Summary of Michel Foucault's Confessions of the Flesh

By IRB Media

Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book. Book Preview:

#1 The aphrodisia regime, defined in terms of marriage, procreation, and a disqualification of pleasure, was formulated by non-Christian philosophers and teachers, and their pagan society followed it. Christians did not follow this code of conduct, but they did follow the same principles.

#2 The work of Clement of Alexandria, at the end of the second century, offers a much ampler testimony concerning the aphrodisia regime as it seems to have been incorporated into Christian thought. The Paedagogus, though, has a different purpose: it is addressed to Christians after their conversion and their baptism, not to pagans still making their way toward the Church.

#3 The Paedagogus is a collection of rules for living a Christian life. It defines right behavior, but it also defines the right actions that lead to eternal life. The Logos, which is the principle of right action and the movement toward salvation, is the rationality of the real world and the word of God calling one to eternity.

#4 The second and third books of the Paedagogus are a code for living. Underneath the apparent disorder of the chapters, which discuss drinking, luxury in furnishings, and table manners, there is a depiction of regimen.

• Language: English
• Publisher: IRB Media
• Release date: Apr 27, 2022
• ISBN: 9781669395171

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Insights on Michel Foucault's Confessions of the Flesh

Contents

Insights from Chapter 1

Insights from Chapter 2

Insights from Chapter 3

Insights from Chapter 1

#1

The aphrodisia regime, defined in terms of marriage, procreation, and a disqualification of pleasure, was formulated by non-Christian philosophers and teachers, and their pagan society followed it. Christians did not follow this code of conduct, but they did follow the same principles.

#2

The work of Clement of Alexandria, at the end of the second century, offers a much ampler testimony concerning the aphrodisia regime as it seems to have been incorporated into Christian thought. The Paedagogus, though, has a different purpose: it is addressed to Christians after their conversion and their baptism, not to pagans still making their way toward the Church.

#3

The Paedagogus is a collection of rules for living a Christian life. It defines right behavior, but it also defines the right actions that lead to eternal life. The Logos, which is the principle of right action and the movement toward salvation, is the rationality of the real world and the word of God calling one to eternity.

#4

The second and third books of the Paedagogus are a code for living. Underneath the apparent disorder of the chapters, which discuss drinking, luxury in furnishings, and table manners, there is a depiction of regimen.

#5

The Logos speaks through different voices in Clement’s work. It first speaks through the figures of nature, which explain Mosaic law. It then speaks through the human body and its natural impulses, and finally through God speaking to men directly.

#6

The Paedagogus is a book that deals with the rules of practical philosophy, and it is mainly concerned with the question of marriage. Clement defines the major ethical rules that should govern relations between spouses: the bond between them should not be owing to pleasure and sensuality, but to the Logos.

#7

The Paedagogus is a text that deals with the right economy of pleasures, and it defines marriage as a means of procreation. It also defines the right moment for sex between spouses. In Stoic terms, kairos refers to a set of conditions that make a merely permitted action into an action with a positive value.

#8

The Paedagogus is the first text in which marital sexual relations are considered in detail, and as a specific and important element of conduct. It treats sexual relations between marriage partners as an important and relatively autonomous object.

#9

The distinction between the goal and the end of an action is common in the Stoic literature. The goal of sexual relations is to produce children, while the end is to have a positive relationship with those children.

#10

The procreative act is not just a demonstration of man’s goodness, but also of God's. Man is not just imitating the capacities of the demiurgic act, but he is participating in the power and philanthropy of God.

#11

The second book of the Paedagogus is dedicated to the complex and fundamental relations between Creator and creatures. The content of the precepts Clement offers on the subject may be similar to the teachings of the pagan philosophers, but this does not mean that he has relinquished the regulation of sexual relations to a Stoic or Platonic wisdom.

#12

The lessons that Clement borrows from the logic of animals are negative ones. The hyena and the hare teach what