Michel Foucault is one of the most influential European philosophers of the second half of the 20th century. "The Use of Pleasure" is the key book of the last stage of his work; in it, M. Foucault proposes and substantiates in detail a new program of research on the “genealogy of knowledge” and a new methodological apparatus corresponding to this program. Together with Foucault’s books “The History of Punishment” and “The History of Madness,” already translated into Russian, this study truly revolutionized modern ethical and political thought and significantly changed the view of Western intellectuals on the structure and foundations of modern society and man.