Fearless Speech

6 lectures given by Michel Foucault

in the Fall of 1983
Contemporary Philosophy: Douglas Olena
Outline

The Word Parrhesia

The meaning of the word
The evolution of the word
Outline
Parrhesia in Euripides
The Phoenician Woman
Hippolytus
The Bacchae
Electra
Ion
Orestes
Problematizing Parrhesia
Outline

Parrhesia in the care of the self

Socratic parrhesia
The practice of parrhesia
in human relationships
in techniques of examination
 The Meaning
of the Word
11 “The word parrhesia appears for the first time in
Greek literature in Euripides [c.484-407 B.C.], and
occurs throughout the ancient Greek world of letters
from the end of the Fifth Century B.C.”
It is also found in the patristic texts in the 4th and 5th
centuries A.D. That is not all. Kittel’s Theological
Dictionary of the New Testament records a long
tradition in the Hellenized Hebrew world, in Philo
and Josephus, in the Septuagint and New Testament.
 The Meaning
of the Word

11 “Parrhesia is ordinarily translated into English as

‘free speech.’” The “parrhesiastes is the one who uses
parrhesia, i.e., the one who speaks the truth.”
The Meaning
of the Word
Frankness p. 12
Truth p. 13
Danger p. 15
Criticism p. 17
Duty p. 19
 The Meaning
of the Word
12 Frankness
“the parrhesiastes, is someone who says everything
he has in mind: he does not hide anything, but
opens his heart and mind completely to other
people through his discourse.
The word parrhesia, then, refers to a type of
relationship between the speaker and what he
says.”
 The Meaning
of the Word
13, 14 Truth
There are two uses of the word parrhesia. “First,
there is a pejorative sense of the word not very far
from ‘chattering,’ and which consists in saying any-
and everything one has in mind without
qualification.”
Second, “To my mind, the parrhesiastes says what is
true because he knows it is true; and he knows that
it is true because it really is true.”
 The Meaning
of the Word

14 Truth
Contrast the Cartesian view of evidence with Greek
parrhesia and with a modern scientific view of truth.
 The Meaning
of the Word
15 Truth
In the Greek way of thinking having the truth has to
do with the moral qualities of the speaker. “Truth-
having is guaranteed by the possession of certain
moral qualities.”
15 Foucault talks about the ‘parrhesiastic game’
throughout the lectures where the parrhesiastes has
the moral qualities required to convey truth to
others.
 The Meaning
of the Word

What is a game on Foucault’s account?

A game is a rule governed activity like the use of
language. There is a play of representations and
forces, proofs and excuses and words and people
are the game pieces.
 The Meaning
of the Word

15 Truth
Foucault wants to know how we can tell whether
someone has the requisite qualities to be a
parrhesiastes and how can he “be certain that what
he believes is, in fact, the truth.”
 The Meaning
of the Word
15-16 Danger
“Someone is said to use parrhesia and merits
consideration as a parrhesiastes only if there is risk
or danger for him in telling the truth.”
“Parrhesia, then, is linked to courage in the face of
danger: it demands courage to speak the truth in
spite of some danger. And in its extreme form,
telling the truth takes place in the ‘game’ of life or
death.”
 The Meaning
of the Word
16 Danger
The game is not necessarily life and death. It may
have to do with a friend warning another not to do
something dangerous. The risk is loss of
relationship.
17 “But the parrhesiastes primarily chooses a
specific relationship to himself: he prefers himself as
a truth-teller rather than as a living being who is
false to himself.”
 The Meaning
of the Word

17 Criticism
The function of parrhesia is “criticism: criticism of
the interlocutor or of the speaker himself.”
18 “The parrhesiastes is always less powerful than
the one with whom he speaks.” The parrhesiastes is
in an inferior position politically, socially etc., so has
some risk in saying the truth.
 The Meaning
of the Word

19 Duty
“in parrhesia, telling the truth is regarded as a
duty.”
 The Meaning
of the Word
19 Duty
“To summarize the foregoing, parrhesia is a kind of
verbal activity where the speaker has a specific
relation to truth through frankness, a certain
relationship to his own life through danger, a
certain type of relation to himself or other people
through criticism (self-criticism or criticism of other
people), and a specific relation to moral law through
freedom and duty.”
 The Meaning
of the Word

19 Duty
“More precisely, parrhesia is a verbal activity in
which a speaker expresses his personal relationship
to truth, and risks his life because he recognizes
truth-telling as a duty to improve or help other
people (as well as himself).”
Evolution
of the Word

Rhetoric p. 20
Politics p. 22
Philosophy p. 23
Evolution
of the Word

Why does Foucault talk about evolution of

words?
 Evolution
of the Word
20 Rhetoric
Rhetoric stands in opposition to parrhesia in Greek
thinking. Why?
Flattery, the great enemy, is, as well, in opposition to
parrhesia.
“The dialogue through questions and answers is
typical for parrhesia; i.e., dialogue is a major
technique for playing the parrhesiastic game.”
 Evolution
of the Word

21 Rhetoric
In the Phaedrus in Plato, the problem is the
difference between “logos which speaks the truth
and the logos which is not capable of such truth-
telling.”
The logos which does not tell the truth corresponds
with argument meant to distract from the issue.
 Evolution
of the Word

21 Rhetoric
In the Roman Empire, parrhesia is equated to free
speech in some forms of rhetoric.
It is “a sort of ‘figure’ among rhetorical figures” that
is a completely natural expression, without pretense
or device.
 Evolution
of the Word

22 Politics
In Athenian democracy parrhesia plays a central role.
“We can say quite generally that parrhesia was a
guideline for democracy as well as an ethical and
personal attitude characteristic of the good citizen.”
Its field is the agora or marketplace.
 Evolution
of the Word

22 Politics
In the Hellenistic period, parrhesia has to do more
with advisors speaking to the king, to prevent the
abuse of power. This is no longer in the agora.
23 A good ruler is able to play the parrhesiastic
game well.
 Evolution
of the Word

23 Politics
“A sovereign shows himself to be a tyrant if he
disregards his honest advisors, or punishes them for
what they have said.”
The parrhesiastic game has three players here, the
advisors, the king and the silent majority the
advisors speak for.
 Evolution
of the Word

23 Philosophy
Philosophy can be thought of as an art of life, as
therapeutic.
Socrates plays the part of a parrhesiastes when he
speaks to the citizens of Athens, urging them to care
for themselves by pointing out the truth to them.
 Evolution
of the Word

23-24 Philosophy
In the Apology, he bids “them to care for wisdom,
truth, and the perfection of their souls.”
In the Alcibiades, Socrates urges the young man, to
care for himself, unlike others who flatter him.
Socrates risks Alcibiades’ anger.
 Evolution
of the Word

24 Philosophy
“Philosophical parrhesia is thus associated with the
theme of the care of oneself (epimeleia heautou).
By the time of the Epicureans, parrhesia’s affinity
with the care of oneself developed to the point
where parrhesia itself was primarily regarded as the
techne [art] of spiritual guidance…”
Outline
Parrhesia in Euripides
The Phoenician Woman
Hippolytus
The Bacchae
Electra
Ion
Orestes
Problematizing Parrhesia
 Parrhesia in
Euripides
29 The Phoenician Woman
“Parrhesia is linked […] to Polyneices’ social status.”
“If you are not a regular citizen in the city, […] then
you cannot use parrhesia.”
no free speech –> no power –> slave
women, blacks, Japanese, children
no parrhesia –> can’t oppose ruler’s power
without right of criticism –> tyranny
 Parrhesia in
Euripides

29 The Phoenician Woman

“The man who exercises power is wise only insofar
as there exists someone who can use parrhesia to
criticize him, thereby putting some limit to his
power, to his command.”
 Parrhesia in
Euripides

30-31 Hippolytus
“Citizenship by itself does not appear to be
sufficient to obtain and guarantee the exercise of
free speech.
Honor, a good reputation for oneself and one’s
family, is also needed before one can freely address
the people of the city.”
 Parrhesia in
Euripides

30-31 Hippolytus
“Parrhesia thus requires both moral and social
qualifications which come from a noble birth and a
respectful reputation.”
Cultural capital.
 Parrhesia in
Euripides

31-33 The Bacchae

Bearers of bad news were punished.
The herdsman has bad news for the king.
The herdsman asks King Pentheus if he may use
parrhesia because he fears the king’s wrath. The king
agrees on the condition that the herdsman speak the
truth. No harm will come to the herdsman.
 Parrhesia in
Euripides
31-33 The Bacchae
Parrhesiastic contract
The sovereign who lacks truth agrees with the
powerless who has it that the powerless will not
come to harm.
32 This contract was “granted to the best and most
honest citizens.”
“The ‘contract’ is intended to limit the risk he takes
in speaking.”
 Parrhesia in
Euripides

33-36 Electra
Electra makes a parrhesiastic contract with
Clytemnestra to avoid being punished.
Electra is, asymmetrically, in the position of a slave
in relation to Clytemnestra.
But Orestes and Electra kill Clytemnestra for her
confession
 Parrhesia in
Euripides

33-36 Electra
“The one who was granted the privilege of parrhesia
is not harmed, but the one who granted the right of
parrhesia is.”
“The parrhesiastic contract becomes a subversive
trap for Clytemnestra.”
 Parrhesia in
Euripides

36-57 Ion, a parrhesiastic play

38 As part of the shift of oracular truth from Delphi
to Athens, “truth is no longer disclosed by the gods
to human beings (as at Delphi), but is disclosed to
human beings by human beings through Athenian
parrhesia.”
The Story…
 Parrhesia in
Euripides

36-57 Ion, a parrhesiastic play

The right of political parrhesia is reserved only for
those born free and male in Athens.
44 “The main motif of Ion concerns the fight for
truth against god’s silence: human beings must
manage, by themselves to discover and to tell the
truth.”
 Parrhesia in
Euripides

36-57 Ion, a parrhesiastic play

44 Ion and Creusa play parrhesiastes while Apollo
plays an anti-parrhesiastes.
Apollo keeps silent, lies, and uses his power to
cover up the truth.
The roles of Ion and Creusa as parrhesiastes are
different.
 Parrhesia in
Euripides

36-57 Ion, a parrhesiastic play

44 Ion’s Role
48 Even though Ion would be the son (of a foreigner
and a bastard) of king Xuthus husband of the
legitimate heir Creusa, he would be powerless and
shunned by all classes of Athenian citizens.
 Parrhesia in
Euripides

36-57 Ion, a parrhesiastic play

50 If Ion is the son of Xuthus by an unknown non-
native mother, then he would not be a native son of
Athens and thence not be able to practice parrhesia.
He would be as a slave.
51 If however his mother were Athenian, he would
have the right of free speech.
 Parrhesia in
Euripides

36-57 Ion, a parrhesiastic play

Creusa’s role
52 Being a woman, Creusa cannot be a parrhesiastes
to the king, but will “publicly accuse Apollo for his
misdeeds.”
“Truth thus comes to light as an emotional reaction
to the god’s injustice and his lies.”
 Parrhesia in
Euripides

36-57 Ion, a parrhesiastic play

55 “Creusa’s accusation is a public malediction
against Apollo.”
But in the parrhesiastic discourse with her servant,
the roles are reversed. It becomes a confession of
sorts with her servant as parrhesiastes extracting
painful details of the events.
 Parrhesia in
Euripides

36-57 Ion, a parrhesiastic play

56 “Ion’s parrhesia takes the form of truthful political
criticism.”
“Creusa’s parrhesia takes the form of a truthful
accusation against another more powerful than she,
and as a confession of the truth about herself.”
 Parrhesia in
Euripides
57-71 Orestes
One witness at Orestes trial is called an
Athuroglossos.
62 “It literally refers to someone who has a tongue
but not a door. Hence it implies someone who
cannot shut his mouth.”
63 “You cannot distinguish those occasions when
you should speak from those when you should
remain silent.”
 Parrhesia in
Euripides

57-71 Orestes
64 “Athuroglossos is thus almost synonymous with
parrhesia taken in its pejorative sense, and exactly
the opposite of parrhesia’s positive sense.”
 Parrhesia in
Euripides
57-71 Orestes
67 The first characteristic of the 4th speaker is that
he is a man (not a woman) who is courageous.
The second characteristic is that he doesn’t spend
his days in constant discussion in the agora.
68 Thirdly he is one who works his own land, an
autourgos, what we would call a self reliant person.
69 Last, he “is a man of moral integrity,” blameless.
 Problematizing
Parrhesia 71-74

71 “Around 418 B.C., [during the life of Socrates]

parrhesia was presented as having only a positive
sense or value.”
“freedom to speak one’s mind”
“a privilege conferred on the first citizens of
Athens” (those born of Athenian parents)
 Problematizing
Parrhesia 71-74
In the Orestes parrhesia is seen in both its positive and
negative aspects.
The first problem arises when one asks whether
being born a citizen or whether one is a moral
citizen gives the right to parrhesia.
The second problem relates to “the relation between
parrhesia and mathesis, to knowledge and
education.”
 Problematizing
Parrhesia 71-74

73 “The crisis regarding parrhesia is a problem of truth:

for the problem is one of recognizing who is capable
of speaking the truth within the limits of an
institutional system where everyone is equally
entitled to give his own opinion.”
 Problematizing
Parrhesia 71-74

74 In conclusion: “I am trying to analyze the way

institutions, practices, habits, and behavior become a
problem for people who behave in specific sorts of
ways, who have certain types of habits, who engage in
certain kinds of practices, and who put to work
specific kinds of institutions.”
 Problematizing
Parrhesia 71-74

74 “The history of thought […] is the history of the

way people begin to take care of something, of the
way they become anxious about this or that—for
example, about madness, about crime, about sex,
about themselves, or about truth.”
Parrhesia in the
Crisis of
Democratic
Institutions
 Crisis of Democratic
Institutions
Parrhesia in a democracy becomes a competition for an
audience.
All citizen voices have equal weight so the important
voices are drowned out.
Only when an oligarchy reemerges does the positive
form of parrhesia find a place again between the rulers
and their advisors.
 Crisis of Democratic
Institutions

87 “For Aristotle, parrhesia is either a moral-ethical

quality, or pertains to free speech as addressed to a
monarch.”
 Socratic
Parrhesia
 Socratic Parrhesia

Socratic parrhesia is a new kind of speech.

How is it new?
 Socratic Parrhesia

Parrhesia in Socrates is linked to the care of oneself.

Socrates tests (like a basanos, touchstone) people to see
if they are taking proper care of themselves
97 This is done in a truth game which is concerned
with the discovery of one’s character, a “rational
accounting of a person’s life.”
 Socratic Parrhesia

First, Socratic parrhesia is a philosophical activity.

 Socratic Parrhesia
“Insofar as the philosopher had to discover and to
teach certain truths about the world, nature, etc., he
assumed an epistemic role.
Taking a stand towards the city, the laws, political
institutions, and so on, required, in addition, a
political role.
And parrhesiastic activity also endeavored to
elaborate the nature of the relationships between truth
and one’s style of life, or truth and an ethics and
aesthetics of the self.”
 Socratic Parrhesia

“Secondly, the target of this new parrhesia is not to

persuade the Assembly, but to convince someone that
he must take care of himself and of others; this means
that he must change his life.” One must change “one’s
style of life, one’s relation to others, and one’s relation
oneself.”
 Socratic Parrhesia

Conversion to oneself is important from the fourth

century BC on into the Christian era.
 Socratic Parrhesia

107 “Thirdly, these new parrhesiastic practices imply a

complex set of connections between the self and truth.
The circle implied in knowing the truth about oneself
in order to know the truth is characteristic of
parrhesiastic practice since the Fourth Century, and
has been one of the problematic enigmas of Western
Thought.”
 Socratic Parrhesia

Finally, this new parrhesia is not linked to any

particular venue, the agora, the palace, or the schools.
It can be practiced anywhere.
The Practice of
Parrhesia
Practice of Parrhesia
In Human Relationships
Community Life
Public Life
Personal Relationships
In Techniques of Examination: Preliminary
Remarks
Solitary Self-examination
Self-diagnosis
Self-testing
 The Practice
of Parrhesia
In Community Life
108 “Although the Epicureans, with the importance
they gave to friendship, emphasized community life
more than other philosophers at this time,
nonetheless one can also find some Stoic groups as
well as Stoic or Stoico-Cynic philosophers, who
acted as moral and political advisors to various
circles and aristocratic clubs.”
 The Practice
of Parrhesia
In Community Life
Philodemus 110-~40,35 BC
110 “Philodemus regards parrhesia not only as a
quality, virtue, or personal attitude, but also as a
techne comparable both to the art of medicine and
to the art of piloting a boat.”
111 “…we can say that navigation, medicine, and
the practice of parrhesia are all ‘clinical techniques.’”
 The Practice
of Parrhesia
In Community Life
114 “In one’s own salvation, [with no reference to an
afterlife or judgment] other members of the
Epicurean community […] have a decisive role to
play as necessary agents enabling one to discover
the truth about oneself, and in helping one to gain
access to a happy life.
Hence the very important emphasis on friendship
in the Epicurean groups.”
 The Practice
of Parrhesia

In Public Life
Diogenes of Sinope ~404,412 - 323 BC
There are parallels between Christianity and Cynic
practice.
Cynic practice took place from the late 1st century
BC to 4th century AD and took Diogenes as their
model.
 The Practice
of Parrhesia
In Public Life
117 “The Cynics thus taught by way of examples
and the explanations associated with them. They
wanted their own lives to be a blazon of essential
truths which would then serve as a guideline, or as
an example for others to follow.”
“The Cynic idea that a person is nothing else but his
relation to truth, and that this relation to truth takes
shape or is given form in his own life—that is
completely Greek.”
 The Practice
of Parrhesia
In Public Life
118 “But now in the Cynic tradition, the main
references for the philosophy are not to the texts of
doctrines, but to exemplary lives.”
“The idea that a philosopher’s life should be
exemplary and heroic is important in
understanding the relationship of Cynicism to
Christianity, as well as for understanding Cynic
parrhesia as a public activity.”
 The Practice
of Parrhesia

In Public Life
119 “The three main types of parrhesiastic practice
utilized by the Cynics were:
1. critical preaching;
2. scandalous behavior; and
3. what I shall call the ‘provocative dialogue.’”
 The Practice
of Parrhesia
In Public Life
Critical preaching: “Cynic preaching about
freedom, the renunciation of luxury, Cynic
criticisms of political institutions and existing moral
codes, and so on, also opened the way for some
Christian themes. But Christian proselytes not only
spoke about themes which were often similar to the
Cynics; they also took over the practice of
preaching.”
 The Practice
of Parrhesia

In Public Life
120 “In short, their preaching was against all social
institutions insofar as such institutions hindered
one’s freedom and independence.”
 The Practice
of Parrhesia

In Public Life
(2) Scandalous behavior: (p 120-122)
Dio Chrysostom 40-120 CE
 The Practice
of Parrhesia
In Public Life
(3) Provocative dialogue: (p 122-133) Most of this
is a dialogue between Diogenes and Alexander
where Diogenes displays 132 “three faulty modes
of royal life.”
“The first one is devoted to wealth, the second to
physical pleasure, and the third to glory and
political power.” Diogenes continually prods the
king, endangering himself.
 The Practice
of Parrhesia
In Public Life
133 In the discourse between Diogenes and
Alexander “…the main effect… is not to bring the
interlocutor to a new truth, or to a new level of
self-awareness;
it is to lead the interlocutor to internalize this
parrhesiastic struggle to fight within himself
against his own faults, and to be with himself in
the same way that Diogenes was with him.”
 The Practice
of Parrhesia
Personal Relationships
133-4 “Plutarch tries to answer the question: How is
it possible to recognize a true parrhesiastes or truth-
teller? And similarly: How is it possible to
distinguish a parrhesiastes from a flatterer?”
135 “We are our own flatterers, and it is in order to
disconnect this spontaneous relation we have to
ourselves, to rid ourselves of our philautia, that we
need a parrhesiastes.”
 The Practice
of Parrhesia
Personal Relationships
136 How does one recognize a parrhesiastes?
1. There is a connection between his logos and bios.
2. “There is a second criterion, which is: the
permanence, the continuity, the stability and
steadiness of the true parrhesiastes, the true
friend, regarding his choices, his opinions, and his
thoughts:”
 The Practice
of Parrhesia
In Techniques of Examination
143 Foucault moves from the necessity for avoiding
self-delusion and requiring permanence of spirit to
the disciplines necessary for capturing these states
of being.
In Epicurean, Stoic and Cynic thinking, the need for
a method of ensuring parrhesiastic legitimacy
drives the establishment of disciplines. This is also
the case because philosophy is seen as a therapeutic
discipline on par with medical practice.
 The Practice
of Parrhesia

In Techniques of Examination
143 First, there is a shift in the use of the word
parrhesia meaning courage “to tell the truth to other
people.”
 The Practice
of Parrhesia
In Techniques of Examination
144 “Secondly, this new kind of parrhesiastic game—where
the problem is to confront the truth about yourself—requires
what the Greeks called askesis”, where askesis “has a very
broad sense denoting any kind of practical training or
exercise” unlike “Christian asceticism” which “has as its
ultimate aim or target the renunciation of the self, whereas
the moral askesis of the Greco-Roman philosophies has as its
goal the establishment of a specific relationship to oneself—a
relationship of self-possession and self-sovereignty.”
 The Practice
of Parrhesia
In Techniques of Examination
144 “Thirdly… most of these texts written in late
antiquity about ethics are not at all concerned with
advancing a theory about the foundations of ethics,
but are practical books containing specific recipes
and exercises one had to read, reread, to meditate
upon, to learn, in order to construct a lasting matrix
for one’s own behavior.”
 The Practice
of Parrhesia
In Techniques of Examination
145 Foucault will look at these exercises (roughly
“examination of conscience”), in terms of
1. how they differ from one another; “
2. what aspects of the mind, feelings, behavior, etc.,
were considered in these different exercises;
3. that these exercises, despite their differences,
implied a relation between truth and the self.”
 The Practice
of Parrhesia

Solitary self-examination
Seneca 4 BC - 65 AD
149 About Seneca: “These mistakes are only
inefficient actions requiring adjustment between
ends and means.” They are not sins.
 The Practice
of Parrhesia

Solitary self-examination
149 “The point of the fault concerns a practical error
in his behavior since he was unable to establish an
effective rational relation between the principles of
conduct he knows and the behavior he actually
engaged in.”
 The Practice
of Parrhesia
Solitary self-examination
149-150 “Seneca does not analyze his responsibility
or feelings of guilt; it is not, for him, a question of
purifying himself of these faults.
Rather, he engages in a kind of administrative
scrutiny which enables him to reactivate various
rules and maxims in order to make them more
vivid, permanent, and effective for future behavior.”
 The Practice
of Parrhesia
Self-diagnosis
150 Foucault examines the text by Seneca De
tranquillitate animi [“On the Tranquillity of Mind”]
which has to do with the “constancy or steadiness
of mind.”
“It denotes stability, self sovereignty, and
independence.
But tranquillitas also refers to a certain feeling of
pleasurable calm which has its source, its principle,
in this self-sovereignty or self-possession.”
 The Practice
of Parrhesia
Self-diagnosis
157 Serenus talks to Seneca about this disturbance of soul in
terms of sea-sickness, as if he is coming to a doctor who can
cure him:
“I beg you, therefore, if you have any remedy by which you
could stop this fluctuation of mine, to deem me worthy of
being indebted to you for tranquillity.
I know that these mental disturbances of mine are not
dangerous and give no promise of a storm; to express what I
complain of in apt metaphor, I am distressed, not by a
tempest, but by sea-sickness.”
 The Practice
of Parrhesia
Self-diagnosis
160 “Serenus’s instability does not derive from his ‘sins,’ or
from the fact that he exists as a temporal being—as in
Augustine, for example. It stems from the fact that he has not
yet succeeded in harmonizing his actions and thoughts with
the ethical structure he has chosen for himself.
Because he does not possess the tranquillitas, the firmitas,
which comes from complete self-sovereignty. And Seneca’s
reply to this self-examination and moral request is an
exploration of the nature of this stability of mind.”
 The Practice
of Parrhesia
Self-testing
160 These remarks are about one form of self-testing
recommended by Epictetus (55-135 AD).
“Epictetus’ problem consists in knowing how to distinguish
those representations that he can control from those that he
cannot control, that incite involuntary emotions, feelings,
behavior, etc., and that must therefore be excluded from his
mind.
Epictetus’ solution is that we must adopt an attitude of
permanent surveillance with regard to all our
representations.”
 The Practice
of Parrhesia
Self-testing
161 He suggest the use of two metaphors, that of a
night watchman and that of a “money-changer.”
The night watchman is to prevent the entrance of
any representation “without first checking his
identity,” and
the money-changer is one who “verifies the
authenticity of the currency” the representation.
 The Practice
of Parrhesia

Self-testing
163 Epictetus gives another exercise.
One should ask whether what one sees lies “within
the province of moral purpose and will.”
If it does, then keep it, if not, then get rid of it.
 The Practice
of Parrhesia

Self-testing
164 “Epictetus wants us to constitute a world of
representations where nothing can intrude which is
not subject to the sovereignty of our will. So, again,
self-sovereignty is the organizing principle of this
form of self-examination.”
 The Practice
of Parrhesia

Self-testing
1) 164 The use of parrhesia as frankness of speech,
moves from the master/disciple relationship where
the master used parrhesia on the disciple, to the
disciple being trained to use parrhesia on himself,
as a duty of self examination.
 The Practice
of Parrhesia
Self-testing
2) 165 These exercises are not strictly designed to
teach one to “know thyself” though that is the result
of some of these exercises.
“For the various relationships which one has to
oneself are embedded in very precise techniques
which take the form of spiritual exercises… dealing
with deeds… states of equilibrium of the soul… the
flow of representations, and so on.”
 The Practice
of Parrhesia

Self-testing
3) 165 “What is at stake is the relation of the self to
truth or to some rational principles.”
 The Practice
of Parrhesia

Self-testing
165-166 “The truth of the self involves, on the one
hand, a set of rational principles which are
grounded in general statements about the world,
human life, necessity, happiness, freedom and so
on, and, on the other hand, practical rules for
behavior.”
 The Practice
of Parrhesia

Self-testing
166 “One can comport oneself towards oneself in
the role of a technician, of a craftsman, of an artist,
who from time to time stops working, examines
what he is doing, reminds himself of the rules of his
art, and compares these rules with what he has
achieved thus far.”
Concluding
Remarks
Concluding Remarks

169 “My intention was not to deal with the problem

of truth, but with the problem of the truth-teller,
and of truth-telling as an activity.”
Concluding Remarks
170 There are two sides to the problematization of
truth in the West.
The first side “is concerned with determining how
to ensure that a statement is true […] which I would
like to call the ‘analytics of truth.’
And on the other side, concerned with the question
of the importance of telling the truth, knowing who
is able to tell the truth, and knowing why we should
tell the truth, we have the toots of what we could
call the ‘critical’ tradition in the West.”
Concluding Remarks

170-171 “And here you will recognize one of my

targets in this seminar, namely, to construct a
genealogy of the critical attitude in Western
philosophy.