Michel Foucault FEARLESS SPEECH Edited by Josepb Pearson SEMIOTEXT(E) CONTENTS EDITOR'S PREFACE 7 1. The Word ParThesia 9 THE MEANING OF THE WORD 11 Frankness 12 Truth 13 Danger 15 Criticism 17 Duty 19 THE EVOLUT'ON OF THE WORD 20 Rhetoric 20 Politics 22 Philosophy 23 2. Parrhesia in Euripides 25 Special thanks to Johanna Balusikova fur design and to Sylvere THE PHOENICIAN WOMEN 26 Lotringer and Ben Meyers. for editing: and copy~editing HIPPOLYTII$ 30 © Gerard Aime and DanielJe Bancilhon for the Foucault photos on the THEBACCHAE 31 front cover and inside back cover, respectively. ELECTIIA 33 ION 36 This work received support from the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Cultural Services of the French Embassy in the United States. Hermes' Prologue 36 Apollo's Silence 40 ScmioteXt(e) lon's Role 44 2571 W. 5,' SlIeet 52 L"" Angeles, Ca, 90057 USA Creusa's Role e-mail: [email protected] ORESTES 57 PRO.LEMATlZ'NG PARRHESIA 71 2001 © Semiotext(e) All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America 3. Parrhesia in the Crisis of Democratic Institutions 75 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 4. pam.esia in the Care of the Self 89 SocRATIC PARRHESIA 91 THE PRACTICE OF PARRHESIA 107 In Human Relationships 107 Community life 108 Public life 115 Personal relationships 133 In Techniques of Examination 142 Preliminary remarks 142 Solitary self-<!!xaminatlon 145 "My intention was not to deal with the problem of truth, but Self-diagnosis 150 with the problem of the truth-teller, or of truth-telling as an Self-testing 160 activity: ... who is able to tell the truth, about what, with what consequences, and with what relations to power.... Concluding Remarks 167 [W]ith the question of the importance of telling the truth, knowing who is able to tell the truth, and knowing why we Bibliography 175 should tell the truth, we have the roots of what we could call the ;critical' tradition in the West." Michel Foucault 7 EDITOR'S PREFACE The following text was compiled from tape-recordings made of six lectures delivered, in English, by Michel Foucault at the University of California at Berkeley in the Fall Term of 1983. The lectures were given as part of Foucault's seminar, entitled "Discourse and Truth," devoted to the study of the Greek notion of parrhesia or "frankness in speaking the truth." Since Foucault did not write, correct, or edit any part of the text which follows, it lacks his imprimatur and does not reflect his own lecture notes. What is given here constitutes only the notes of one of his auditors. Althongh the present text is primarily a verbatim transcription of the lectures, repetitive sentences and phrases have been eliminated, responses to questions have been incorporated, whenever possible, into the lectures themselves, more accessible translations of certain Greek texts have been substituted, and numerous sentences have been revised, all in the hopcof producing a more read­ able set·of notes. The division of the lectures into sections, the section headings, all footnotes, and a bibliogmphy giving ref­ erences to footnoted material, also have been added. The editor gmtefolly acknowledges his indebtedness to John Carvalho for providing information which enabled him to audit Foucault's course. He also expresses his g.... titude to Dougal Blyth for advice on various matters pertaining to the classical Greek texts Foucault discusses. In addition, he thanks Jacquelyn Taylor for her help in IOCliting some of Foucault's references. Joseph Pearson Department of Philosophy. Nonhwestem UniversitY 1. The Word Parrhesia l FEARLESS SPEECH 11 THE MEANING OF THE WORD' The word parrhesia [1tappl)aia] appears for the first time in Greek literature in Euripides [c.484-407 B.C.], and occurs throughout the ancient Greek world oOetters from the end of the Fifth Century B.C. But it can also still be found in the pattistic texts written at the end of the Fourth and during the Fifth Century A.D.-dozens of times, for instance, in lean Chrysostome [A.D. 345-407]. There are three forms of the word: the nominal form par­ rhesia; the verb form parrhesiazomai [ 1tappllcrtci~oJ.llll] (or bet­ ter' parrhesiazesthai [1tapP1l<Jtci~et;em]); and there is also the word parrhesiastes [1tapPllcrtamrl<;], which is not very frequent and cannot be found in the Classical texts. Rather, you find it only in the Greco-Roman period-in Plutarch and Lucian, for example. In a dialogue of Lucian, "The Dead Come to Life, or The Fisherman, », one of the characters also has the name Parrhcsiades [nappl)crta&r]<;l. Parrhesia is ordinarily translated into English by "free speech" (in French by franc-parler, and in German by Freimuthigkeit). Parrhesiazomai or parrhesiazesthai is to use par­ rhesia, and the parrhesiastes is the one who uses parrhesia, i.e., the one who speaks the truth. In the first part of today's seminar, I would like to give 1. First Leeture: 10 October 1983. 2. Cf. H. Liddell & R. Scott, "TIapp1\aiu" in A GreeJ<.-English Lexicon, 1344; Pierre Miquel, "TIapp1lola" In Dictionnaire de Spirilualitc) Vol. 12. cot 260--261; and Hejnrich Schlier, "TIapPTtcriu. na:pPTlcru:i~O!1«t" in 'I1ux;lcgicai Dictitmaty of the New Testament, Vol. 5, 871-886. 3. Lucian) "The Dead Come to Life, or The Fisherman,» Trans, A, M. Harmon in The WOrks ofLucian. Vol. 3, 1-81. 13 12 Mlchel fovcat.;/t FeARLESS $PI!HiCH a general apen;u about the meaning of the word parrhesia, and we could say that there is also the subject of the enuncian­ the evolution of this meaning through Greek and Roman culture. dum- which refers to the held belief or opinion of the speak­ er. Inparrheria the speaker emphasizes the fact that he is both Frankness the subject of the enunciation and the subject of the enun­ To begin with, what is the geoeral meaning of the word par­ ciandum-that he himself is the subject of the opinion to rheria! Etymologically, parrhesiazesthai means "to say every­ which he refers. The specific "speech activity" of the parrhesi­ thing"-from pan [nav] (everything) and rhema [pilj.ta] (that astic enunciation thus takes the form: "I am the one who which is said). The one who uses parrhesia, the parrhesiastes, is thinks this and that." I use the phrase "speech activity" rather .someone who says everything he4 has in mind: he does not than John Searle's "speech act" (or Austin's "performarive hide anything, but opens his hean and mind completely to urterance") in order to distinguish the parrhesiastic utterance other people through his discourse. In parrhesia, the speaker is and its commitments from the usual sorts of commitment supposed to give a complete and exact account of what he has which obtain between someone and what he or she says. For, in mind so that the audience is able to comprehend exactly as we shall see, the commitment involved inparrhesia is linked what the speaker thinks. The word pameria, then, refers to • to a certain social situation, to a difference of statuS between type of relationship between the speaker and what he says. For the speaker and his audience, to the fact that the parritesiastcs inparrheria, the speaker makes it manifestly clear and obvious says something which is dangerous to himself and thus that what he says is his own opinion. And he does this by involves a risk, and so on. avoiding any kind"f rhetoricalform which would veil what he thinks. Instead, the parrhesiastes uses the most direct words Truth and forms of expression he can find. Whereas rhetoric pro­ There are twO types of pamesia which we must distinguish. vides the speaker with technical devices to help him prevail First, there is a pejorative seose of the word not very far from upon the minds of his audience (regardless of the rhetorician's "chattering/' and which consists in saying any~ or everything own opinion concerning what he says), in parrhesia, the par­ one has in mind without qualification. This pejorative sense rheriastes acts on other people's minds by showing them as occurS in Plato,5 for example, as a characterization of the bad directly as possible what he actually believes. democratic constitution where everyone has the right to Ifwe distinguish betwcen the speaking subject (the subject address his fellow citizens and to tell them anything-even of enunciation) and the grammarical subject of the enounced, the most stupid Or dangerous things for the city. This pejora­ tive meaning is also found more frequeody in Christian liter­ ature where such o(bad" parrhesia is opposed to silence as a 4. Responding to a student's question~ Foucault indicated that the oppressed role of women in Greek society generally deprived them of the use of parrhesia (along with aliens, slaves, and children). Hence the pre~ dominant use of the masCUline pronoun throughout, 5. Plato, Republic 577b. cr. also Phaedtu, 240e & Laws 649b, 671b. 15 14 Michel Foucault FEARLESS SPEECH discipline or as the requisite condition fur the contemplation tic attitude. For before Descartes obtains indubitably clear and of God.' As a verbal activity which reflects every movement of distinct evidence, he is not certain that what he believes is, in the heart and miod, P""Msia in this negative sense is obvious­ fact, true. In the Greek conception of pmrhesia, however, there lyan obstacle to the contemplation of God. does not seem to be a problem about the acquisition of the Most of the time, however, pmrhesUz does not have tbis truth since such truth-having is guaranteed by the possession pejorative meaning in the classical texts, but rather a positive of certain moral qualities: when someone has certain moral one.