Cerrato M. Michel Foucault’s Practical Philosophy: A Critique of Subjectivation Processes

SUNY Press, 2025. — 150 p.Offers a wholistic approach to Michel Foucault's thought introducing the idea of practical philosophy as an original interpretative framework.
Michel Foucault's thought, Maddalena Cerrato writes, may be understood as practical philosophy. In this perspective, political analysis, philosophy of history, epistemology, and ethics appear as necessarily cast together in a philosophical project that aims to rethink freedom and emancipation from domination of all kinds. The idea of practical philosophy accounts for Foucault's specific approach to the object, as well as to the task of philosophy, and it identifies the perspective that led him to consider the question of subjectivity as the guiding thread of his work. Overall, Cerrato shows the deep consistency underlying Foucault's reflection and the substantial coherence of his philosophical itinerary, setting aside all the conventional interpretations that pivot on the idea that his thought underwent a radical "turn" from the political engagement of the question of power toward an ethical retrieval of the question of subjectivity.Foreword to the English Edition and Acknowledgments
Introduction
Practical Philosophy as the Horizon of Foucault’s Thought
Power, Biopower, Governmentality
The Christian Model Pastoral Care and Government of Truth
Subjectivation Processes and the Task of Philosophy
Afterword The Legacy of Foucault’s Practical Philosophy
Notes
Bibliography
Index