The connection between theory and practice is fundamental, but it was thought to be one-sided before Foucault. Foucault drew attention to the reverse side of connection that had place before the seventeenth century: knowledge depended on the mode of being of the subject. Foucault found such an understanding of the role of the practices of the self in Plato: the study of the connection between subject and truth begins with Alcibiades. The report draws attention to Democritus and his ideas that are of interest, since his understanding of the role of virtues that have a connection with knowledge is similar to Plato’s understanding: one can be said of both of them that they are at the origin of the ethics of science.

scientific virtues, ethics of science, mode of being of the subject, the practice of the self, paideia