mode of subjectivation

is the way in which an individual establishes his relation to the rule and recognizes himself as obligated to put it into practice.

Foucault characterizes the mode of subjectivation, then, as 'the way in which an individual establishes his relation to the rule and recognizes himself as obligated to put it into practice' (1985: 27)

is constituted by an ethical substance, a type or types of subjection, a form or forms of elaboration of the self, and a moral teleology.

In this volume, I would like to take note of some general traits that characterized the way in which sexual behavior was considered by classical Greek thought as a domain of moral valuation and choice. I will start from the then common notion of "use of the pleasures"—chrêsis aphrodisidia—and attempt to determine the modes of subjectivation to which it referred: the ethical substance, the types of subjection, the forms of elaboration of the self, and the moral teleology. Then, starting each time from a practice whose existence, status, and rules were native to Greek culture (the practice of the health regimen, that of household management, that of courtship), I will study the way in which medical and philosophical thought worked out this "use of the pleasures," formulating several recurrent themes of austerity that would center on four great axes of experience: the relation to one's body, the relation to one's wife, the relation to boys, and the relation to truth. (29)

mode of subjectivation, n.All

mode of subjectivation