ABSTRACT
This chapter begins with an autobiographical reminiscence, one that concerns, appropriately, theory and its relation to practice. It shows that Michel Foucault's theories might be applied, without stress or strain, to the "ordinary" practice of history. The chapter argues, only if one expected so much from Foucault to begin with, that one might now want to leave him behind as an empty husk. Cultural history, whose ties to Foucault were always less binding, has by contrast not exhausted what Foucault has to offer. The chapter reviews about applicability of the Foucauldian concept of the technology of the self to the trajectory of Victor Cousin's philosophy. It also argues that the distinction between the two constitutions is to some degree defensible, but ultimately individual-as-object and individual-as-subject effectively interpenetrate one another. The chapter assumes that a technology of the self is necessary linked, be it weakly or strongly, to a regimen of power/knowledge.
