N. 35 (2019)

Graziano Lingua

Dire la verità per governare i desideri.
Foucault prima e dopo Les aveux de la chair

PP. 190-215

1. Introduzione, p. 190; 2. Atti di verità e potere pastorale, p. 193; 3. Dire la verità. La confessione e il binomio soggetto/verità, p. 198; 4. Obbedire incondizionatamente: la direzione di coscienza nel monachesimo, p. 202; 5. La carne e l’ermeneutica del desiderio, p. 205; 6. Conclusione, p. 213.

Abstract
Telling the truth to govern the desires.
Foucault before and after Les aveux de la chair
This essay analyses the place of Les aveux de la chair in the overall production of Foucault and identifies two specific problems that delineate the Foucaultian image of the origins of Christianity. Firstly, the author focuses on the “acts of truth” in some Christian practices, such as confession and direction of conscience. Then he investigates the notion of “flesh” as a key concept to understand the Christian anthropology that underlies the sexual morality of marriage and virginity. The author retraces the crucial role played, according to Foucault, by practices of constant “interpretation of the self” as they are shared by the most rigorous ascetic and the man who lives in the world. Therefore, the essay proposes a reading of Foucault’s work on ancient thought that avoid the simple contrast between Christian morality and pagan “aesthetics of existence”, to show the central role played in Western culture by the constitution of the subject through practices of veridification proposed in early Christianity.

Keywords: confession, direction of conscience, flesh, desire, early Christianity, Western subjectivity.