Confessions of the Flesh The History of Sexuality, Volume 4

The fourth and final volume in Michel Foucault’s acclaimed History of Sexuality, completed just before his death in 1984 and finally available to the public
 
One of the most influential thinkers of the twentieth century, Michel Foucault made an indelible impact on Western thought. The first three volumes in his History of Sexuality—which trace cultural and intellectual notions of sexuality, arguing that it has been profoundly shaped by the power structures applied to it—constitute some of Foucault’s most important work. This fourth volume posits that the origins of totalitarian self-surveillance began with the Christian practice of confession. The manuscript had long been secreted away, in accordance with Foucault’s stated wish that there be no posthumous publication of his unpublished work.
 
With the sale of the Foucault archives in 2013, Foucault’s nephew felt that the time had come to publish this final volume in Foucault’s seminal history. Philosophically, it is a chapter in his hermeneutics of the desiring subject. Historically, it focuses on the remodeling of subjectivity carried out by the early Christian Fathers, who set out to transform the classical Logos of truthful human discourse into a theologos—the divine Word of a pure sovereign.
 
What did God will in the matter of righteous sexual practice? Foucault parses out the logic of the various responses proffered by theologians over the centuries, culminating with Saint Augustine’s fascinating discussion of the libido. Sweeping and deeply personal, Confessions of the Flesh is a tour de force from a philosophical master

MICHEL FOUCAULT was born in Poitiers, France, in 1926. He lectured at universities throughout the world; served as director at the Institut Français in Germany and the Institut de Philosophie at the University of Clermont-Ferrand in France; and wrote frequently for French newspapers and periodicals. At the time of his death in 1984, he held a chair at one of France's most prestigious institutions, the Collège de France.

Foreword vii
 
Part I. The Formation of a New Experience 1
1. Creation, Procreation 3
2. The Laborious Baptism 37
3. The Second Penance 58
4. The Art of Arts 79
 
Part II. Being Virgin 111
1. Virginity and Continence 117
2. On the Arts of Virginity 135
3. Virginity and Self-Knowledge 158
 
Part III. Being Married 191
1. The Duty of Spouses 193
2. The Good and the Goods of Marriage 221
3. The Libidinization of Sex 256
 
Appendices 287
Notes 325
Bibliography 385
Translator’s Note 379