Modern Subject And Confession

This paper attempts to analyze how the modern subject that Foucault pays attention to enters the game of truth from Foucault’s interpretation of confession practice,so as to reveal the dilemma of scientific rationality of the modern subject,and then explain the rationality of the theory of survival aesthetics of the modern subject constructed by Foucault.When Foucault turned to the subject problem in the late period,he found that modern subject had become the product of the power/knowledge mechanism,but in the process of the formation of the objectified technology of power/knowledge,a subjectivation technology was also formed,that is,modern people shaped themselves into an ethical subject through confession practice.Foucault’s later period died not stay in the modern society to explore the truth of his subjectivity,but traced back to the relationship between the subject and the truth in ancient Greece and the Christian period,seeking a self-formation free road for the modern subject.The paper will combine Foucault’s early power/knowledge technology with his late subject technology to study Foucault’s modern subject problem by making clear the whole process of the emergence,transformation and possible disappearance of confession.The first chapter makes a brief analysis of the relationship between genealogy and archaeology,the methodology that Foucault used in his philosophical research,and points out the methodology that Foucault used when he turned to the subject problem.This analysis will clearly show that Foucault’s early power/knowledge theory is the theoretical basis for grasping Foucault’s subjective philosophy.The second chapter discusses the emergence and transformation process of confession in Foucault’s theory,reveals why penitence,the self-shaping practice generated from Christianity,can become the subjectification technology of modern individuals,and Foucault’s criticism of subjectivity and modern ethics.The third chapter is to analyze how the ancient greco-roman technique of parrêsia(true speech/free speech)and self-formation was transformed into confession by tracing back to the predecessor of confession: parrêsia(true speech/free speech),and what kind of self-formation Foucault found in the game of true speech to support his theory of survival aesthetics and thus to liberate the modern subject.The fourth chapter will analyze the relationship between confession and anti-confession to concretely clarify Foucault’s two liberation schemes of the modern subject,and analyze the feasibility of the two schemes.