Explication："What's Enlightenment?"-Michel Foucault－This Page Cannot be found.

However, modernity for Baudelaire is not simply a form of relationship to the present; it is also a mode of relationship that must be established with oneself. The deliberate attitude of modernity is tied to an indispensable asceticism. To be modern is not to accept oneself as one is in the flux of the passing moments; it is to take oneself as object of a complex and difficult elaboration: what Baudelaire, in the vocabulary of his day, calls . Here I shall not recall in detail the well-known passages on “vulgar, earthy, vile nature”; on man’s indispensable revolt against himself; on the doctrine of elegance” which imposes “upon its ambitious and humble disciples” a discipline more despotic than the most terrible religious; the pages, finally, on the asceticism of the dandy who makes of his body, his behavior, his feelings and passions, his very existence, a work of art. Modern man, for Baudelaire, is not the man who goes off to discover himself, his secrets and his hidden truth; he is the man who tries to invent himself. This modernity does not “liberate man in his own being”; it compels him to face the task of producing himself. ("What's Enlightenment?"-Michel Foucault)

Michel Foucault認為現代性肇因於對理性之批判，現代性指涉為一種態度的層次上（attitude of modernity），同時也為一種非連續性的斷層經驗，為人類指出認識自身的存在哲學。又現代性實是關聯到當下（contemporary reality）的一種態度或氣質（ethos），而當中具有雙重性的矛盾意義，那就是批判現代與英雄式現代。前者所謂的批判是指對現下的反思，而不是早先價值脈絡下的判斷導引；後者的英雄式現代，便意指人對於現代/當下時間之不可連續性的探求，進而認清當下給人的限制，並欲超越它。這邊便是Foucault所說的現代性的雙重矛盾，因此Michel Foucault認為現代性所蘊含的態度是很諷刺的。

Michel Foucault認為Baudelaire筆下的現代性，最能適切地傳達他所認同的那種現代性態度。Baudelaire寫出人感受到的那種現代時間不可連續性的意識：「This modernity does not “liberate man in his own being”; it compels him to face the task of producing himself.」 Michel Foucault在闡釋Baudelaire的時候，他提到對於Baudelaire而言現代人不是要去發現他的自我、他的秘密、隱藏的真理，而是設法發明他的自我、創造自我的。Michel Foucault這段話意味著自我是個人建構出來的，而且不斷地再建構，個人的內在並不存在於一種不變的本質，可以讓個人去發現，所以主體不是要去發現他的自我、秘密、隱藏的真理，而是要發明他的自我、創造自我，這就是一種反對將自我視為內裡存在一種本質，而主張一種建構的認識論，Michel Foucault論述當中根本無所謂的本質或靈魂可言。Michel Foucault是將每個人視為一個複雜被建構的對象，藉由最具現代性典範Baudelaire之例，Michel Foucault展現了面對真實生活世界的積極認識態度。可說Michel Foucault認同Baudelaire的審美現代性，視之以發明自我存在方式的態度。換言之，Michel Foucault所認同的現代性的態度並非僅是與當下的關係聯繫，而同為一種建立與自身關係的方法。

Michel Foucault引用Baudelaire的用意除了Baudelaire以dandysme為象徵主體展開對現代性精確的感知和描述，亦在於以其藝術之自我創造為隱喻，讓後人明白現代性的自我創造與汲於追求當下之矛盾所在。因為Baudelaire的創作調和了自我創造存在與被建構認知兩部份，表現出現代人體驗自己的界限，並在每個當下創造自己的意義。因為這樣的現代性態度讓Michel Foucault指出啟蒙是一種哲學探問，探問著人與當下的關係，以及人如何認識自我主體。