Michel Foucault and spirituality as a practice of freedom

Abstract

According to Michel Foucault, spirituality can be defined as the act of modifying itself to have access to the truth, in opposition to the modern concept of philosophy, in which knowledge is an analysis of the structure that ensures access to the truth. Ignored by most of the philosophical tradition, to rescue spirituality is to put the subject as the central point of philosophy. Not a subject that possesses a human nature and an essence prior to its cultural existence, but a subject constituted through social practices and relations of knowledge and power, able to give form and substance to its subjectivity. In this context, the theme of liberty is indispensable, in the sense that the subject does not need to be inert to social models in his historical context, having the possibility to invent and reinvent the historical formatting of his existence. From this perspective, it is important to closely examine three central concepts in the philosophy of the author: power, ethics and critics.