Craft of Soul

This book reconstructs an ancient theory of power and applies it to contemporary debates on sovereignty. It begins by reconstructing techne as a form of strategic power-knowledge through an examination of Archaic and Classical Greek texts. It then analyses its political manifestation, politike techne, which Socrates describes as ‚the craft of the soul‘. In Plato’s later thought, this craft is directed toward the education and normalisation of individual souls. Finally, politike techne, early modern reason of state, and Guantánamo Bay are examined as distinct paradigms of the generation of sovereignty.