'Oikonomia' et 'regimen'. À propos d’une critique de M. Foucault par G. Agamben

Abstract

This article proposes a response to the criticism addressed by G. Agamben, in Le Règne et la Gloire (2008), to the Foucaldian genealogy of governmentality. In seeking in the Christian thought of the first centuries the matrix of a new conception of power as the government of men – “economy” or the guidance of souls –, Foucault would have ignored the properly theological meaning, within the Trinitarian system, of the word oikonomia. We would like to show, from a re-reading of the 2nd Discourse (362) of Gregory of Nazianzus (329-390), from which Foucault derives the concept of an “economy of souls”, that this idea does not presuppose any reference to the Trinitarian scheme and refers much more to the model of Roman "patronage", coupled with the priestly figure of the good shepherd. This analysis will lead, moreover, to recall the link of the "direction of souls" with the medical paradigm