On Foucault's Aesthetics Of Existence

In his whole life, Foucault's studies have such a great expansion and such a high complexity that there seems to be a large discontinuity in his thoughts. In his works, subject is treated as a clue which hides and persists during all of his academic explorations. The author thinks that it is necessary to study the subject as a whole in all the works of Foucault, whereby we can clarify the origin and development of his concept of the Aesthetics of Existence. In this paper, we take as meridians Foucault's focus on the subject, as parallels the reality of the consummative society, so the content and the immediate significance of the Aesthetics of Existence could be revealed.Firstly, in search of the origin of the Aesthetics of Existence, the author remotes to the ancient Greek and the modern occidental philosophy (especially Nietzsche and Merleau-Ponty). The Aesthetics of Existence is generated by the Hellenic tradition of "concern for the self which pays attention to a treatment of the life as an art, and gives top priority to the aesthetic creation of self, and regards as a nucleus the concern of the self. Refusing the Cartesian transcendental subject, Foucault analyzed "the historical ontology of ourselves", on demonstrating one of several possibilities: reaction against the identity by the body of ourselves.Secondly, Foucault started his exploration which contains two main processes: for one hand, a refusal of the subject and a deconstruction of the subject of knowledge-power; for another, an attention to the body practices, an recognition of the ontological status of the body, and a construction of the aesthetic value carried by the emancipation of the body. The publication of the Aesthetics of Existence means that Foucault has accomplished the account for the issue about subject, that is to place the realization of subject to the ethic/aesthetic level.Finally, this paper will discuss the necessity and the feasibility of Aesthetics of Existence for the society of nowadays, as well as the revelation it gives to us. The Aesthetics of Existence attaches an importance on "constituting oneself as subject" which suggest that we should place hope on ourselves and transcend and create, so as to construct a true self, when facing a consummative society whose "sense of happiness", like foam, submerges the true self. So we can see clearly that which is an alienation to the beauty and which is a real anesthetization of daily life.