help with Ricoeur or Foucault?

Question

Contemporary continental philosophers agree that personal identity and subjectivity are not grounded in a transcendental self as a substance that defines an essential human nature.

BRIEFLY describe either Michel Foucault or Paul Ricoeur's understanding of self and subjectivity in terms of the implications that follow from their thought on how we should live our lives .

i need help, NOT advice. please consider when posting an answer and try not to be an idiot, it's not helpful. Thanks.

Answer 1

You're unlikely to get a useful answer here. Yahoo Answers isn't the most highbrow q-and-a venue on the web; we're pretty good at finding articles on wikipedia, but you'd have to be really lucky for someone with a thorough knowledge of either Foucault or Ricoeur to stumble upon your question. If you don't get an answer here, consider paying the $5 membership fee and posting your question to http://ask.metafilter.com.

My own familiarity with Ricoeur and Foucault is really fairly minimal. Here's my take: As structuralists (albeit structuralists of slightly different camps), they both understood the "self" to be a linguistic phenomenon. Not a "substance" or an "essence" and certainly not a "soul," but rather a way of talking about the capacity of an individual to have experiences which are mediated by language. The self, although discredited as a centered, non-fragmentary individual essence, is still considered valid as a witness.

I'm not sure how to interpret your idea of "their thought on how we should live our lives." Ricoeur, especially, wrote mostly about hermeneutics, and for most people hermeneutic praxis isn't part of day-to-day existence. Both Ricoeur and Foucault are more esoteric than practical, and I'm not sure that either of their bodies of work could be considered a manual for living except in the most roundabout way.

Answer 2

relies upon your philosophy.Many philosophies are tried and genuine or sensible.Others have never been demonstrated and so as that they exist simplest as a thought. I prefer to test my philosophies via making use of many situations publishing them right right here for a evaluation.call it a sprint of lack of self assurance. A philosophy can not exist as a thought and a reasonable component on an identical time as.You cant have your cake and eat it too.this is the two a theory or a actuality and a actuality has a functional aplication.

Answer 3

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michel_Foucault
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Ricoeur