ABSTRACT
Michel Foucault rarely talked about himself. In fact he scorned the discourse that has come to be known as intellectual biography. Nevertheless this discussion with Stephen Riggins offers some insight into the philosopher who found his personal life “uninteresting” and preferred to remain anonymous. From anecdotal remarks concerning the quest for monastic austerity and a cultural ethos of silence to the transformation of the self through one’s own knowledge, Foucault’s self-portrait approximates a minimalist aesthetic experience. The interview was recorded in English and published in the Canadian journal Ethos in the Autumn of 1983.
