Darren Gardner

In Foucault’s lectures for the Collège de France (The Government of Self and Others; The Courage of Truth) and Patočka’s Plato and Europe, the theme of care of the self / care of the soul is surprisingly central. Foucault credits Patočka in 1984 (The Courage of Truth) and recommends to his audience that they read Plato and Europe as it is the only modern philosophical text on the topic of epimeleia in Plato. So, it is worth investigating what is so central to both thinkers about the notion of care, and how and to what extent the tradition of the care of the self and the care of the soul can function as a modern praxis. To do so, Darren Gardner traces the tradition of care as operative not only from the Platonic tradition but also from the ancient Cynics through Diogenes, who carry an equally important legacy of epimeleia as a Socratic praxis that he argues is demonstrative of resistance and dissidence and illustrative for Foucault and Patočka.