establish his own ethos.9 In this section, we see how the thesis statement comes into play with the thoughts and writings of Michel Foucault. For the second section, we will venture into understanding the given thesis statement this time through the ideas of Hannah Arendt. II. Hannah Arendt Revisited

The said tree-planting activity can be viewed as any of the three human activities outlined by Hannah Arendt, depending on how one makes sense of the experience. It could be seen as a form of labor since in the strict sense, taking care of a tree does not end in placing it

properly into the soil. It entails the repetitive task of one watering the tree in order to sustain life, especially if there are no rains, and once the task is done, one repeats it almost instantly much like the human/animal (and thus the term used by Arendt, animal laborans) activity of eating in order to keep alive. In the chapter on Labor, Arendt discusses: Life is a process that everywhere uses up durability, wears it down, makes it disappear, until eventually dead matter, the result of small, single, cyclical, life processes, returns into the over-all gigantic circle of nature herself, where no beginning and no end exist and

8. Foucault, The Care of the Self, 88-89. 9 . Ibid, 89.

where all natural things swing in changeless, deathless repetition.10 Laboring involves moving in the same circle, as Hannah Arendt puts it. It goes with the rhythm of nature and it is cyclical. In another sense, one could also look at the treeplanting activity as a form of work. It sought to produce a goal, which was to fulfill the requirement of placing the tree into the soil and of which was an activity that ended with achieving this goal. And although, it did not produce a tangible object such as the delicious bread of the baker, or the beautiful chair by the carpenter, it could still be considered as a form of work since according to Arendt, work is when the human activitys end has come when the object is finished, ready to be added to the common world of things. And initially, as described in my personal story in the first section, that was exactly how I felt upon finishing the task of planting the tree. I stepped backed looked at it and was satisfied. Taking care of the tree, post the tree-planting activity, did not even cross my mind for I thought, and now Im beginning to see the extreme illogicality of my thoughts, that it would simply survive on its own, much like how a chair would survive on its own left alone. And then Fr. David exclaimed in class how one of the other groups plants have died. It was only then that the realization of the tree as something not capable of being measured by durability really dawned on me, and that I would need to labor to keep Michiefoufou and Hanni-arie alive.

10. Hannah Arendt, The Human Condition (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998), 96.

Third, this activity tree-planting activity could very much be seen as a form action from looking at it from Fr. Davids point of viewwith him being the one who directed us to plant the trees. He assigned us to plant trees, whatever his motives were, without being sure of how it would go exactly. Of course, it would expectedly lead to the physical implantation of the trees but as for how it would affect us, the students, as human beings, that he wasnt sure of yet he still pushed for the activity. Again, I do not claim to know exactly the motives of Fr. David as our teacher, but as Arendt has been able to discuss, action really involves the burden of irreversibility and unpredictability.11 Irreversible, in a sense, that if the tree-planting activity actually lead to the psychological trauma of a certain student (for only God knows whate reason) or if it positively affected the life views of another student then those experiences and realizations would forever be irreversible. Unpredictable, in a sense, that whether a

psychological trauma or a positive change would occur, this would be out of Fr. Davids control. These are both characteristics of human action. And this reality of human action having those characteristics is precisely why we should always think what we are doing, always employ the proper use of the logos because ultimately all our actions have the capacity to affect other people. Hannah Arendt testifies to this by writing: No human life, not even the life of the hermit in nature's wilderness, is possible without a world which

11. Arendt, The Human Condition, 233.

directly or indirectly testifies to the presence of other human beings.12 She goes on to explain how action is the only human activity entirely not possible without the presence of other human beings. She goes on to say: labor does not need the presence of others, though a being laboring in complete solitude would not be human but an animal laborans man working and fabricating and building a world inhabited only by himself would still be a fabricator a divine demiurge as Plato described him in one of his myths. Action alone is the exclusive prerogative of man; neither a beast nor a god is capable of it, and only action is entirely dependent upon the constant presence of others.13 This is where the phrase from the thesis statementsaying that the practices of the care of the self suggest themselves that involve developing an understanding and ethics of mastery over the self that blossom into the political agency is best understood. There is no single act that ultimately does not affect other people for we, by way of being human, are all testimonies to the presence of other human beings. The practices of the care of the self help us transcend the self and helps us recognize how and where to direct our action and this is to the political sphere. Hannah Arendt writes about politics, as explained by James Knauer, in a way that illuminates politics as the expression

of individual identity and political principle, politics as the creation of an intersubjectively shared life-world, politics as the creation of a uniquely human mode of being-

12. Ibid, 22. 13. Ibid.

together, political community as praxis.14 All of these point to how ultimately the direction of Arendts work is to really, as the thesis statement expresses, slowly direct her readership into developing the practice of care of the self so that in turn, this would blossom into the political agency. As Arendt fittingly explains, the political realm rises directly out of acting together, the "sharing of words and deeds." Thus action not only has the most intimate relationship to the public part of the world common to us all, but is the one activity which constitutes it.15 And this is the beauty found in action, the beauty we find in participating in politics. III. Synthesis There are similarities between Foucault and Arendt. For one, these two great philosophers these viewed views society in quite in

similar

manners,

although

were

expressed

different ways. One salient point where we find these two great thinkers meeting is in how they paint human beings to be merely playing the roles of cogs as part of a gargantuan machine if and/or when we dont practice the proper care of the self which results to our neglect of thinking about what we are doing. This address is in a his that scenario can be that Foucault of into exactly modes four wishes of to the conceptualization divided the self-

constitution

aspects:

ethical substance, the mode of subjection, the practices of

14. James T. Knauer, Motive and Goal in Hannah Arendt's Concept of Political Action, American Political Science Review 74, no. 3 (1980), http://www.jstor.org/stable/1958153 (accessed October 12, 2012). 15. Arendt, The Human Condition, 218.

the self, and the mode of being.16 All of these modes of selfconstruction answer questions that frame the very task of ethics. Timothy Leary in his book Foucault: The Art of Ethics, writes that: The first aspect, the ethical substance, asks what part of oneself should be subject to a work on the self. The second aspect, the mode of subjection, asks why one should engage in such a task. The third aspect, the forms of elaboration of the self, asks what tools or techniques one has at ones disposal in this work. The fourth aspect, the telos, asks what mode of being or way of life constitutes the goal of this work.17 All of these queries provide a way into looking and reflecting into oneself, most especially in light ones societal context which is especially paid attention to by the aspect of forms of elaboration of the self in asking about the tools one has at his/her disposal to proceed. This activity of self-

constitution seeks to make sure that one is not merely a cog in the functioning of society. This, too, is what Arendt strives to make clear in her distinction of labor, work and action. To Arendt, as already explained, what makes humans distinctively the way that we are, is our ability to exhibit action. And this beauty of action, is best explained and described by the great

philosopher herself in this striking paragraph: While the strength of the production process is entirely absorbed in and exhausted by the end product, the strength of the action process is never exhausted in a single deed but, on the contrary, can grow while its consequences multiply; what endures in the realm of human affairs are these processes, and their endurance is as
16. Michel Foucault, The Use of Pleasure, vol. 2 of The History of Sexuality(New York: Vintage Books, 1980). 17. Timothy Leary, Foucault: The Art of Ethics (London, New York: Continuum, 2002),12-13.

10

unlimited, as independent of the perishability of material and the mortality of men as the endurance of humanity itself. The reason why we are never able to foretell with certainty the outcome and end of any action is simply that action has no end. The process of a single deed can quite literally endure throughout time until mankind itself has come to an end.18 Both philosophers are advocates of the activity of care the self and the activity of making use of your logos to develop your particular ethos. The direct goal is not to destroy the systems of our society; the goal is to better understand the system, and most of all yourself, so that you will know where you stand in the system and what you can do as an individual so that you may never lose your voice and so that you may exercise your freedomfor as Foucault puts it , Yes, for what is ethics, if not the practice of freedom, the conscious practice of

freedom?19 He further explains that, Freedom is the ontological condition of ethics. But ethics is the considered form that freedom takes when it is informed by reflection.20 So that you will never be just merely become a cog in the whole system of things. This is what the life Jesus Christ has been able to beautifully depict in his lifetime. He came and saw how much the people were so entrenched with all the established institutions that they had missed the whole point of the religion, which is the point to God. Jesus came and performed

18. Arendt, The Human Condition, 253. 19. Foucault, The Essential Works, 284. 20. Ibid.

11

signs, as we see in Johns gospel, and many times when he was performing these signs he ventured into going against established norms, like for example healing someone on the Sabbath day. And as if we were the Pharisees of Jesus time, this is what the preamble of the thesis statement invites us to see through philosophy. It aims to make us rethink established norms and view them at their core without the biases weve grown up with. This is where ethics and philosophy comes into play in our lives. Ending this paper I will venture into tackling this short preamble, for I feel that, with this being my last paper and requirement for the course, I am impelled to synthesize and reflect on all that Ive learned in the past months and this opening statement from Foucault aptly describes my sensibilities. In its fuller form, the statement goes: But what then is philosophy-philosophical activity I mean-if it is not the critical work that thought brings to bear on itself? In what does it consist, if not in the endeavor to know how and to what extent it might be possible to think differently, instead of legitimating what is already known? [Thought] is entitled to explore what might be changed, through the practice of a knowledge that is foreign to it.21 I came into the Ateneo viewing, like most students, the core subjects of Theology and Philosophy to be useless. However, today, just a paper away from finishing my second to the last semester Atenean classes. This Foundation of Moral Values class has invited me to do just as Michel Foucault has suggested in the preamble. It has invited me to reflect and critically look at my as one an undergraduate precisely student my of the Ateneo, Ive

realized that the essence of what makes my education a truly lies in Theology and Philosophy

21. Ibid, XXXVIII.

12

philosophies and priorities in life. All of these knowledges were formerly foreign to me and had I not opened myself to these new thoughts my view of lifes views would have been too narrow, too uncreative, too self-serving. Foucault has taught me, among many other things, to always look at human

institutions with a critical eye. In this class I saw, for the first time, how something as established as the penal system, which is a practice that is actually glaringly inhumane, is viewed and accepted with such normalcy. Hannah Arendt inspires me to always think about what I am doing, free myself for this kind of cyclical way of living (labor), free myself from the idea of working to produce something and always being sure of the outcome (work). Arendt moves me to commit myself to an immeasurable pursued to goal, write like letters when to the their students of the for Ateneo their

legislators

support of the passing of the RH bill, even though the outcome of such action will be unpredictable. The example just stated in the previous sentence is not to be confused with work, although the person wrote this tangible letter, the letter itself was not the goal of the human activity. Here we see how work has been used by the students in order to change something that, they personally believe, would make the world a better place for all, especially women, to live in. In action, we are really thinking what we are doing, we are not merely our just cogs where in and the how institutions we want it of go society, but we free with

ourselves from all of this and exercise our freedom to direct lives always consideration of the whole good of society, and always in consideration of the burden of an actions irreversibility and unpredictability. The batch I graduated with in high school recognizes me as the mother of the batch. Not only because I usually acted

13

like

one,

being

the

president

and

always

looking

out

for

everyone, but because they knew Ive always wanted to have children. I was always the one they could easily imagine

becoming a housewife. And I was happy with that, I was happy with imagining myself as a future housewife. And that is why, when Fr. David first talked about

housewives in a bit of, what seemed to me, a condescending manner, I just couldnt but help feel a tad bit sad. Was anything wrong with this image? If I was happy with being a housewife and if this didnt bother anyone, then what was wrong with it? And after a whole semester, I realized that the problem lay exactly in my question it didnt bother anyone. Bothering people, affirming not necessarily existence in with the negative it sense, is you is you

your

people;

affirming

everyone elses existence as well. Furthermore, there is this thought that Fr. David once mentioned in class that really caught my attention and made a lot of sense to me. I asked and suggested in class that maybe women are the way they are, which is that they (we) are inclined to the activity of mothering, because of the factor that they are by nature the ones that get pregnant. While Fr. David recognized this, he answered this query of mine through a question, he said

something to the effect of How are you expected to raise a child the right way and expect this child to be ready for society for? This really struck me and I am actually making the open promise never to end up being solely categorized as a housewife, no matter how happy and contented I may feel that I already am. I should always aim engage with the social and the when you have, by your own volition, withdrawn

yourself from the very society you aim to my your child ready

14

political and to always aim to do something for the society. This brings me to the end of my paper, and with all that has been said, I end with a quote from a Russian writer, Leo Rosten, he says: I cannot believe that the purpose of life is (merely) to be happy. I think the purpose of life is to be useful, to be honorable, to be compassionate. I think it is above all to matter, to count, to stand for something. To have it make some difference that you lived at all. And this is exactly the kind of call to vocation that the thesis statement invites us to arrive at. This is what the phrase the practices of the care of the self blossom into the political agency in relation to which both Foucault and Arendt invite their readership play to out gradually, in their and lives with and

increasing

resoluteness,

communities is inviting us to realize.

15