M. Foucault and G. Agamben: Philosophy of Cynicism and the Role of the Artist in Culture

Abstract

What can be common between a politician, a philosopher and an artist? The French philosopher and culturologist Michel Foucault, based on a thorough and detailed analysis of ancient culture, identified several significant problems for European culture: ethics of telling the truth, the meaning of philosophy, the style of existence and the form of subjectivation, which are illustrated by the example of the ancient Socratic philosophical school of the Cynics. Michel Foucault himself suggested that perhaps this philosophical school laid the «matrix of the ethical experience» of European man. The author of this article made an attempt to analyze the image of the artist, formulated by the modern Italian philosopher Giorgio Agamben in his work “The Man Without Content”, in order to confirm or refute the hypothesis about the continuity of the artists of some of the characteristic features of the philosophical school of Cynics.