ABSTRACT
Foucault explains here his desire to write the history of the relations between thought and truth in Antiquity as a reflection on sexual behavior. In the analysis put forth in L’Usage des plaisirs and Le Souci de soi sexual activity is problematized as a moral dilemma inasmuch as the issues of desire and pleasure constitute an object of thought in the quest for a personal ethics. This technology of the self generates an aesthetics of existence or an art of living in which the exemplary individual — who is quintessentially male — must be master of himself and others. The ethical dimension of Foucault’s most recent research enables him to rethink the role and function of the intellectual in contemporary society. “The Concern for Truth: an interview by Francois Ewald” appeared in Magazine littéraire 207 (May 1984), 18—23. The translation is by Alan Sheridan.
