"Discourse and Truth" and "Parresia"
295
"Discourse and Truth" and "Parresia"
295Hardcover(First Edition)
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Overview
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9780226509464 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | University of Chicago Press |
| Publication date: | 07/08/2019 |
| Series: | The Chicago Foucault Project |
| Edition description: | First Edition |
| Pages: | 295 |
| Product dimensions: | 5.50(w) x 8.60(h) x 1.00(d) |
About the Author
Henri-Paul Fruchaud is an editor of Michel Foucault’s posthumous works.
Daniele Lorenzini is associate professor of philosophy at the University of Pennsylvania.
Frédéric Gros is a professor at the Université Paris XII. Krzysztof Fijalkowski is senior lecturer in Critical Studies at Norwich University College of the Arts. Michael Richardson is a writer and translator. Together, Fijalkowski and Richardson have translated Refusal of the Shadow, Surrealism against the Current, and Georges Bataille: an Intellectual Biography.
Read an Excerpt
CHAPTER 1
Parresia
Lecture at the University of Grenoble May 18, 1982
Thank you very much for inviting me. I am here, as you know, as a supplicant. What I mean is that until four or five years ago, my field, at any rate the domain of my work, had scarcely anything to do with ancient philosophy; and then, following a number of zigzags, detours, or steps back in time, I began to say to myself that, after all, it was very interesting. So I come to ancient philosophy as part of the work I am doing. One day, when I was asking him some questions, telling him about my problems, Henri Joly was kind enough to say that you might agree to discuss my work with me, in its present imperfect state. It is some material, some references to texts, some indications; what I am going to sketch out to you is therefore incomplete, and, if you were willing, it would be very good of you, first, to call out if you can't hear me, stop me if you do not understand or if it's not clear, and then anyway, at the end, tell me what you think.
So, to start with, this is how I came to be asking myself this set of questions. What I had been studying for really quite a long time was the question of the obligation to tell the truth: what is this ethical structure internal to truth-telling, this bond that, beyond necessities having to do with the structure or reference of discourse, means that at a given moment someone is obliged to tell the truth? And I tried to pose this question, or rather I encountered this question of the obligation to tell the truth, of, if you like, the ethical foundation of truth-telling, with regard to truth-telling about oneself. In actual fact it seems to me that I encountered it several times. First of all in medical and psychiatric practice because, from a given moment, which is moreover quite precise and can be pinpointed at the beginning of the nineteenth century, we see the obligation to tell the truth about oneself becoming part of the great ritual of psychiatry. Obviously we come across this problem of truth-telling about oneself in judicial practice and more especially in penal practice. And, finally, I came across it for the third time with regard to, let's say, problems of sexuality and more precisely of concupiscence and the flesh in Christianity.
And so, while looking a bit more closely at this question of the obligation to tell the truth about oneself, the history of Christianity, of early Christianity, seemed curious and interesting to me. You know better than me that the penitential form with which we are familiar and that constitutes the sacrament of penance, or rather the form of confession (aveu) linked to the sacrament of penance, is a relatively recent institution, dating roughly from the twelfth century, and that it was developed, defined, and structured in the course of a slow and complex evolution. And if we go back in time, let's say to the fourth and fifth centuries, we see that, of course, the sacrament of penance did not exist, but we find distinct forms of obligation to tell the truth about oneself and more precisely two distinct forms: one is the obligation to manifest the truth about oneself and the other is the obligation to speak the truth about oneself. And these occur in two contexts with two completely different forms and series of effects.
The obligation to manifest the truth about oneself forms part of the penitential ritual. This is exomologesis, a kind of dramatization of oneself as a sinner, which is realized through clothing, fasting, ordeals, exclusion from the community, standing as a supplicant at the door of the church, and so on. A dramatization of oneself as a sinner, a dramatic expression of oneself as a sinner, by which one acknowledges one is a sinner, but without doing this — at any rate, without necessarily, primarily, or fundamentally doing this — through language: this is exomologesis.
On the other hand, if we look at the institutions and practices of monastic spirituality, we see another practice that is completely different from penitential exomologesis. This other practice is imposed on every novice, every monk, until he has finally reached a sufficient degree of holiness, and it may even be imposed on every monk until the end of his life. And this practice does not consist in the monk putting himself into, representing himself in the dramatic state of the sinner — he is, after all, already situated within the penitential ritual — but the monk has to tell someone, his director, in principle everything that is taking place in him, all the movements of his thought, every impulse of his desire or concupiscence, what in Greek spirituality, in Evagrius Ponticus, is called the logismoi and that is quite naturally translated into Latin as cogitationes, whose etymological meaning, Cassian recalls, is what he calls co-agitationes, that is to say the movement, the agitation of the mind. It is this agitation of the mind that must be rendered into a discourse that is in principle continuous and that one has to deliver continuously to the person who is one's director. This is what is called in Greek exagoreusis. And so we have here a very strange obligation, which is not found again afterwards because, after all, the confession of sins is not the obligation to say everything (tout dire); the confession of sins is, of course, the obligation to say what faults one has committed; it is not the obligation to say everything, to reveal one's thought to someone else. The obligation to say everything is quite unique in the Christian spirituality of the fourth and fifth centuries. It does occur subsequently, in fact; it has a long, parallel, and somewhat subterranean history in relation to the great ritual of penance, but it is found again obviously in the spiritual direction (direction de conscience) that develops and flourishes in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.
It is this telling-all (tout-dire), this obligation to say everything regarding the movement of one's thoughts that captured my attention, and I have tried to study its history or, at any rate, tried to see where it came from. Naturally I was led to take a look at what we may call Greco-Roman philosophy to see if it was possible to find the roots of this obligation to say everything in this practice. So I looked at this philosophy, I studied it as a practice — not exactly as a form of spiritual direction (direction de conscience) because I do not think this notion is exactly applicable to the form of philosophy I am thinking about. It seems to me that the forms and concepts of this philosophical practice can be identified and its development understood by considering it as the set of theoretical principles, practical precepts, and technical procedures by which one is led, called upon to ensure the epimeleia heautou, the care of oneself; so, if you like, it is philosophy as philosophical foundation, practical rule, and technical instrumentation of the care of self. It is from this perspective that I will consider the philosophy of the Hellenistic and in particular Roman period of the first two centuries of the empire. It is in this framework therefore that I will try to consider the problem of the obligation to tell all.
And, of course, we encounter here an important notion, that of parresia. Etymologically, the notion of parresia indeed means telling all (tout dire). Now, the first thing that struck me was that the word parresia, which we find in Christian spirituality with the meaning of the necessity for the disciple to open his heart entirely to his director in order to show him the movement of his thoughts, is actually found in Greco-Roman philosophy of the imperial period, with the crucial difference that this parresia does not refer to an obligation imposed on the disciple but rather to an obligation imposed on the master. Moreover, it is an absolutely characteristic feature of this philosophy, as I have just defined it, that it is much more concerned with imposing silence on the disciple. The regulation of attitudes of silence, the prescription of silence, is long established, from the Pythagoreans to even much later. It is found in the Pythagoreans, you remember in Plutarch's De audiendo, and you recall, in a completely different context, Philo of Alexandria's On the Contemplative Life, the whole regime of silent postures imposed on disciples; for the disciple is basically the one who remains silent, whereas in Christianity, in Christian spirituality, it is the disciple who has to speak. On the other hand, parresia, the obligation to say everything, appears as a precept applied to the master, the guide, the director, let's say the other person who is necessary in the care of self; in fact, one can take care of oneself, one can epimeleisthai heautou, only on the condition of being helped by someone, and it is for this person, this other person in the care of self, that parresia is an obligation.
So this evening I can only present the framework, if you like, in which I posed the question, but, basically, what I would ultimately like to study is this: a kind of reversal of responsibility wherein parresia, that is to say a certain obligation to speak, which fell on the master in ancient philosophy, now, in Christian spirituality, falls on the disciple, on the person directed, and obviously with all the changes of form and content linked to this reversal of responsibility.
That is the problem then. So first of all, if you like, I would like to look with you at some texts from before the period I have chosen. The period I have chosen is the first two centuries of the empire; I will take some texts that extend roughly from the famous treatise by Philodemus, which is from right at the start of the empire, to Galen, that is to say the end of the Antonines. This then was the period I chose. But I would also like to take a brief look at some texts from before this period, well, to look at them with you, to tell you what they suggest to me, and to ask you what you think.
Concerning the word parresia, there is a famous text by Polybius in which he speaks about the Achaeans and says that three things characterize their regime, and these are demokratia, isegoria, and parresia: democracy, that is to say, the participation of everyone, at any rate all those who make up the demos, in the exercise of power; isegoria, that is to say, a certain equality in the distribution of offices; and parresia, that is to say, the possibility, for all, it seems, to have access to speech, the right of everyone to speak, speech being understood as speech that decides in the political field, speech inasmuch as it is an act of asserting oneself and one's opinion in the political field. This text associating parresia, demokratia, and isegoria is clearly important. But I think we can go back even beyond Polybius and identify a number of other interesting uses in the classical period, in Euripides and Plato in particular.
There are four passages in Euripides in which the word parresia is employed. The first is in Ion: "If I do not find the woman who gave birth to me, life is impossible for me. And if I was really allowed to make a wish, may she be Athenian [the woman who gave birth to me and I am looking for — M. F.], let her be Athenian so that from my mother I have the right to speak freely [hos moi genetai metrothen parresian: so that parresia comes to me from my mother — M. F.]. If a foreigner enters a city where the race is unblemished, even if the law makes him a citizen, his tongue will remain servile, he does not have the right to say everything [he does not have parresia: ouk echei parresian — M. F.]." So I think this text is interesting, in the first place, because we see that parresia is a right; it is a right linked to citizenship. In a city in which the race has remained pure, anyone who is not a citizen cannot speak; only the citizen is authorized to do so, and one has this right of speech by birth. And, [second], the right of speech here is obtained from the maternal line; it comes from the mother. In any case, in a properly organized city it is solely birth, being a citizen, that can permit one to speak. First of all, parresia.
The second text is Hippolytus. This text is interesting because it takes up the theme we found in Ion, with a slight, yet noteworthy modulation. In Phaedra's confessions, she confesses her passion for Hippolytus, and she evokes all those women who secretly dishonor their husbands' beds and in doing so dishonor their children as well. Phaedra says: "Ah, may they live and flourish in illustrious Athens [she is speaking about children, her children, those she has — M. F.], with the free-spokenness [franc-parler] of free men and with pride in their mother! For although he may have a bold heart, a man is a slave when he knows a mother's or father's misdeeds." So we see that parresia, which is the citizen's right, is tainted by wrongful acts, even secret ones, committed by the father or mother. When the father or mother has committed wrongful acts, the children are in the situation of the slave, and in that situation they do not have parresia. The moral stain deprives one of parresia.
The third text is The Phoenician Women. It is a dialogue between Jocasta and Polyneices. The dialogue concerns exile, and Jocasta questions Polyneices about the sorrows and misfortunes of exile. Jocasta says, or asks rather: "Is it a great sorrow to be deprived of your homeland?" And Polyneices replies: "Great indeed. Much worse than it sounds." Jocasta: "What is this evil then? What is so unfortunate about exile?" Polyneices: "The biggest drawback, ouk echei parresian (he does not have parresia)." And Jocasta replies: "That's being a serf [a slave: doulos — M. F.], to keep silent one's thoughts (me legein ha tis phronei)." Polyneices replies: "One has to be able to put up with the foolishness of the master." Jocasta: "Another suffering, to be mad with the mad!"
This text is interesting because you see that here too the right to speak is linked to being a citizen in one's city. When one lives in one's own city one can speak; when one is not in one's own city, one does not have parresia. The slave does not have parresia because he does not have citizenship. But someone who does not have parresia is at the same time subject to the master's foolishness, to his madness; that is to say, you see the idea appearing not only that parresia is a right, in its foundation and origin, if you like, but also that its function is to speak something like reason and truth to those who are wrong, who do not possess the truth, and who have the mind of the foolish or mad. Parresia speaks truthfully; it is therefore the right to speak the truth in front of someone who is mad, someone who does not possess the truth. And [what] greater sorrow than to be in a slave's situation, subject to the madness of others, when one could tell them the truth but may not do so?
Finally, the fourth text is The Bacchae. The messenger brings Pentheus news of the excesses of the bacchantes. He arrives with the news but is afraid to tell it to Pentheus. He is afraid to speak and says: "I would like to know whether I should tell you this news in plain language [I am quoting the translation — M. F.], or whether I must watch my words? I fear your angry spirits, O Prince, your swift wrath and the excess of your royal temper." And Pentheus replies: "You may speak: you have nothing to fear from me. One should not be angry with one who does his duty."
Here, then, you have a completely different situation. Here, it is not a citizen who asserts or claims his right to speak, since he is on his land. Rather, it is the messenger, the servant who arrives with bad news to announce; he is afraid to report it and asks if he may, as it were, benefit from parresia, that is to say, speak freely. To which Pentheus replies, yes, you may speak freely.
So you can see that this situation is, in a way, the opposite of the situation we saw earlier. We have a servant who has something to say; he brings bad news, news that is bad for the person to whom he is going to deliver it. Will he be able to benefit from the right to speak? And Pentheus, as vigilant master, as one who knows his interest and also knows his duty, replies, certainly, you have the right to speak. I will not punish you for telling me bad news. I will take it out on the bacchantes afterwards, and he promises to punish them. I think this text has, if you like, a double interest. On the one hand, it poses the problem that we come across so often in other tragedies, which is what to do with the messenger who brings bad news. Should the bringer of bad news be punished or not? The right of parresia granted to the servant promises him impunity for the bad news he brings. And then, at the same time, you see something appear that I think will have considerable importance, which is what could be called the theme of commitment, of the parrhesiastic pact: the stronger person, the master, opens up a space of freedom, a space of the right to speak for the person who is not the master, and he asks him to speak, to tell the truth, a truth that may upset him, the master, but for which he commits himself to not punishing the person who tells it, who utters it, and to leave him free; that is to say he commits himself to separating what is stated from the person who states it. So there are four passages in Euripides that seem to me to set out fairly clearly a certain number of themes of parresia as the exercise of a political right. There are also a number of texts in Plato, and I will not consider all of them, but only those that seem to me the most significant.
(Continues…)
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Table of Contents
Abbreviations of Works by Michel Foucault Preface Introduction Note on the English EditionParrēsiaLecture at the University of Grenoble: May 18, 1982Discourse and Truth
Lectures at the University of California-Berkeley: October-November 1983 Notes