Akademik Veri Yönetim Sistemi
Colloquium Anatolicum, sa.16, ss.71-97, 2017 (Hakemli Dergi)
For a few centuries in Classical Greece, Michel Foucault claimed, people were able to shape their lives
according to the principles of beauty, and to “constitute” themselves instead of “discovering” themselves.
They achieved this through specific practices conducted by the self on the self to attain a state of happiness,
wisdom and moderation. The thinker largely ignores, however, the close relationship between this care of
the self and the Athenian democratic mechanism, focusing instead only the process itself. He also argues
that these practices were only confined to the future potential leaders of Athens and that they were in essence an aristocratic occupation. This paper aims to prove the opposite, that these “technologies of the self ”
were encouraged by speeches and several democratic developments in order to make them more accessible
to the general population, and to highlight their organic connection with the Athenian democratic practices, which Foucault barely discusses.