ABSTRACT
The commonality of the disciplinary and the aesthetic-existential conceptions of the subject consists in taking the subject as essentially practical. This is implied by their starting-point in the phenomenon of practice. Practices aim at the acquisition of skills and capacities: through practices we gain an ability. A misunderstanding of this determination must be avoided from the beginning. The objection that an aesthetics of existence directs against processes of normalization does not entail a critique of normativity in general. In the objection to such a teleological predominance of the conduct of life lies at the same time one reason why Foucault speaks of an aesthetics of existence. The success of aesthetic activities requires overstepping any previously established aim: they succeed precisely when they lead to something other than what was decided at the beginning. The normative opposition between the practices of an aesthetics of existence and those of disciplinary power is thus as minimal as it is decisive.
