Histoire de la sexualité 3. Le Souci de soi

By Michel Foucault and Robert Hurley Michel Foucault

Book Overview

Michel Foucault takes us into the first two centuries of our own era, into the Golden Age of Rome, to reveal a subtle but decisive break from the classical Greek vision of sexual pleasure. He skillfully explores the whole corpus of moral reflection among philosophers (Plutarch, Epictetus, Marcus Aurelius, Seneca) and physicians of the era, and uncovers an increasing mistrust of pleasure and growing anxiety over sexual activity and its consequences. This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0394741552
• ISBN13: 9780394741550
• Release Date: November 1988
• Publisher: Vintage
• Length: 288 Pages
• Weight: 0.70 lbs.
• Dimensions: 7.9" x 0.8" x 5.2"

Customer Reviews

volumes one and two also reviewed

in the 2nd volume the reader learned that `the obligation to keep the use of pleasure within the bounds of marriage was a way of exercising self-mastery, a mastery made necessary by one's status or authority one had to exercise in the city.' in volume 3 foucault discusses the shift from the greek city states to the rise of hellenistic monarchies and the empire of rome. the prominent texts consulted by foucault were mainly...

Exposes the Seeds of Contemporary Practice

This is my favorite volume in The History of Sexuality. In The Care of the Self, Foucault traces the shift towards a greater concern over sexual praxis which initiated a more severe ethical code from the one found in the Greek antiquity of his The Use of Pleasure. It is here that Foucault shows us the seeds of moral anxiety that would permeate later Christian sexual ethics. However, Foucault makes clear that this is not the...