Love Story. Volume 4. Confessions of the Flesh

"Confessions of the Flesh" is the last work of the outstanding French philosopher and historian Michel Foucault (1926-1984), completed in rough form shortly before his death and published in the original language only in 2018. It continues the project conceived and initiated by Foucault in the mid-1970s under the general title "The History of Sexuality", the scope of which goes far beyond sexual relationships between people and their interpretation in the ancient and Christian culture of the West. In "Confessions of the Flesh", the discussion revolves around the development of questions regarding the flesh in the works of Eastern and Western Church Fathers from the 2nd to the 4th centuries, the formation during the same period of monastic and ascetic practices related to the body, flesh, and gender, the Christian regulation of marital relationships, and, more broadly, the evolution of the Christian concept of marriage. Behind all these themes, the main philosophical stake of "The History of Sexuality" and Foucault's later thought emerges - the investigation into the formation of subjectivity as the representation of the self and one's relationship to oneself.