The sequel to a delightful tale. Foucault takes sexuality in Ancient Greece as his subject here. It's a genuinely piercing study ! What we'd expect from the big MF.

I found the discussion and destruction of the 'bisexual Greek' figure to be quite remarkable and I enjoyed that. A clever and self-aware distinction there, conscientiously taking Fleshly retroactive chromatography-stains away from the Grecian concepts.

There's a lot of Plato here, unsurprisingly. Phaedrus, Philebus, Symposium, Laws, Timaeus and so forth. It's nice to see him dealt with this sensibly though I wish I was better acquainted with Aristotle for a lot of this. In the new year, I'm sure. The closing remarks about the relationship between love and truth w/r/t the boys adoring Socrates in Symposium felt a genuinely remarkable step forward in both Plato studies and the constitution of Greek sexuality.

MF admits it's a restricted piece insofar as he runs from the philosophical and dietetic pieces of the era that wander into prescriptive veins. As keen as he is to emphasise that these pieces were written for and by a minority of free adult males, one can't help but feel the sexual practices of women in the period are rather underserved by Foucault here, beyond the attitudes and prescriptions of what the familiar heavy hitters say, malely. The neglect of the obvious Sappho is quite bizarre, and while I do understand that this develops through the discursive-authority vein, I couldn't help wanting more in that area.

In a sense I read this to get to Volume 4, eventually. But it was a worthwhile read and a good one for Classicists to take a look at. Volume 1 is the superior piece but I still appreciate the LSD-induced revitalisation of the project as it regards the subject. Was crucial.

"الرحيل يُجدد شباب الأمور، كما يُشيخ العلاقة مع الذات"

تاريخ الجنسانية: استعمال اللذات – ميشيل فوكو

يعود فوكو إلى تحليل المجتمع الأوروبي القديم (الأثيني والإغريقي) وطبيعة حياته الاجتماعية التي قننت اللذة ورسمت لها أوجه الاعتدال المتناسبة مع ظروف حياتهم وسياستهم وطبائعهم الاجتماعية، وفي مجلده الثاني من هذه السلسلة، يناقش السؤال الأخلاقي الذي يحيط بنظرة الإغريقي حول المتع واللذات، وارتباطه بالقيم التي رسمها الأثينيون لأنفسهم، وتعاملهم مع الغلمانية بالطريقة المتوائمة مع جنسانيتهم التي سمحت لهم بقدر من الحرية، ربطوها بدورهم بالاعتدال الذي ينطوي على تحكم المرء بذاته وطباعه.
يُعد هذا المجلد أكثر ثراء من المجلد الأول وأكثر بساطة في طرح المواضيع، ويدور في معظمه حول القانون الأخلاقي لاستعمال اللذات في المجتمع اليوناني القديم، لذلك يعد مرجعاً ثرياً للباحثين، وصورة شبه مكتملة حول الأخلاق الأثينية.

Has some important insights, but Foucault's over-reliance on Attic prose substantially weakens his arguments - note that he doesn't even mention Sappho! And he quotes from the tragedians maybe twice? There are many classicists of the past few decades who have done much better work on ancient Greek sexuality. Foucault is more interested in making a point about the world that he lived in than in actually understanding the way the Greeks lived.

A VERY dense book concerning the problematics of sex, desire, pleasure, and it’s relation to Archaic and Classical Greek perceptions of self, aestheticism, asceticism, power and influence, and truth prescribed by nature. I found Foucault’s work to be extremely helpful in breaking down the commonly held myth that pagan/ ancient societies were any more sexually liberated than we are today. That is not to say that modern self-perceptions of being are in any way connected to that of antiquity, but simply that problematics seem to occupy human thought across space and time. I appreciate Foucault’s attempt at providing modern readers with an alternative framework for considering love, desire, and it’s relation to perception of the self. Very enlightening.

The level of hatred that I have for Foucault and his bullshit really cannot be overstated.

A really masterful and insightful analysis of the texts concerning sexuality and sexual practices from the 400 century BC. A far better book than Volume 1, which is mostly recycled and poorly written Nietzsche.

'I' am sexy and I 'know' it

yeeeepppper get your socrates on, den er langtrukken men vildt fed

A fine short survey of classical Greek sexual thinking, yet Michel Foucault's work with these primary sources isn't as impressive as it is with materials from the 17th and 18th centuries. A heavy reliance on two major 1970s-era histories by KJ Dover seems to suggest that Foucault isn't so much breaking new ground as sowing seeds in already-fertilized fields. All in all, though, this was a worthwhile and interesting read, even if it wasn't as provocative as Volume 1.

As is standard, Foucault's work here is insightful and unique. Though the direction of the work has changed substantially between Vol. 1 and Vol. 2 & 3, the analysis remains worthwhile. Foucault is able to make sexuality a case study for a history of the 'subject' and deftly shows how sexuality in Greek philosophy was a subject around which prescriptions could be made which ultimately concern the individual's relationship with and knowledge of themselves.

Across themes of moderation and mastery, Foucault demonstrates the complexity of Greek thought but simultaneously draws out the themes and questions that the periods writers were focused on. It is these themes and questions which make up the bulk of the books analysis as, rather than focus on tangible prescriptions, Foucault opts for discussions how problematising certain behaviours and relationships creates an impetus for self-knowledge and self-mastery.

A must-read if one is to understand Foucault's broader philosophical project.

In Volume II of this work, Foucault discusses how sexual activity had unraveled by philosophers and doctors in classical Greek culture of the fourth century B. C. and the role of sex in the Greek and Roman periods.
"Now moral reflections in Greek or Greco-Roman Antiquity were much more oriented towards self-practices and the question of askesis than towards the codifications of conduct and the strict definition of what is permitted and forbidden. Suppose we accept the Republic and the Laws. In that case, we will find very few references to the principle of a code that would define in detail the conduct to be followed, to the need for an authority responsible for "monitoring its application, with the possibility of punishments which would sanction the offenses committed. Even if the need to respect the law and customs - the nomoi - had very often underlined, the important thing is less in the content of the law and its conditions of application than in the attitude that ensures that we respect them. The emphasis placed on the relationship with oneself, which allows one not to let oneself be carried away by appetites and pleasures, to keep vis-à-vis of their mastery and superiority, to maintain one's senses in a state of tranquility, to remain free from all interior slavery to the passions, and to attain a mode of being which can be defined by the full enjoyment of oneself or the perfect sovereignty of oneself over oneself."