ABSTRACT
This chapter provides an overview of Foucault's account of the origins of modern Western subjectivity in early Christian practices of the self. Post-conversion, practices of the self function to 'decipher' the self in order to ensure that its thoughts are pure and properly focused on the truth and the light. With the rise of modernity, practices that had once possessed solely religious applicability were adopted within secular contexts and thereby came to characterize modern societies more broadly. This generalization occurred in part as a result of the inadequacy of sovereign power in the face of the increasing complexities of modern life. Penitence is not a 'determined act' but a status that involves the execution of a number of different practices which allow a person who has sinned to become reintegrated into the religious community. Cultivating a critical attitude entails an oppositional or at least ambivalent stance relative to what is presented to us as true, as given, as necessary.
