从权力技术到美学修养：关於傅柯理论发展的反思

From Techniques of Power to Aesthetic Cultivation: Reflections on the Philosophical Turn of the Late Foucault

本文思索生命权力与生存美学在傅柯(Michel Foucault)理论发展中的关系，并藉此切入美学修养的讨论。对傅柯研究而言，此角度相当特殊，因为不仅强调权力分析与生存美学的内在关连，更认为透过晚期傅柯思想转折的反思，可深化傅柯式的权力分析。若从傅柯自己分别知识、权力和伦理的三轴心说，进行美学修养的探索，则可展开三种研究角度：一、美学修养与知识考古学的关系；二、美学修养与权力系谱学的关系；三、美学修养与工夫伦理的关系。本文集中讨论第二种角度，以思考晚期傅柯理论发展中的转折。藉由「治理性」的概念，傅柯从生命权力的分析过渡到生存美学的主题。经过这样的理论运作，生存美学乃可涉及治理自我的美学工作，使自己的生命成为艺术品的活动。不过，尽管傅柯透过治理性的概念，连接生命权力与生存美学、人在他人生命上的工作与自我在自己生命上的工作，但他并没有充分发挥权力分析对思考生存美学及自我修养的重要性。因此，本文试图思考应如何进一步发展权力技术与美学修养的关系。

This paper reflects upon the relation between bio-power and aesthetics of existence within Michel Foucault’s theoretical development. Through an analysis of this relation and the philosophical turn connected to it, I enter the discussion of ”aesthetic cultivation”. This perspective is a rather particular because it not only emphasizes the internal connection between bio-power and aesthetics of existence but, moreover, hopes to broaden Foucault’s analysis of power by paying attention to the internal dynamics leading to his understanding of Greco-Roman self-cultivation as an aesthetics of existence. I suppose that the distinction between the three axes of knowledge, power and ethics, proposed by Foucault himself, can help to clarify the modern notion of aesthetic cultivation emerging in Foucault's late work. It is especially the notion of governmentality which helps to bridge the seemingly incompatible aspects of bio-power and aesthetics of existence. Through this notion Foucault turned to the relation between the art of government and techniques of the self. The idea of a technique or art of life (techne tou biou) is based on the ambiguity of the Greek word techne which refers to art and technique. Thus aesthetics of existence can refer to an ascetic work of self-government with ethical connotations. Although Foucault’s thought shifts from bio-power to the aesthetics of existence, from the work of someone on the life of someone else, to the work of someone one his or her own life, he did not to make sufficient use of the analysis of power-relations to develop the notion of an cultivation, which would be critical and aesthetic. This paper tries to further open up this possibility by regarding the twofold activity of controlling and enhancing life as central problem of aesthetic cultivation.