A Study On The Evolution Of Foucault’s Body Aesthetics

This paper focuses on the evolution of foucault’s body aesthetics.Foucault’s body aesthetics has a distinct tendency of anti-consciousness and heavy body,and his analysis of the body situation is very sophisticated,but there is a relative lack of realistic countermeasures of body resistance,which makes foucault face many criticism and censure.Some of these criticisms are to the point,while others are caused by misinterpretation or partial interpretation.Therefore,it is necessary to comprehensively grasp foucault’s body aesthetics.Foucault did not leave a special work on the body,and his treatises on the body were scattered among the works of different periods.His attitude towards the body is also different from time to time.No matter at which stage,foucault always pays attention to the body,and almost all important works mention it.The reason is that foucault still pursues freedom,but it is obvious that the abstract "man" and the conscious subject that he has eliminated cannot bear the foundation of freedom.In foucault’s context,there is no abstract freedom of "man" and subjective freedom of consciousness,only the materialized body can bear the foundation of foucault’s freedom.Thus,under the free will,the importance of the body comes to the forefront,and has always assumed the underlying role of archaeology,genealogy,and ethics.Without the body as the base,there is no "continuity" or even "rupture" in the dimensions of knowledge,power and ethics in foucault’s thought.Therefore,the body is an important perspective and dimension for the interpretation of foucault’s thoughts.Foucault’s attitude to the body is changing.This is the basic clue of the evolution of foucault’s body philosophy from the early stage as the object body of discipline,the middle stage as the subject body of governance to the later stage as the subjectivated body of utopia.Foucault’s body philosophy is the core of his body aesthetics.This paper focuses on this clue and is divided into three chapters:The first chapter describes the object body as discipline.Foucault argues that the body is both punished and disciplined in a powerful society,and that the result is a tame body,a body that is imprisoned.And power and knowledge are the internal cause of the imprisonment of the body,that is,the body should conform to the secular morality constructed by power and knowledge.Foucault believes that this kind of secular morality is just a kind of constraint and restraint,and that people are manifested in the form of objects in the society.This kind of moral and ascetic punishment and discipline is unacceptable to foucault,so foucault negates the body under punishment and discipline,believing that as the object of power,it cannot show beauty or goodness.The second chapter describes the body as the subject of governance.Foucault’s thoughts on governance are centered on the control of sexual experience and sexual concept.In the analysis of the governance and power,foucault found in the body as the possibility of subjectivity,which can be a shift from the traditional governance otherness of governance,namely to sex control,in the sexual experience,sexual attitudes,and other aesthetic way to realize the subject value of the body,the body as the object of discipline power state.The third chapter describes the subjectivated body as a utopia.Foucault believes that the pursuit of true truth requires real care for oneself and a breakthrough in the secular and heterotopia.Therefore,foucault emphasizes the absolute feeling of the body,that is,the utopian body after stripping the absolute self of rationality,ethics and morality.Foucault believes that his practice of utopian body is a process leading to truth.The realization of this utopian body is to realize the real beauty.However,it is paradoxical that foucault’s utopian body did not surpass itself and reach absolute freedom in the practice of a series of extreme physical experiences that constantly crossed the boundary,but went to the ultimate destiny of physical disillusionment.From the body as the object to the subjectivated body,this is not only the process of highlighting the body,but also the process of dissolving the body.This inner tension of foucault’s view of the body is of great significance to the construction of the theory of body aesthetics.The premise of constructing the theory of body aesthetics is to correct the name of the body and establish the subject value of the body at the philosophical level.Otherwise,if the subjective value of the body cannot be realized,the construction of a body aesthetics from the body has no basic logical legitimacy.Although foucault’s ideological exploration failed to finally establish the subject value of the body and ensure that the meaning of the body was absolutely true,it gave typical reflective value to the philosophical foundation of body aesthetics in the academic circle.