The Hermeneutics of the Subject is the third volume in the collection of Michel Foucault's lectures at the College de France. They were more speculative and free-ranging than the arguments of such groundbreaking works as The History of Sexuality or Madness and Civilization. In the lectures comprising this volume, Foucault focuses upon the ways the "self" and consequently "self-study" have been conceived since the days of antiquity, starting with Socrates. Definitions and conceptions of "self-study" in Greek and Roman literature, Foucault argues, remain in force today, and underlie modern interpretations of the self.