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Foucault's Askesis : An Introduction to the Philosophical Life, Paperback by .... Foucault's Askesis : An Introduction to the Philosophical Life, Paperback by Mcgushin, Edward F., ISBN 0810122839, ISBN-13 9780810122833, Brand New, Free shipping in the US In his renowned courses at the Collège de France from 1982 to 1984, Michel Foucault devoted his lectures to meticulous readings and interpretations of the works of Plato, Epictetus, Seneca, and Marcus Aurelius, among others. In this his aim was not, Edward F. McGushin contends, to develop a new knowledge of the history of philosophy; rather, it was to let himself be transformed by the very activity of thinking. Thus, this work shows us Foucault in the last phase of his life in the act of becoming a philosopher. Here we see how his encounter with ancient philosophy allowed him to experience the practice of philosophy as, to paraphrase Nietzsche, a way of becoming who one is: the work of self-formation that the Greeks called ask e sis .