Foucault's Hermeneutics of the Self: A Framework for the Genealogy of Sexual Ethics
Subject Areas : Research in Theoritical Politics
Mahdi Soltaani-Gordfaramarzi
1
,
Mohammad Javad Gholamreza Kashi
2
,
Ghobad Mansourbakht
3
1 - Ph.D. Student of Iranology, Shahid Beheshti University, Iranology Foundation, Tehran, Iran.
2 - Associate professor, Department of Political Science, Faculty of Law and Political Science, Allameh Tabataba'i University, Tehran, Iran.
3 - Associate Professor, Department of History, Shahid Beheshti University, Tehran, Iran.
Keywords: Hermeneutics of the self, genealogy of the subject, technologies of the self, test of the self, confession.,
Abstract :
Foucault's Hermeneutics of the Self: A Framework
for the Genealogy of Sexual Ethics
Mahdi Soltani Gordfaramarzi*
Mohammad Javad Gholamreza Kashi**
Ghobad Mansourbakht***
Michel Foucault’s later discussions in the 1980s represent a fundamental shift from a sole focus on the genealogy of power–knowledge discourses to the analysis of modes of subjectivation in what he terms the “hermeneutics of the self.” This theoretical study, focusing on the concept of the hermeneutics of the self, seeks to clarify its theoretical foundations and analytical capacities in relation to the genealogy of sexual ethics. Foucault demonstrates how self-techniques in ancient traditions, such as the “test of the self” based on the recollection of rules, and in Christianity, such as “confession” as a decoding of inner truth, guided the individual toward self-recognition as an ethical and sexual subject. Analysis of these techniques reveals that the subject is not a fixed, pre-existing entity but a historical construct formed in the interaction between power, knowledge, and practices of self-care. The article shows that the hermeneutics of the self, as a theoretical approach, not only explains the transformation of sexual experience in the West but also holds significant potential for the historical and discursive study of sexual ethics in the Iranian context. Accordingly, this article offers an innovative reading of the hermeneutics of the self, providing a new perspective for Iranian studies and enabling a reconsideration of the relations among power, truth, and sexual ethics in Iran’s cultural history.
Keywords: Hermeneutics of the self, genealogy of the subject, technologies of the self, test of the self, confession.
Extended Abstract
Introduction
Michel Foucault’s late intellectual project, which took shape primarily in the final decade of his life, signals a decisive shift in his critical inquiry into power, knowledge, and subjectivity. Whereas Foucault’s earlier works, within the frameworks of archaeology and genealogy, were largely concerned with the historical examination of discursive formations, institutional practices, and disciplinary mechanisms, his later writings and lectures increasingly focus on the ethical dimension of subjectivity. This shift finds its most explicit expression in the concept of the “hermeneutics of the self,” a concept that refers to specific historical modes through which individuals are invited, obliged, or compelled to interpret themselves as subjects of truth. This turn toward ethics does not represent a rupture with Foucault’s earlier analyses of power, but rather an internal transformation of his critical method—one that makes possible a more comprehensive genealogy of ethical and sexual subjectivity.
This article argues that the hermeneutics of the self occupies a central yet under-theorized position within the overall architecture of Foucault’s thought. The concept functions as a theoretical hinge between archaeology, genealogy, and ethics, providing an indispensable framework for understanding how subjects are constituted not only through external constraints but also through active practices of relating to themselves. From this perspective, sexual ethics cannot be understood solely through juridical models of prohibition, repression, or moral normativity; rather, it must be conceived as a historical and contingent field of ethical problematization in which individuals come to recognize themselves as sexual subjects through practices of self-examination, confession, discipline, and ethical reflection.
Research Background
The article first situates the hermeneutics of the self within the broader trajectory of Foucault’s intellectual development. From his early studies of madness, medicine, and the human sciences to his genealogical analyses of discipline, biopolitics, and governmentality, Foucault consistently challenged essentialist and universalist conceptions of the human subject. In Discipline and Punish and the first volume of The History of Sexuality, he demonstrated how modern subjects are produced through disciplinary techniques and regulatory mechanisms that operate at both the individual and population levels. Yet these works left partially open a fundamental question: how individuals actively participate in the process of their own subjectivation. Foucault’s later lectures and writings address precisely this issue, redirecting attention to the ethical practices through which subjects establish their relationship to truth.
Theoretical Approach
At the core of this inquiry lies the concept of “technologies of the self,” which refers to the ways in which individuals act upon their bodies, thoughts, conduct, and modes of being in order to transform themselves in accordance with particular ethical ideals. The hermeneutics of the self denotes a specific configuration of these technologies in which the “self” becomes an object of interpretation and disclosure. Foucault explicitly rejects the idea of an inner, pre-discursive self waiting to be discovered. For him, subjectivity is the historical product of practices that link truth-telling, power relations, and ethical obligation. Accordingly, the self is neither an autonomous essence nor merely an effect of domination, but rather the outcome of historically contingent forms of exercising power over oneself.
Method
Methodologically, the article adopts a theoretical and interpretive approach rooted in Foucauldian genealogy. Rather than presenting an empirical study, it reconstructs a conceptual framework capable of guiding genealogical analyses of sexual ethics across different historical and cultural contexts. Genealogy, in this sense, does not seek origins or linear developments, but instead focuses on ruptures, transformations, and contingent formations of ethical subjectivity. The primary sources include Foucault’s works, lectures, and interviews, alongside a critical engagement with secondary literature in philosophy, social theory, and gender studies.
Findings
A substantial portion of the article is devoted to a comparative analysis of ethical subjectivity in Greco-Roman philosophy and early Christianity. Drawing on Foucault’s readings of Stoic, Epicurean, medical, and early Christian texts, the article demonstrates how different regimes of truth produce distinct configurations of ethical and sexual subjectivity. In Greek ethics, sexual conduct was primarily problematized in terms of moderation, balance, and self-mastery. Practices such as self-examination, meditation, and mnemonic exercises were oriented toward the recollection and stabilization of ethical principles, rather than the interpretation of inner desire. The ethical subject produced within this framework may be described as an ascetic subject—a subject who orders sexual conduct through rational discipline rather than through confession or continuous self-disclosure.
Early Christianity introduced a fundamental transformation in this ethical configuration. Through practices such as confession, obedience, spiritual guidance, and the constant scrutiny of thoughts, Christianity established a hermeneutic regime in which the self became a permanent object of suspicion and interpretation. Sexual desire was no longer merely a matter of conduct, but became a privileged site of truth requiring continual interpretation and articulation. The obligation to disclose one’s inner thoughts and desires to an external authority transformed the ethical subject into a being whose moral status depended on the articulation of hidden truth. The article argues that this Christian hermeneutics of the self constituted a decisive historical rupture in the genealogy of sexual ethics, profoundly reshaping Western moral experience and laying the groundwork for modern techniques of normalization and self-surveillance.
On the basis of this historical analysis, the article shows that modern sexuality is not a natural or biological given, but a discursive and ethical construction. Modern scientific, psychiatric, pedagogical, and psychological discourses have inherited Christian confessional techniques in secularized form, transforming them into methods of examination, diagnosis, and normalization. Individuals are encouraged to interpret their desires, identities, and behaviors through expert knowledge, thereby constituting themselves as sexual subjects. The hermeneutics of the self enables a critical understanding of these processes by revealing how ethical relations to oneself become subtle mechanisms of power that operate not through overt coercion, but through voluntary self-scrutiny.
The article also addresses major critiques directed at Foucault’s later work, particularly accusations of moral relativism, individualism, and political quietism. Critics have argued that the hermeneutics of the self lacks a normative foundation and reduces ethics to individualized practices of self-fashioning. In response, the article demonstrates that Foucault’s project is not normative but diagnostic: the hermeneutics of the self offers a critical ontology of the present that reveals the historical conditions under which particular forms of ethical subjectivity acquire authority. Far from depoliticizing ethics, this framework shows how power operates precisely through practices that appear voluntary, internalized, and self-governing.
The article further clarifies the relationship between the hermeneutics of the self and Foucault’s analysis of governmentality. Ethical practices of relating to oneself do not operate in a vacuum, but are embedded within broader regimes of governance that seek to guide conduct through freedom rather than coercion. By compelling individuals to assume ethical and sexual responsibility for themselves, the hermeneutics of the self becomes a technology of governance that aligns individual self-understanding with dominant regimes of truth and morality. This dynamic is particularly salient in modern sexual ethics, where regulation increasingly takes place through discourses of choice, responsibility, self-care, and authenticity.
Moreover, the article advances a methodological intervention by foregrounding ethical practices of the self as a central site for genealogical analysis. By shifting the focus from institutional norms and official discourses to the micropolitics of ethical self-relations, it becomes possible to gain a more precise understanding of how sexual ethics operates at the level of everyday conduct and moral reflection. Ethical subjectivity thus appears not as a secondary effect, but as a pivotal mechanism at the intersection of power, knowledge, and subjectivity.
Finally, the article explores the applicability of the hermeneutics of the self beyond Western historical contexts. Although Foucault’s empirical analyses are largely confined to Greco-Roman and Christian traditions, his conceptual framework can be productively employed to study non-Western ethical regimes. Iranian and Islamic traditions—particularly practices of ethical self-examination, ascetic discipline, mystical self-cultivation, and juridical–ethical regulation—can be analyzed as technologies of the self that establish distinct relationships between truth, authority, and subjectivity. This approach avoids both cultural essentialism and simplistic universalism, offering instead a historically grounded and context-sensitive genealogy.
Conclusion
In conclusion, the article argues that the hermeneutics of the self constitutes one of the most fundamental and theoretically fertile dimensions of Foucault’s critical project. By shifting the analytical focus from repression and law to practices of self-formation and truth-telling, this framework enables a powerful genealogy of sexual ethics. Sexual ethics, from this perspective, is not merely the imposition of external norms, but the active product of ethical relations that individuals establish with themselves. By clarifying the conceptual status of the hermeneutics of the self and demonstrating its applicability in comparative and historical studies, the article makes a theoretical contribution to Foucauldian studies, ethics, and sexuality.
Refrences
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--------------- (1972) The archaeology of knowledge. Pantheon Books.
--------------- (1984) Nietzsche, genealogy, history. In P. Rabinow (Ed.) , The Foucault reader (pp. 76–100). Pantheon Books.
-------------- (1985) The history of sexuality, volume 2: The use of pleasure. Vintage Books.
-------------- (1986) The history of sexuality, volume 3: The care of the self. Vintage Books.
-------------- (1995) Discipline and punish: The birth of the prison. Vintage Books.
-------------- (2016) About the beginning of the hermeneutics of the self: Lectures at Dartmouth College, 1980. University of Chicago Press.
-------------- (2018) The history of sexuality, volume 4: Confessions of the flesh. Pantheon Books.
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* Corresponding Author: Ph.D. Student of Iranology, Shahid Beheshti University, Iranology Foundation, Tehran, Iran.
0009-0006-2213-3260
**Associate professor, Department of Political Science, Faculty of Law and Political Science, Allameh Tabataba'i University, Tehran, Iran.
0000-0002-8952-370X
***Associate Professor, Department of History, Shahid Beheshti University, Tehran, Iran.
0000-0003-1475-0008
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-------------- (1985) The history of sexuality, volume 2: The use of pleasure. Vintage Books.
-------------- (1986) The history of sexuality, volume 2: The use of pleasure. Vintage Books.
-------------- (1986) The history of sexuality, volume 3: The care of the self. Vintage Books.
-------------- (1995) Discipline and punish: The birth of the prison. Vintage Books.
-------------- (2016) About the beginning of the hermeneutics of the self: Lectures at Dartmouth College, 1980. University of Chicago Press.
-------------- (2018) The history of sexuality, volume 4: Confessions of the flesh. Pantheon Books.
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