First, ancient philoso- phy was not
separate
from how one was to live one's life.
Foucault-Key-Concepts
137
? MICHEL FOUCAULT: KEY CON CEPTS
I must be prepared for the events of the day so that I will not forget what I am trying to achieve. In a similar vein, Foucault discusses a form of self-examination that can be found in the work of Seneca. In this example, Seneca takes some time at the end of the day to recollect and record what he has done that day. Once again, his primary aim and focus in this activity is not to discern the hidden motive at work in what he did, nor is he primarily intent on judging his actions (although he does employ juridical language for describing the process). There is no sense of a self lurking behind his actions and giving them meaning. First and foremost his activity is a kind of "accounting" or administra- tive activity, adding up the balance sheets and seeing how he has done that day. He also describes this art as a kind of inspection of his actions that day to see if he has done everything as well as he could have and to learn how he might avoid mistakes and improve in the future. As with the morning examination of Marcus Aurelius, the evening exami- nation of Seneca is:
primarily a test of the reactivation of the fundamental rules of action, of the ends we should have in mind, and of the means we should employ to achieve these ends and the immediate objectives we may set ourselves. To that extent, examination of conscience is a memory exercise, not just with regard to what happened during the day, but with regard to the rules we should always have in our mind. (Ibid. : 483)
The examination of conscience in both Marcus Aurelius and Seneca is an art for the formation of subjectivity, for the formation of the self. It is not an attempt to discover a pre-existing substance or essence, but rather part of an effort to become a certain kind of individual, to give a distinctive form to one's life, to shape, deepen, intensify and cultivate the relationship of the self to itself. These techniques of self- examination are ways of taking care of oneself in the sense that they assist one in the activity of becoming the self that one wants or needs to be. Marcus Aurelius and Seneca both take up the material of life, all of those elements which we reviewed at the beginning of this essay: thoughts and feelings, actions and relationships, and so on. In face of the rush of events and actions, storms of emotion, the endless flow of thoughts, judgements, choices, they attempt to sculpt a form out of life and to shape the self-relation. The aim of the exercise is to make sure that I do not end up completely uprooted and carried away in the stream of events, never catching a glimpse of or getting a firm hold on what is worthwhile in life and what I might be able to make of my
138
? FOUCAULT'S THEORY AND PRACTICE O F SUBJECTIVITY
self. Foucault's purpose in turning to these philosophers is not to con- vince us to relive the lives of Stoic philosophers. Rather, the drift of his work detaches us from the hermeneutic and confessional practice of subjectivity; to show us that the self is not a substance or essence but a work of art; and to give us a taste of the many different arts, and consequently many different kinds of self, that can be practised. In this way his study provides us with new resources, techniques that we might use, even if we do not appropriate wholesale the Stoic life and the Stoic aims in life.
Not all of the arts of the self and of life are forms of self- examination. For example, one of the principal arts of the self in ancient philosophy involved the contemplation of nature and of external reality. The contemplation of nature can have a powerful, transformative effect on one's relationship to oneself and the way one lives. For example, Seneca practised a form of natural philoso- phy that allowed him to attain an elevated perspective from which he could look down on himself and his life (ibid. : 275-85). When we are caught up in the middle of things - the pressures of work or school, relationships, money, health, and so on -? the day-to-day anxi- eties of life become all consuming. We find ourselves absorbed in our problems and concerns, obsessed with our work or our relationship, in ways that take a toll on us and can result in self-destructive behav- iours and habits, the crushing anxiety that accompanies a life and self that is spinning out of control. But through the contemplation of the vastness and magnificence of the cosmos we elevate ourselves above and beyond the day-to-day world. Then looking down on it from above we are able to see it within this larger, truer, cosmic perspec- tive. The world of our everyday preoccupations appears in truth as a brief moment in the vast infinity of time, hardly a speck of dust swal- lowed up in the endless expanses of space, completely insignificant in relation to the power and beauty of the heavenly bodies. Other ancient philosophers developed their own forms of the contempla- tion of nature, but in each case they serve as arts for the formation of the self: freeing the self from its fears or compulsions, calming the mind disturbed by pressing problems, reinforcing a will constantly bombarded by frivolous demands, distractions, temptations. For Foucault, this art of the self shows us that the practice of subjectiv- ity does not necessarily entail turning our gaze inward, focusing on and essentializing the inner life. Rather, there are powerful arts of living that project us out into the world, further detaching us from our presuppositions about self-discovery and self-expression. Being true to ourselves may in fact involve focusing our attention on the
? 139
? MICHEL FOU C A ULT: KEY CONCEPTS
natural world or history and society - in other words, turning out- wards rather than inwards.
Becoming oneself
Foucault's study of care of the self and the arts of the self in ancient philosophy is not merely a record and analysis of these activities. In fact, it is clear that in this study Foucault, as in all of his philosophical activity, was engaged in the active practice of forming his own sub- jectivity. If we examine the trajectory of Foucault's own work, we see that through the labour of philosophical thought, Foucault developed an art of philosophical practice that served as the source of a certain vision and relationship to himself. He formed a distinctive way of being a philosopher. Here is one way he described his own efforts to fashion himself as a work of art:
As for what motivated me, it is quite simple; I would hope that in the eyes of some people it might be sufficient in itself. It was curiosity - the only kind of curiosity, in any case, that is worth acting upon with a degree of obstinacy; not the curiosity that seeks to assimilate what it is proper for one to know, but that which enables one to get free of oneself. After all, what would be the value of the passion for knowledge if it resulted only in a certain amount of knowledgeableness and not, in one way or another and to the extent possible, in the knower's straying afield of himself?
(1990b: 8)
Foucault's care of the self was composed of numerous arts - includ- ing but not limited to reading, thinking, writing, teaching - that allow him to "get free" of himself. Philosophy for Foucault was not prima- rily a form of knowledge or self-knowledge but rather "an exercise of oneself in the activity of thought" (ibid. : 9). What is the result of this kind of exercise ?
There is irony in those efforts one makes to alter one's way of looking at things, to change the boundaries of what one knows and to venture out a ways from there. Did mine actually result in a different way of thinking? Perhaps at most they made it possible to go back through what I was already thinking, to think it differ- ently, and to see what I had done from a new vantage point and in a clearer light. Sure of having traveled far, one finds that one
140
? FOUCAULT'S THEORY AND PRACTICE O F SUBJECTIVITY
is looking down on oneself from above. The journey rejuvenates things, and ages the relationship with oneself. (Ibid. : 1 1 )
Clearly getting free of oneself does not mean that one simply aban- dons oneself in order to become a completely new person, whatever that might mean. Rather, one gets some distance and perspective, one "looks down on oneself from above". But who is the self that one gets free of? The self Foucault gets free of is none other than the one formed by discipline, whose subjectivity is shaped by the practices of hermeneutics and confession. Discipline, confession and hermeneutics produce a self that lives a certain way, that sees itself and the world in terms of normalization, self-interpretation and self-expression. When Foucault "exercises" himself in the "activity of thought" he is attempt- ing to "think differently", to detach himself from the disciplined, nor- malized self that he has become so far. The work or art of the self is the exercise by which Foucault establishes a relationship of distance from the self of discipline, hermeneutics and confession. But has he now arrived at his true self?
Just be yourself. Keep it real. Follow your own path. Foucault's account of subjectivity gives a whole new meaning to these words and helps us understand why the task they prescribe is so urgent but yet so difficult, ultimately endless. Being oneself is a matter of strenuous trying and determined artfulness, because the self is a continuous becoming, not a fixed being. Consequently, the art of becoming my self is always to some extent an art of no longer being what I was, an art that detaches the self from itself in order to form a new, deeper, wiser relationship to itself, which in turn will give way to its own self-distancing, sending me on my way towards unknown futures.
Notes
1. I would like to acknowledge Serena Parekh, Paul Bruno and Dianna Taylor for reading drafts of this chapter and giving me invaluable feedback and insight. This paper has also benefited greatly from the careful reading and incisive com- ments of two students at Saint Anselm College: Sara Kallock and Ryan Manley.
2. For example, see Foucault (1988, 1997e, 2005a).
3. Paul Bruno has helped me to see the particular danger that occurs here, a kind
of divorce between the "fixed idea of who we are" and action/human agency. In other words, when we have a fixed idea of ourselves, our actions become meaningless in a way. No matter what we do, we are still the fixed person we have conceived for ourselves.
4. See Foucault's discussion of self-reflection as constitutive of the self as both knower and known (Foucault 2005a: 461-2).
5. See the chapters on power in Part I of this book. 141
? ? MI CHEL FOU CAULT: KEY CONCEPTS
6. For an excellent study of the spread and intensification of power since the death of Michel Foucault, see: Nealon (2008).
7. One of the key features of techne is its bodily character: it is acquired through embodied activities, situated and concrete investigations and experiments. Techne is embodied or bodily knowledge.
142
? TEN
Su a
Brad Elliott Stone
Is there a relationship between subjectivity and truth in our contempo- rary age? Foucault's answer is "no". In this chapter, I seek to explicate Foucault's conclusion about the divorce of subjectivity and truth. Begin- ning with Foucault's account of the shift between ancient and modern philosophy,1 I show in the first section that the modern, strictly epis- temological understanding of truth removes us from the possibility of having an ethical relationship to the truth. This ethical relationship to the truth, however, was the heart of ancient philosophy, whose goal was not "knowledge" but human flourishing. The second section explores the role of truth in ancient philosophy. The third section turns to an explication of Foucault's account of parrhesia as it was understood in ancient philosophy. Parrhesia is the act of telling the truth out of one's moral duty, even in dangerous situations. I then offer examples of how parrhesia was used in ancient philosophy, followed by a brief discussion of whether or not we can recreate a meaningful relationship between subjectivity and truth.
In the shadow ofthe Cartesian moment
Foucault's 1 9 8 2 lecture course The Hermeneutics olthe Subject contin- ues his investigation into the connection between subjectivity and truth beguninthe 1981 courseSubjectivityandTruth. 2Inthe 1981 lecture course, Foucault focused exclusively on Hellenic views of sexuality. In 1 9 8 2, Foucault wants to ask the question of the relationship between subjectivityandtruthinamoregeneralway: "[i]nwhathistoricalform
? ? 143
? MICHEL FOU CAULT: KEY CONCEPTS
do the relations between the 'subject' and 'truth,' elements that do not usually fall within the historian's practice or analysis, take shape in the West? " (2005a: 2). How does the West relate subjectivity and truth, if at all?
One of Foucault's main arguments in his opening lecture in 1 9 8 2 is that there is a discontinuity in the history of the relationship between subjectivity and truth. To show this discontinuity, Foucault discusses the radical difference between how the ancient thinkers understood the relationship between subjectivity and truth and how the modern thinkers understand it. Foucault returns to the old philosophical motto "Know yourself", gnothi seauton. This hope for self-knowledge, cen- tral to the philosopher's quest, was always essentially coupled with another motto: "take care of yourself", epimeleia heautou. However, in the contemporary age, this coupling is no longer essential. For the ancient thinkers, one had to be a particular kind of person in order to know oneself, let alone know anything else of importance. In our age, however, knowledge is considered something that one can obtain regardless of the kind of person one is. This is where Foucault detects an archaeological (in Foucault's sense of the term) break in the history of knowledge. Foucault asserts that the ancient thinkers considered the care of the self "the justificatory framework, ground, and founda- tion for the imperative 'know yourself"' (ibid. : 8). That we can now claim self-knowledge without any ethical requirements would be for the ancients unintelligible.
The 1982 course focuses on the ancient methods ofbeingthe kind of person who could gain access to the truth. This will provide a prelimi- nary answer to Foucault's key question: "Why did Western thought and philosophy neglect the notion ofepimeleiaheautou in its reconstruction of its own history ? " (ibid. : 1 2) . Why has contemporary thought claimed continuity with ancient thought through the quest for self-knowledge while being oblivious to the fact that the ancient thinkers had require- ments for self-knowledge that modern thought does not bother to fulfil?
One possible explanation is the rise of Christianity with its emphasis on selflessness. The non-egoist principle of Christianity causes one to see the care of the self as too selfish. Also, the Judaeo-Christian belief in an omniscient God whose knowledge is distinct from God's moral goodness allows for a hope for God's kind of knowledge without having to care for oneself. Although this is a possible explanation, it does not give the strongest case. For Foucault, the stronger case is archaeological rather than historical.
For Foucault, Descartes' philosophy represents an archaeological event3 in which the "concept" of self-knowledge had shifted. Foucault
? ? 144
? S UB J E CTIVITY AND TRUTH
describes what he calls "the Cartesian moment", a moment character- ized "by philosophically requalifying the gnothi seauton and by dis- crediting the epimeleia heautou" (ibid. : 14). Foucault spends the rest of the first hour of the opening lecture of the 1982 course on the discontinuity in the history of the relationship of subjectivity and truth evidenced by this moment. At the heart of the Cartesian moment is the belief that self-knowledge is a given, a fact that Descartes nimbly proves in the Second Meditation of Meditations on First Philosophy. From this self-knowledge, one can then proceed, with certainty, to knowledge of God, mathematics and even the physical world itself. What is missing here, Foucault points out, is the ancient notion of the care of the self.
What is missing at the core of Cartesian philosophy (and modern thought since Descartes) is spirituality. Foucault uses this term in a technical sense, not to be immediately confused with one's religious practices (although that sense of spirituality will itself be a mode of what Foucault means here by "spirituality"). Foucault defines spiritu- ality as "the search, practice, and experience through which the sub- ject carries out the necessary transformations on himself in order to have access to the truth" (ibid. : 1 5 ) . When philosophy is coupled with spirituality, philosophy is "the form of thought that asks what it is that enables the subject to have access to the truth and which attempts to determine the conditions and limits to the subject's access to the truth" (ibid. ). Ancient philosophy was the pursuit of the kind of life that would lead to knowledge, not just an analysis of what could be known and how one could know it. The Cartesian moment, however, allows for a philosophy without spirituality, removing the first part of philosophy's definition (What enables the subject to have access to the truth? ) while retaining the second part (What are the conditions and limits to the subject's access of truth? ). This is a point of diffraction (cf. Foucault 1972: 65) between ancient and modern thought: ancient thought finds the second part of the definition unintelligible with- out the first part, while modern thought cleanly divides epistemology from ethics.
The reason the ancients would find modern philosophy unintelligi- ble, Foucault claims, is the Cartesian insistence that self-knowledge is self-given, and that the right use of one's own already-in-place mental powers can lead to truth. One of the postulates of spirituality pre- sented by Foucault is that "the truth is never given to the subject by right"; that is, "the subject does not have right of access to the truth" (Foucault 2005a: 15). For the ancients, the subject's already-in-place mental "powers" are precisely what need to be overcome! The second
? 145
? MICHEL FOU CAULT: KEY CONCEPTS
postulate is that "there can be no truth without a conversion or a trans- formation of the subject" (ibid. ). In order to access the truth, one must care for oneself and become a particular kind of person, a person who has correctly prepared oneself to be the bearer and speaker of the truth for which one has prepared. The third postulate of spirituality is that the truth, once accessed, "enlightens the subject" and "gives the subjecttranquilityofthesoul" (ibid. : 16). Knowledgeisnotforknowl- edge's sake; rather, it is to bring about a particular kind of person.
Modernity does not accept any of these three ancient postulates. Foucault states the rules for accessing knowledge in the modern period. First, there must be an epistemological method that will lead one to the truth. Second, one must be sane, educated and willing to participate in the scientific community. Foucault laments that in the modern age "the truth cannot save the subject" (ibid. : 19) since there is no requirement that one modify one's life in order to access the truth that would in turn further modify that life. With the Cartesian moment, the philosopher's task is no longer defined in terms of care of the self, but is strictly in the purview of knowledge. As Foucault mentions in a later interview, in the post-Cartesian age, "I can be immoral and know the truth . . . Before Descartes, one could not be impure, immoral, and know the truth" (Foucault 1997f: 279).
The rest of The Hermeneutics olthe Subject describes the practices undertaken by the Greeks, the Hellenists and the early Christians in their quest to care for the self in order to obtain knowledge. 4 I will not explore them here because there are other chapters in this collection that will address them. However, I will remind the reader that there are discontinuities between the Greek, Hellenist and early Christian's respective understandings of the care of the self. For example, the Greeks saw care of the self as a pedagogical issue having to do with youths preparing to govern in the polis, whereas the Stoics saw care of the self as a medico-therapeutic method that covered one's entire lifespan. Of interest in this essay is the bigger archaeological shift between the period in which there was at least some expectation of a relationship between subjectivity and truth and our contemporary age, an age in which, as Foucault states in The Order a/ Things, "no moral- ity is possible" (1973: 328).
Truth-telling in antiquity
For several years prior to his death, Foucault was obsessed with the question of truth-telling as a moral activity. After the Cartesian moment,
? ? ? ? ? 146
? SUBJE CTIVITY AND TRUTH
truth simply became an epistemological matter, a mere question of whether statements corresponded to facts about the world (or, if one is a coherentist, whether all the statements about the world can be held without contradiction). Scepticism, which in the ancient world had to do with the limits of human understanding, became the epistemologi- cal standard bearer and pacesetter. In order to have knowledge, one had to be able to overcome the threat of scepticism. Descartes suggests that the way around scepticism is method. In his Rules for the Direc- tion of the Mind and the Fourth Meditation, Descartes lays out a way to enumerate the parts of a problem correctly so that one can have a clear and distinct understanding. Nowhere in these rules will one find any moral requirements.
This Cartesian account of truth is quite different from what the Greeks called parrhesia and the Latins called libertas. In Fearless Speech, the transcripts of his 1983 lectures at the University of California at Berkeley, Foucault defines parrhesia as:
verbal activity in which a speaker expresses his personal relation- ship to truth, and risks his life because he recognizes truth-telling as a duty . . . the speaker uses his freedom and chooses frankness instead of persuasion, truth instead of falsehood or silence, the risk of death instead of life and security, criticism instead of flat- tery, and moral duty instead of self-interest and moral apathy.
(2001: 12)
This personal relationship to truth is missing from modern thought, so perhaps a potential way to "return to morality" would be to investi- gate what parrhesia is, how it was used, and what hope there is for us in the modern age to reclaim it as a philosophical practice. Foucault begins his exploration of truth-telling in 1981 with the College de France lecture course Subjectivite et verite (not yet published). This theme marks the rest of his lecture courses before his death: The Hermeneutics ofthe Subject in 1982, Le Gouvernement de soi et des autres in 1983 (published in French, not yet translated into English), and Le Courage de la verite: Le government de soi et des autres II in 1984 (published in French, not yet translated into English).
Foucault claims that there are three ways in which ancient philoso- phy takes up parrhesia as its governing principle.
First, ancient philoso- phy was not separate from how one was to live one's life. Foucault says that we should interpret this unity of thought and life as "the general framework of the parrhesiastic function by means of which life was traversed, penetrated, and sustained" (Foucault 2008b: 3 15). Parrhesia
? 147
? MICHEL FOUCAULT: KEY CONCEPTS
was key to the living of a philosophical life. The ancient thinkers con- cerned themselves not just with truth-telling (dire-vrai) but also with the true life (la vraie vie). The question of the true life, for the most part, is missing in the modern philosophical age.
Second, philosophy in the ancient period "never stopped addressing, in one way or another, those who governed" (ibid. : 3 1 6) . The relation- ship between philosophy and politics, Foucault argues, was a dominant feature of antiquity. As he states, "philosophy is a form of life; it is also a kind of office - at once both public and private - of political counsel" (ibid. : 317). Although there have been post-Cartesian thinkers who have offered their truth-telling abilities to those who govern, it is no longer considered a necessary part of the philosopher's job description. This absence of political counsel would be very strange to Plato, for example, whose Philosopher King serves as the paradigm for the just city in Republic.
Third, the ancient thinkers did not limit their work to the classroom. Any audience could be the audience of a philosophical discourse, and any location could become a philosophical classroom. Philosophy was a public enterprise, never a subject taught in school to a select band of people or a solitary armchair contemplation of thought experiments; its goal was to improve people's souls. The philosopher had "the courage to tell the truth to others in order to guide them in their own conduct"
(ibid. : 3 1 8). It is no surprise, then, that Socrates, upon being con- demned for doing philosophy and asked what his punishment should be, responds by suggesting that, in exchange for his public service, he should receive lunch every day for a year just like a victorious Olympic athlete (Apology 36d-e). It would be a fitting reward for everything he had philosophically done for Athens.
Foucault laments that modern philosophy does not have ancient philosophy's parrhesiastic features. He states that "modern Western thought, at least if we consider it as it is currently presented (as a scholastic or university subject), has relatively few points in common with the parrhesiastic philosophy [of the ancients]" (2008b: 318). It is curious that Foucault uses the appositive phrase "at least if we con- sider it as it is currently presented". Could there be a way of thinking of modern philosophy that might reopen the possibility of morality? Perhaps, but we will need to do some work first. If we want to return to morality, we will need to investigate parrhesia further and deter- mine if there is anything in our age that might serve as a good substi- tute for it.
? 148
? S UB J E CTIVITY AND TRUTH
Telling the truth:parrhesia
In Fearless Speech Foucault highlights five important characteristics of parrhesia : frankness, truth, danger, criticism and duty. These char- acteristics will differentiate moral truth-telling from other forms of communication. We will address each in turn.
(a) Frankness. First, parrhesia is franc parler, or as we would say, "tell- ing it like it is". The parrhesiastes, the one who performs the act of parrhesia, does not use rhetoric; she simply reveals whatever is in her mind on a given subject. As Foucault describes it, "the speaker is sup- posed to give a complete and exact account of what he has in mind so that the audience is able to comprehend exactly what the speaker thinks" (2001: 12). Because they worry too much about offending, most people often do not tell the truth; instead, they tell half-truths or flat-out lies. Frankness, however, shows the audience a couple of things: (i) that the speaker really believes what she is saying, and (ii) that the speaker believes in what she is saying enough that it should be said as if it were directly from her mind, unmediated by language.
Of note is that the truth-teller speaks for herself, completely reveal- ing her cards in the process. This differs, Foucault claims in the 1984 lectures at the College de France, from the prophet, who indeed tells the truth, but "does not speak in his own name. He speaks for another voice; his mouth serves as an intermediary for a voice which speaks from beyond" (2009: 16). The unmediated frankness of the truth- teller, compared to the prophet's mediated, representative speech, gives the parrhesiastes moral authority and culpability. The truth-teller can- not advise interlocutors to "not kill the messenger". She lives and dies on what is said: the message and the messenger are one and the same.
(b) TJ? uth. Frankness, however, is not sufficient for parrhesia. It is not enough that someone really believes that what they say is true; what they say must actually be true. As Foucault writes, the parrhesiastes "says what is true because he knows that it is true; and he knows that it is true because it really is true . . . his opinion is also the truth . . . there is always an exact coincidence between belief and truth" (2001: 14). There is no conflict between the mind of the parrhesiastes and her heart: she believes in the truth that she knows, believes in her knowl- edge of the truth, and knows that her beliefs are true. The truth is judged by the bare conviction of the speaker. It is this conviction that makes the parrhesiastes tell the truth (the really true) ; it is not a "cor- respondence" between "the world" and the statements made by the
? 149
? MI C HEL FOUCAULT: KEY CON CEPTS
speaker. Scepticism is dismissed by Foucault as "a particularly modern [question] which . . . is foreign to the Greeks" (ibid. : 1 5 ) . So, although parrhesia requires that the truth-teller tell the truth in an "epistemic" sense, the importance is not on the epistemic fact that the truth was said; rather, the importance lies in the moral power of the truth-teller.
(c) Danger. However, frank speech, even when spoken with conviction, is not sufficient to classify an utterance as parrhesia. Parrhesia occurs when the truth puts the truth-teller in some kind of danger. In the face of danger, liars lie. The parrhesiastes, however, tells the truth, usually to a person who is more powerful than she, a person who knows that what the truth-teller says is true. Hence there is an element of courage in parrhesia. As Foucault tells us, "a grammar teacher may tell the truth to the children that he teaches, and indeed has no doubt that what he teaches is true. But in spite of this coincidence between belief and truth, he is not a parrhesiastes" (ibid. : 16). Simply put, there is no courage required to say that three is a prime number. A philosopher pointing out a tyrant's tyranny, however, is a different situation. The tyrant knows that he is a tyrant, so the philosopher is not saying something that the tyrant does not know. However, telling the tyrant that he is a tyrant puts the truth-teller in danger; nonetheless, although aware of the danger, the philosopher tells him anyway, and suggests ways for the tyrant to change his way of governing. In order for one to be a parrhesiastes, one must have something to lose in telling the truth. No risk, no parrhesia.
In the 1 9 8 4 lectures, Foucault reasserts that the parrhesiastes "is not the professor, the teacher, the how-to guy who says, in the name of tradition, techne" (2009: 25). Instead of techne, technical knowledge, the truth-teller proclaims ethos, a way of living one's life. This involves a risk unknown by the technician. The teacher knows no risk, Foucault claims, because he works in the context of shared values: heritage, common knowledge, tradition, friendship. The truth-teller, however, "takes a risk. He risks the relationship that he has with the one whom he addresses. In telling the truth, far from establishing a positive line of common knowledge, heritage, affiliation, recognition, and friend- ship, he can, to the contrary, provoke anger" (ibid. : 24). Truth-telling requires stepping outside of the alleged "shared values" held by the interlocutor. This "stepping outside" will be the grounds for the critical dimension of parrhesia.
(d) Critique. Parrhesia has to be more than just frank statements stated that causes the truth-teller to be potentially endangered. Truth-telling in a moral sense requires that the truth be something that the hearer
? ? ? 150
? S UB J E CTIVITY AND TRUTH
does not like. In other words, parrhesia must have a dimension of criticism. The truth told by the truth-teller must force, even if just for a moment, the interlocutor to examine himself. It is at this point that courage is required. Given that the recipient of parrhesia is usually in a superior position of power to the speaker, the recipient is tempted to unleash his power upon the truth-teller by punishing her, firing her, killing her, and so on. This is where most people fall short: afraid of the possible retaliation, the liar lies, converting what could be a moment of critique into a moment of flattery. The parrhesiastes frankly tells a critical, unflattering truth about the matter. Parrhesia is the opposite of self-interested, cowardly, unhelpful flattery. The parrhesiastes speaks the truth with frankness in the face of danger in order to help those for whom violence is the easier solution.
(e) Duty. So far we have described parrhesia in terms of frankness, conviction, danger, and criticism; what is missing is that which unites these principles. That connective feature is the sense of moral duty that accompanies the parrhesiastes. In the face of potential danger, the liar lies, and he justifies his action by appealing to the circumstances. This is a consequentialist response. But, akin to Kant, Foucault claims that parrhesia is the result of a moral decision to tell the truth, even if doing so is dangerous. The truth-teller "is free to keep silent. No one forces him to speak, but he feels that it is his duty to do so . . . Parrhesia is thus related to freedom and to duty" (2001: 19). In order to tell the truth in the sense of parrhesia, one must be free to not tell the truth, either by lying or by saying nothing. To tell the truth requires that the truth-teller have an ethical relationship with herself. The parrhesiastes "risk[s] death to tell the truth instead of reposing in the security of a life where the truth goes unspoken . . . he prefers himself as a truth- teller rather than as a living being who is false to himself" (ibid. : 17). 5 Truth-telling is morally praiseworthy because it is done exactly when it would be easier not to do it.
This is what differentiates the truth-teller from the sage. In the 1 9 8 4 lectures, Foucault points out that although the sage is like the truth- teller in so far as there is a unity of messenger and message (unlike the prophet), "the sage . . . keeps his wisdom in retreat, or at least in an essential reserve. Basically, the sage is wise in and for himself, and he need not speak . . . nothing obligates him to distribute, teach, or manifest his wisdom" (2009 : 1 8 ) . The parrhesiastes, in contrast, is morally obli- gated to speak. She cannot keep the truth to herself; she must proclaim the truth - she must speak all of the truth to everyone to whom it is addressed. Parrhesia understood this way is a truth that cannot be kept
? ? 151
? MICHEL FOU CAULT: KEY CONCEPTS
hidden. The truth-teller un-conceals herself, the interlocutor, and the truth that is to be communicated. 6
Uses ofparrhesia in ancient philosophy
In the Berkeley lectures in 1983, Foucault describes the use ofparrhesia in three different arenas: community life, public life and personal life. Foucault refers to the Epicureans in order to illustrate the use of truth- telling in community life. In Epicurean communities, parrhesia was a collective, communal activity. At the heart of the communal use of truth-telling were the personal interviews done by advanced teachers. In these interviews, "a teacher would give advice and precepts to indi- vidual community members" (Foucault 2001: 113). There were also group confession sessions, "where each of the community members in turn would disclose their thoughts, faults, misbehavior, and so on . . . 'the salvation by one another"' (ibid. : 1 14) . In this communal model, parrhesia was used "in house" for the purpose of spiritual guidance, either privately or in open groups.
To illustrate the public use of parrhesia, Foucault turns to the Cyn- ics. The Cynics used truth-telling as a means of public instruction. Foucault highlights three truth-telling Cynic practices: critical preach- ing, scandalous behaviour and provocative dialogue. We will address each in turn.
The Cynics, unlike the Epicureans, spoke to large crowds, usually composed of people who were outside of their community. Foucault states that preaching "is still one of the main forms of truth-telling practiced in our society, and it involves the idea that the truth must be told and taught not only to the best members of the society, or to an exclusive group, but to everyone" (ibid. : 120). Cynics told the truth to anyone, anytime, anywhere. The need to speak out against the institu- tions of society (the favourite target of Cynics) on the larger public scale exemplifies parrhesia as frank, critical truth-telling done simply because "the truth has to be said", regardless of the risk.
The Cynics were the masters of frank risk-taking truth-telling. Scan- dalous behaviour, particularly personified in Diogenes the Cynic, was a public way to show the truth and the relationship one had to the truth. The most famous example of Diogenes involves Diogenes masturbating in the public square. When asked to give an account for his behaviour, Diogenes states that "he wished it were as easy to banish hunger by rubbing the belly" (ibid. : 122, quoting Diogenes Laertius, VI, 46; 69).
The point here is clear: if eating, the removal of hunger, is allowed in
? 152
? SUBJECTIVITY AND TRUTH
the public square, then surely the removal of sexual desire, which is just as much aphrodisia as eating and drinking, should be allowed in public. That one considers masturbation shameful is strange given that one does not consider eating and drinking shameful.
The third Cynic practice was the use of provocative dialogue. This is often depicted as dialogues between Diogenes and Alexander the Great. One example from the texts is that Diogenes told Alexander to move out of his way because Alexander was blocking the sun. Another example would be Diogenes calling Alexander a bastard. To say such a thing to the emperor, especially in public, is indeed provocative. From Diogenes' point of view, Alexander just is not so great! Foucault points out that "whereas Socrates plays with his interlocutor's ignorance, Dio- genes wants to hurt Alexander's pride" (ibid. : 126). In other words, the provocative dialogue is a unique variation of Socratic dialogue: by showing someone that they are not true to what they claim, the philosopher encourages the interlocutor to examine oneself and begin to take care of oneself.
Preaching, acting out and attacking pride: these were the three main categories of the public use of parrhesia performed by the Cynics. Foucault would have more to say about the Stoics in the 1984 lectures at the College de France. This is because, as Foucault states, "the Cynic parrhesiastic game is played at the very limits of the parrhesiastic con- tract. It borders on transgression because the parrhesiastes may have made too many insulting remarks" (ibid. : 127). 7 The Cynics reappear as examples for Foucault because they take truth-telling to its absolute limit; parrhesia is the modus operandi of the entire Cynic worldview. Perhaps no other group completely embodied parrhesia in their own persons in the way that the Cynics did.
The final arena for the use of parrhesia is in one's private life, includ- ing one's personal relationships. One needs truth-telling such that one is one's own interlocutor: pride and flattery are possible even with one's self. One needs parrhesia in order to stay away from self-deception. The group that best represents this use of truth-telling is the Stoics, although Foucault would later add early Christians to the list.
At the heart of Stoic life was self-examination. This self-examination is not the same as confession in the later Christian period. Instead, self- examination was more of an administrative activity. As Foucault notes, Seneca does not account for "sins" but:
mistakes . . . inefficient actions requiring adjustments between ends and means . . . The point of the fault concerns a practical error in his behavior since he was unable to establish an effective
? 153
?
? MICHEL FOUCAULT: KEY CON CEPTS
I must be prepared for the events of the day so that I will not forget what I am trying to achieve. In a similar vein, Foucault discusses a form of self-examination that can be found in the work of Seneca. In this example, Seneca takes some time at the end of the day to recollect and record what he has done that day. Once again, his primary aim and focus in this activity is not to discern the hidden motive at work in what he did, nor is he primarily intent on judging his actions (although he does employ juridical language for describing the process). There is no sense of a self lurking behind his actions and giving them meaning. First and foremost his activity is a kind of "accounting" or administra- tive activity, adding up the balance sheets and seeing how he has done that day. He also describes this art as a kind of inspection of his actions that day to see if he has done everything as well as he could have and to learn how he might avoid mistakes and improve in the future. As with the morning examination of Marcus Aurelius, the evening exami- nation of Seneca is:
primarily a test of the reactivation of the fundamental rules of action, of the ends we should have in mind, and of the means we should employ to achieve these ends and the immediate objectives we may set ourselves. To that extent, examination of conscience is a memory exercise, not just with regard to what happened during the day, but with regard to the rules we should always have in our mind. (Ibid. : 483)
The examination of conscience in both Marcus Aurelius and Seneca is an art for the formation of subjectivity, for the formation of the self. It is not an attempt to discover a pre-existing substance or essence, but rather part of an effort to become a certain kind of individual, to give a distinctive form to one's life, to shape, deepen, intensify and cultivate the relationship of the self to itself. These techniques of self- examination are ways of taking care of oneself in the sense that they assist one in the activity of becoming the self that one wants or needs to be. Marcus Aurelius and Seneca both take up the material of life, all of those elements which we reviewed at the beginning of this essay: thoughts and feelings, actions and relationships, and so on. In face of the rush of events and actions, storms of emotion, the endless flow of thoughts, judgements, choices, they attempt to sculpt a form out of life and to shape the self-relation. The aim of the exercise is to make sure that I do not end up completely uprooted and carried away in the stream of events, never catching a glimpse of or getting a firm hold on what is worthwhile in life and what I might be able to make of my
138
? FOUCAULT'S THEORY AND PRACTICE O F SUBJECTIVITY
self. Foucault's purpose in turning to these philosophers is not to con- vince us to relive the lives of Stoic philosophers. Rather, the drift of his work detaches us from the hermeneutic and confessional practice of subjectivity; to show us that the self is not a substance or essence but a work of art; and to give us a taste of the many different arts, and consequently many different kinds of self, that can be practised. In this way his study provides us with new resources, techniques that we might use, even if we do not appropriate wholesale the Stoic life and the Stoic aims in life.
Not all of the arts of the self and of life are forms of self- examination. For example, one of the principal arts of the self in ancient philosophy involved the contemplation of nature and of external reality. The contemplation of nature can have a powerful, transformative effect on one's relationship to oneself and the way one lives. For example, Seneca practised a form of natural philoso- phy that allowed him to attain an elevated perspective from which he could look down on himself and his life (ibid. : 275-85). When we are caught up in the middle of things - the pressures of work or school, relationships, money, health, and so on -? the day-to-day anxi- eties of life become all consuming. We find ourselves absorbed in our problems and concerns, obsessed with our work or our relationship, in ways that take a toll on us and can result in self-destructive behav- iours and habits, the crushing anxiety that accompanies a life and self that is spinning out of control. But through the contemplation of the vastness and magnificence of the cosmos we elevate ourselves above and beyond the day-to-day world. Then looking down on it from above we are able to see it within this larger, truer, cosmic perspec- tive. The world of our everyday preoccupations appears in truth as a brief moment in the vast infinity of time, hardly a speck of dust swal- lowed up in the endless expanses of space, completely insignificant in relation to the power and beauty of the heavenly bodies. Other ancient philosophers developed their own forms of the contempla- tion of nature, but in each case they serve as arts for the formation of the self: freeing the self from its fears or compulsions, calming the mind disturbed by pressing problems, reinforcing a will constantly bombarded by frivolous demands, distractions, temptations. For Foucault, this art of the self shows us that the practice of subjectiv- ity does not necessarily entail turning our gaze inward, focusing on and essentializing the inner life. Rather, there are powerful arts of living that project us out into the world, further detaching us from our presuppositions about self-discovery and self-expression. Being true to ourselves may in fact involve focusing our attention on the
? 139
? MICHEL FOU C A ULT: KEY CONCEPTS
natural world or history and society - in other words, turning out- wards rather than inwards.
Becoming oneself
Foucault's study of care of the self and the arts of the self in ancient philosophy is not merely a record and analysis of these activities. In fact, it is clear that in this study Foucault, as in all of his philosophical activity, was engaged in the active practice of forming his own sub- jectivity. If we examine the trajectory of Foucault's own work, we see that through the labour of philosophical thought, Foucault developed an art of philosophical practice that served as the source of a certain vision and relationship to himself. He formed a distinctive way of being a philosopher. Here is one way he described his own efforts to fashion himself as a work of art:
As for what motivated me, it is quite simple; I would hope that in the eyes of some people it might be sufficient in itself. It was curiosity - the only kind of curiosity, in any case, that is worth acting upon with a degree of obstinacy; not the curiosity that seeks to assimilate what it is proper for one to know, but that which enables one to get free of oneself. After all, what would be the value of the passion for knowledge if it resulted only in a certain amount of knowledgeableness and not, in one way or another and to the extent possible, in the knower's straying afield of himself?
(1990b: 8)
Foucault's care of the self was composed of numerous arts - includ- ing but not limited to reading, thinking, writing, teaching - that allow him to "get free" of himself. Philosophy for Foucault was not prima- rily a form of knowledge or self-knowledge but rather "an exercise of oneself in the activity of thought" (ibid. : 9). What is the result of this kind of exercise ?
There is irony in those efforts one makes to alter one's way of looking at things, to change the boundaries of what one knows and to venture out a ways from there. Did mine actually result in a different way of thinking? Perhaps at most they made it possible to go back through what I was already thinking, to think it differ- ently, and to see what I had done from a new vantage point and in a clearer light. Sure of having traveled far, one finds that one
140
? FOUCAULT'S THEORY AND PRACTICE O F SUBJECTIVITY
is looking down on oneself from above. The journey rejuvenates things, and ages the relationship with oneself. (Ibid. : 1 1 )
Clearly getting free of oneself does not mean that one simply aban- dons oneself in order to become a completely new person, whatever that might mean. Rather, one gets some distance and perspective, one "looks down on oneself from above". But who is the self that one gets free of? The self Foucault gets free of is none other than the one formed by discipline, whose subjectivity is shaped by the practices of hermeneutics and confession. Discipline, confession and hermeneutics produce a self that lives a certain way, that sees itself and the world in terms of normalization, self-interpretation and self-expression. When Foucault "exercises" himself in the "activity of thought" he is attempt- ing to "think differently", to detach himself from the disciplined, nor- malized self that he has become so far. The work or art of the self is the exercise by which Foucault establishes a relationship of distance from the self of discipline, hermeneutics and confession. But has he now arrived at his true self?
Just be yourself. Keep it real. Follow your own path. Foucault's account of subjectivity gives a whole new meaning to these words and helps us understand why the task they prescribe is so urgent but yet so difficult, ultimately endless. Being oneself is a matter of strenuous trying and determined artfulness, because the self is a continuous becoming, not a fixed being. Consequently, the art of becoming my self is always to some extent an art of no longer being what I was, an art that detaches the self from itself in order to form a new, deeper, wiser relationship to itself, which in turn will give way to its own self-distancing, sending me on my way towards unknown futures.
Notes
1. I would like to acknowledge Serena Parekh, Paul Bruno and Dianna Taylor for reading drafts of this chapter and giving me invaluable feedback and insight. This paper has also benefited greatly from the careful reading and incisive com- ments of two students at Saint Anselm College: Sara Kallock and Ryan Manley.
2. For example, see Foucault (1988, 1997e, 2005a).
3. Paul Bruno has helped me to see the particular danger that occurs here, a kind
of divorce between the "fixed idea of who we are" and action/human agency. In other words, when we have a fixed idea of ourselves, our actions become meaningless in a way. No matter what we do, we are still the fixed person we have conceived for ourselves.
4. See Foucault's discussion of self-reflection as constitutive of the self as both knower and known (Foucault 2005a: 461-2).
5. See the chapters on power in Part I of this book. 141
? ? MI CHEL FOU CAULT: KEY CONCEPTS
6. For an excellent study of the spread and intensification of power since the death of Michel Foucault, see: Nealon (2008).
7. One of the key features of techne is its bodily character: it is acquired through embodied activities, situated and concrete investigations and experiments. Techne is embodied or bodily knowledge.
142
? TEN
Su a
Brad Elliott Stone
Is there a relationship between subjectivity and truth in our contempo- rary age? Foucault's answer is "no". In this chapter, I seek to explicate Foucault's conclusion about the divorce of subjectivity and truth. Begin- ning with Foucault's account of the shift between ancient and modern philosophy,1 I show in the first section that the modern, strictly epis- temological understanding of truth removes us from the possibility of having an ethical relationship to the truth. This ethical relationship to the truth, however, was the heart of ancient philosophy, whose goal was not "knowledge" but human flourishing. The second section explores the role of truth in ancient philosophy. The third section turns to an explication of Foucault's account of parrhesia as it was understood in ancient philosophy. Parrhesia is the act of telling the truth out of one's moral duty, even in dangerous situations. I then offer examples of how parrhesia was used in ancient philosophy, followed by a brief discussion of whether or not we can recreate a meaningful relationship between subjectivity and truth.
In the shadow ofthe Cartesian moment
Foucault's 1 9 8 2 lecture course The Hermeneutics olthe Subject contin- ues his investigation into the connection between subjectivity and truth beguninthe 1981 courseSubjectivityandTruth. 2Inthe 1981 lecture course, Foucault focused exclusively on Hellenic views of sexuality. In 1 9 8 2, Foucault wants to ask the question of the relationship between subjectivityandtruthinamoregeneralway: "[i]nwhathistoricalform
? ? 143
? MICHEL FOU CAULT: KEY CONCEPTS
do the relations between the 'subject' and 'truth,' elements that do not usually fall within the historian's practice or analysis, take shape in the West? " (2005a: 2). How does the West relate subjectivity and truth, if at all?
One of Foucault's main arguments in his opening lecture in 1 9 8 2 is that there is a discontinuity in the history of the relationship between subjectivity and truth. To show this discontinuity, Foucault discusses the radical difference between how the ancient thinkers understood the relationship between subjectivity and truth and how the modern thinkers understand it. Foucault returns to the old philosophical motto "Know yourself", gnothi seauton. This hope for self-knowledge, cen- tral to the philosopher's quest, was always essentially coupled with another motto: "take care of yourself", epimeleia heautou. However, in the contemporary age, this coupling is no longer essential. For the ancient thinkers, one had to be a particular kind of person in order to know oneself, let alone know anything else of importance. In our age, however, knowledge is considered something that one can obtain regardless of the kind of person one is. This is where Foucault detects an archaeological (in Foucault's sense of the term) break in the history of knowledge. Foucault asserts that the ancient thinkers considered the care of the self "the justificatory framework, ground, and founda- tion for the imperative 'know yourself"' (ibid. : 8). That we can now claim self-knowledge without any ethical requirements would be for the ancients unintelligible.
The 1982 course focuses on the ancient methods ofbeingthe kind of person who could gain access to the truth. This will provide a prelimi- nary answer to Foucault's key question: "Why did Western thought and philosophy neglect the notion ofepimeleiaheautou in its reconstruction of its own history ? " (ibid. : 1 2) . Why has contemporary thought claimed continuity with ancient thought through the quest for self-knowledge while being oblivious to the fact that the ancient thinkers had require- ments for self-knowledge that modern thought does not bother to fulfil?
One possible explanation is the rise of Christianity with its emphasis on selflessness. The non-egoist principle of Christianity causes one to see the care of the self as too selfish. Also, the Judaeo-Christian belief in an omniscient God whose knowledge is distinct from God's moral goodness allows for a hope for God's kind of knowledge without having to care for oneself. Although this is a possible explanation, it does not give the strongest case. For Foucault, the stronger case is archaeological rather than historical.
For Foucault, Descartes' philosophy represents an archaeological event3 in which the "concept" of self-knowledge had shifted. Foucault
? ? 144
? S UB J E CTIVITY AND TRUTH
describes what he calls "the Cartesian moment", a moment character- ized "by philosophically requalifying the gnothi seauton and by dis- crediting the epimeleia heautou" (ibid. : 14). Foucault spends the rest of the first hour of the opening lecture of the 1982 course on the discontinuity in the history of the relationship of subjectivity and truth evidenced by this moment. At the heart of the Cartesian moment is the belief that self-knowledge is a given, a fact that Descartes nimbly proves in the Second Meditation of Meditations on First Philosophy. From this self-knowledge, one can then proceed, with certainty, to knowledge of God, mathematics and even the physical world itself. What is missing here, Foucault points out, is the ancient notion of the care of the self.
What is missing at the core of Cartesian philosophy (and modern thought since Descartes) is spirituality. Foucault uses this term in a technical sense, not to be immediately confused with one's religious practices (although that sense of spirituality will itself be a mode of what Foucault means here by "spirituality"). Foucault defines spiritu- ality as "the search, practice, and experience through which the sub- ject carries out the necessary transformations on himself in order to have access to the truth" (ibid. : 1 5 ) . When philosophy is coupled with spirituality, philosophy is "the form of thought that asks what it is that enables the subject to have access to the truth and which attempts to determine the conditions and limits to the subject's access to the truth" (ibid. ). Ancient philosophy was the pursuit of the kind of life that would lead to knowledge, not just an analysis of what could be known and how one could know it. The Cartesian moment, however, allows for a philosophy without spirituality, removing the first part of philosophy's definition (What enables the subject to have access to the truth? ) while retaining the second part (What are the conditions and limits to the subject's access of truth? ). This is a point of diffraction (cf. Foucault 1972: 65) between ancient and modern thought: ancient thought finds the second part of the definition unintelligible with- out the first part, while modern thought cleanly divides epistemology from ethics.
The reason the ancients would find modern philosophy unintelligi- ble, Foucault claims, is the Cartesian insistence that self-knowledge is self-given, and that the right use of one's own already-in-place mental powers can lead to truth. One of the postulates of spirituality pre- sented by Foucault is that "the truth is never given to the subject by right"; that is, "the subject does not have right of access to the truth" (Foucault 2005a: 15). For the ancients, the subject's already-in-place mental "powers" are precisely what need to be overcome! The second
? 145
? MICHEL FOU CAULT: KEY CONCEPTS
postulate is that "there can be no truth without a conversion or a trans- formation of the subject" (ibid. ). In order to access the truth, one must care for oneself and become a particular kind of person, a person who has correctly prepared oneself to be the bearer and speaker of the truth for which one has prepared. The third postulate of spirituality is that the truth, once accessed, "enlightens the subject" and "gives the subjecttranquilityofthesoul" (ibid. : 16). Knowledgeisnotforknowl- edge's sake; rather, it is to bring about a particular kind of person.
Modernity does not accept any of these three ancient postulates. Foucault states the rules for accessing knowledge in the modern period. First, there must be an epistemological method that will lead one to the truth. Second, one must be sane, educated and willing to participate in the scientific community. Foucault laments that in the modern age "the truth cannot save the subject" (ibid. : 19) since there is no requirement that one modify one's life in order to access the truth that would in turn further modify that life. With the Cartesian moment, the philosopher's task is no longer defined in terms of care of the self, but is strictly in the purview of knowledge. As Foucault mentions in a later interview, in the post-Cartesian age, "I can be immoral and know the truth . . . Before Descartes, one could not be impure, immoral, and know the truth" (Foucault 1997f: 279).
The rest of The Hermeneutics olthe Subject describes the practices undertaken by the Greeks, the Hellenists and the early Christians in their quest to care for the self in order to obtain knowledge. 4 I will not explore them here because there are other chapters in this collection that will address them. However, I will remind the reader that there are discontinuities between the Greek, Hellenist and early Christian's respective understandings of the care of the self. For example, the Greeks saw care of the self as a pedagogical issue having to do with youths preparing to govern in the polis, whereas the Stoics saw care of the self as a medico-therapeutic method that covered one's entire lifespan. Of interest in this essay is the bigger archaeological shift between the period in which there was at least some expectation of a relationship between subjectivity and truth and our contemporary age, an age in which, as Foucault states in The Order a/ Things, "no moral- ity is possible" (1973: 328).
Truth-telling in antiquity
For several years prior to his death, Foucault was obsessed with the question of truth-telling as a moral activity. After the Cartesian moment,
? ? ? ? ? 146
? SUBJE CTIVITY AND TRUTH
truth simply became an epistemological matter, a mere question of whether statements corresponded to facts about the world (or, if one is a coherentist, whether all the statements about the world can be held without contradiction). Scepticism, which in the ancient world had to do with the limits of human understanding, became the epistemologi- cal standard bearer and pacesetter. In order to have knowledge, one had to be able to overcome the threat of scepticism. Descartes suggests that the way around scepticism is method. In his Rules for the Direc- tion of the Mind and the Fourth Meditation, Descartes lays out a way to enumerate the parts of a problem correctly so that one can have a clear and distinct understanding. Nowhere in these rules will one find any moral requirements.
This Cartesian account of truth is quite different from what the Greeks called parrhesia and the Latins called libertas. In Fearless Speech, the transcripts of his 1983 lectures at the University of California at Berkeley, Foucault defines parrhesia as:
verbal activity in which a speaker expresses his personal relation- ship to truth, and risks his life because he recognizes truth-telling as a duty . . . the speaker uses his freedom and chooses frankness instead of persuasion, truth instead of falsehood or silence, the risk of death instead of life and security, criticism instead of flat- tery, and moral duty instead of self-interest and moral apathy.
(2001: 12)
This personal relationship to truth is missing from modern thought, so perhaps a potential way to "return to morality" would be to investi- gate what parrhesia is, how it was used, and what hope there is for us in the modern age to reclaim it as a philosophical practice. Foucault begins his exploration of truth-telling in 1981 with the College de France lecture course Subjectivite et verite (not yet published). This theme marks the rest of his lecture courses before his death: The Hermeneutics ofthe Subject in 1982, Le Gouvernement de soi et des autres in 1983 (published in French, not yet translated into English), and Le Courage de la verite: Le government de soi et des autres II in 1984 (published in French, not yet translated into English).
Foucault claims that there are three ways in which ancient philoso- phy takes up parrhesia as its governing principle.
First, ancient philoso- phy was not separate from how one was to live one's life. Foucault says that we should interpret this unity of thought and life as "the general framework of the parrhesiastic function by means of which life was traversed, penetrated, and sustained" (Foucault 2008b: 3 15). Parrhesia
? 147
? MICHEL FOUCAULT: KEY CONCEPTS
was key to the living of a philosophical life. The ancient thinkers con- cerned themselves not just with truth-telling (dire-vrai) but also with the true life (la vraie vie). The question of the true life, for the most part, is missing in the modern philosophical age.
Second, philosophy in the ancient period "never stopped addressing, in one way or another, those who governed" (ibid. : 3 1 6) . The relation- ship between philosophy and politics, Foucault argues, was a dominant feature of antiquity. As he states, "philosophy is a form of life; it is also a kind of office - at once both public and private - of political counsel" (ibid. : 317). Although there have been post-Cartesian thinkers who have offered their truth-telling abilities to those who govern, it is no longer considered a necessary part of the philosopher's job description. This absence of political counsel would be very strange to Plato, for example, whose Philosopher King serves as the paradigm for the just city in Republic.
Third, the ancient thinkers did not limit their work to the classroom. Any audience could be the audience of a philosophical discourse, and any location could become a philosophical classroom. Philosophy was a public enterprise, never a subject taught in school to a select band of people or a solitary armchair contemplation of thought experiments; its goal was to improve people's souls. The philosopher had "the courage to tell the truth to others in order to guide them in their own conduct"
(ibid. : 3 1 8). It is no surprise, then, that Socrates, upon being con- demned for doing philosophy and asked what his punishment should be, responds by suggesting that, in exchange for his public service, he should receive lunch every day for a year just like a victorious Olympic athlete (Apology 36d-e). It would be a fitting reward for everything he had philosophically done for Athens.
Foucault laments that modern philosophy does not have ancient philosophy's parrhesiastic features. He states that "modern Western thought, at least if we consider it as it is currently presented (as a scholastic or university subject), has relatively few points in common with the parrhesiastic philosophy [of the ancients]" (2008b: 318). It is curious that Foucault uses the appositive phrase "at least if we con- sider it as it is currently presented". Could there be a way of thinking of modern philosophy that might reopen the possibility of morality? Perhaps, but we will need to do some work first. If we want to return to morality, we will need to investigate parrhesia further and deter- mine if there is anything in our age that might serve as a good substi- tute for it.
? 148
? S UB J E CTIVITY AND TRUTH
Telling the truth:parrhesia
In Fearless Speech Foucault highlights five important characteristics of parrhesia : frankness, truth, danger, criticism and duty. These char- acteristics will differentiate moral truth-telling from other forms of communication. We will address each in turn.
(a) Frankness. First, parrhesia is franc parler, or as we would say, "tell- ing it like it is". The parrhesiastes, the one who performs the act of parrhesia, does not use rhetoric; she simply reveals whatever is in her mind on a given subject. As Foucault describes it, "the speaker is sup- posed to give a complete and exact account of what he has in mind so that the audience is able to comprehend exactly what the speaker thinks" (2001: 12). Because they worry too much about offending, most people often do not tell the truth; instead, they tell half-truths or flat-out lies. Frankness, however, shows the audience a couple of things: (i) that the speaker really believes what she is saying, and (ii) that the speaker believes in what she is saying enough that it should be said as if it were directly from her mind, unmediated by language.
Of note is that the truth-teller speaks for herself, completely reveal- ing her cards in the process. This differs, Foucault claims in the 1984 lectures at the College de France, from the prophet, who indeed tells the truth, but "does not speak in his own name. He speaks for another voice; his mouth serves as an intermediary for a voice which speaks from beyond" (2009: 16). The unmediated frankness of the truth- teller, compared to the prophet's mediated, representative speech, gives the parrhesiastes moral authority and culpability. The truth-teller can- not advise interlocutors to "not kill the messenger". She lives and dies on what is said: the message and the messenger are one and the same.
(b) TJ? uth. Frankness, however, is not sufficient for parrhesia. It is not enough that someone really believes that what they say is true; what they say must actually be true. As Foucault writes, the parrhesiastes "says what is true because he knows that it is true; and he knows that it is true because it really is true . . . his opinion is also the truth . . . there is always an exact coincidence between belief and truth" (2001: 14). There is no conflict between the mind of the parrhesiastes and her heart: she believes in the truth that she knows, believes in her knowl- edge of the truth, and knows that her beliefs are true. The truth is judged by the bare conviction of the speaker. It is this conviction that makes the parrhesiastes tell the truth (the really true) ; it is not a "cor- respondence" between "the world" and the statements made by the
? 149
? MI C HEL FOUCAULT: KEY CON CEPTS
speaker. Scepticism is dismissed by Foucault as "a particularly modern [question] which . . . is foreign to the Greeks" (ibid. : 1 5 ) . So, although parrhesia requires that the truth-teller tell the truth in an "epistemic" sense, the importance is not on the epistemic fact that the truth was said; rather, the importance lies in the moral power of the truth-teller.
(c) Danger. However, frank speech, even when spoken with conviction, is not sufficient to classify an utterance as parrhesia. Parrhesia occurs when the truth puts the truth-teller in some kind of danger. In the face of danger, liars lie. The parrhesiastes, however, tells the truth, usually to a person who is more powerful than she, a person who knows that what the truth-teller says is true. Hence there is an element of courage in parrhesia. As Foucault tells us, "a grammar teacher may tell the truth to the children that he teaches, and indeed has no doubt that what he teaches is true. But in spite of this coincidence between belief and truth, he is not a parrhesiastes" (ibid. : 16). Simply put, there is no courage required to say that three is a prime number. A philosopher pointing out a tyrant's tyranny, however, is a different situation. The tyrant knows that he is a tyrant, so the philosopher is not saying something that the tyrant does not know. However, telling the tyrant that he is a tyrant puts the truth-teller in danger; nonetheless, although aware of the danger, the philosopher tells him anyway, and suggests ways for the tyrant to change his way of governing. In order for one to be a parrhesiastes, one must have something to lose in telling the truth. No risk, no parrhesia.
In the 1 9 8 4 lectures, Foucault reasserts that the parrhesiastes "is not the professor, the teacher, the how-to guy who says, in the name of tradition, techne" (2009: 25). Instead of techne, technical knowledge, the truth-teller proclaims ethos, a way of living one's life. This involves a risk unknown by the technician. The teacher knows no risk, Foucault claims, because he works in the context of shared values: heritage, common knowledge, tradition, friendship. The truth-teller, however, "takes a risk. He risks the relationship that he has with the one whom he addresses. In telling the truth, far from establishing a positive line of common knowledge, heritage, affiliation, recognition, and friend- ship, he can, to the contrary, provoke anger" (ibid. : 24). Truth-telling requires stepping outside of the alleged "shared values" held by the interlocutor. This "stepping outside" will be the grounds for the critical dimension of parrhesia.
(d) Critique. Parrhesia has to be more than just frank statements stated that causes the truth-teller to be potentially endangered. Truth-telling in a moral sense requires that the truth be something that the hearer
? ? ? 150
? S UB J E CTIVITY AND TRUTH
does not like. In other words, parrhesia must have a dimension of criticism. The truth told by the truth-teller must force, even if just for a moment, the interlocutor to examine himself. It is at this point that courage is required. Given that the recipient of parrhesia is usually in a superior position of power to the speaker, the recipient is tempted to unleash his power upon the truth-teller by punishing her, firing her, killing her, and so on. This is where most people fall short: afraid of the possible retaliation, the liar lies, converting what could be a moment of critique into a moment of flattery. The parrhesiastes frankly tells a critical, unflattering truth about the matter. Parrhesia is the opposite of self-interested, cowardly, unhelpful flattery. The parrhesiastes speaks the truth with frankness in the face of danger in order to help those for whom violence is the easier solution.
(e) Duty. So far we have described parrhesia in terms of frankness, conviction, danger, and criticism; what is missing is that which unites these principles. That connective feature is the sense of moral duty that accompanies the parrhesiastes. In the face of potential danger, the liar lies, and he justifies his action by appealing to the circumstances. This is a consequentialist response. But, akin to Kant, Foucault claims that parrhesia is the result of a moral decision to tell the truth, even if doing so is dangerous. The truth-teller "is free to keep silent. No one forces him to speak, but he feels that it is his duty to do so . . . Parrhesia is thus related to freedom and to duty" (2001: 19). In order to tell the truth in the sense of parrhesia, one must be free to not tell the truth, either by lying or by saying nothing. To tell the truth requires that the truth-teller have an ethical relationship with herself. The parrhesiastes "risk[s] death to tell the truth instead of reposing in the security of a life where the truth goes unspoken . . . he prefers himself as a truth- teller rather than as a living being who is false to himself" (ibid. : 17). 5 Truth-telling is morally praiseworthy because it is done exactly when it would be easier not to do it.
This is what differentiates the truth-teller from the sage. In the 1 9 8 4 lectures, Foucault points out that although the sage is like the truth- teller in so far as there is a unity of messenger and message (unlike the prophet), "the sage . . . keeps his wisdom in retreat, or at least in an essential reserve. Basically, the sage is wise in and for himself, and he need not speak . . . nothing obligates him to distribute, teach, or manifest his wisdom" (2009 : 1 8 ) . The parrhesiastes, in contrast, is morally obli- gated to speak. She cannot keep the truth to herself; she must proclaim the truth - she must speak all of the truth to everyone to whom it is addressed. Parrhesia understood this way is a truth that cannot be kept
? ? 151
? MICHEL FOU CAULT: KEY CONCEPTS
hidden. The truth-teller un-conceals herself, the interlocutor, and the truth that is to be communicated. 6
Uses ofparrhesia in ancient philosophy
In the Berkeley lectures in 1983, Foucault describes the use ofparrhesia in three different arenas: community life, public life and personal life. Foucault refers to the Epicureans in order to illustrate the use of truth- telling in community life. In Epicurean communities, parrhesia was a collective, communal activity. At the heart of the communal use of truth-telling were the personal interviews done by advanced teachers. In these interviews, "a teacher would give advice and precepts to indi- vidual community members" (Foucault 2001: 113). There were also group confession sessions, "where each of the community members in turn would disclose their thoughts, faults, misbehavior, and so on . . . 'the salvation by one another"' (ibid. : 1 14) . In this communal model, parrhesia was used "in house" for the purpose of spiritual guidance, either privately or in open groups.
To illustrate the public use of parrhesia, Foucault turns to the Cyn- ics. The Cynics used truth-telling as a means of public instruction. Foucault highlights three truth-telling Cynic practices: critical preach- ing, scandalous behaviour and provocative dialogue. We will address each in turn.
The Cynics, unlike the Epicureans, spoke to large crowds, usually composed of people who were outside of their community. Foucault states that preaching "is still one of the main forms of truth-telling practiced in our society, and it involves the idea that the truth must be told and taught not only to the best members of the society, or to an exclusive group, but to everyone" (ibid. : 120). Cynics told the truth to anyone, anytime, anywhere. The need to speak out against the institu- tions of society (the favourite target of Cynics) on the larger public scale exemplifies parrhesia as frank, critical truth-telling done simply because "the truth has to be said", regardless of the risk.
The Cynics were the masters of frank risk-taking truth-telling. Scan- dalous behaviour, particularly personified in Diogenes the Cynic, was a public way to show the truth and the relationship one had to the truth. The most famous example of Diogenes involves Diogenes masturbating in the public square. When asked to give an account for his behaviour, Diogenes states that "he wished it were as easy to banish hunger by rubbing the belly" (ibid. : 122, quoting Diogenes Laertius, VI, 46; 69).
The point here is clear: if eating, the removal of hunger, is allowed in
? 152
? SUBJECTIVITY AND TRUTH
the public square, then surely the removal of sexual desire, which is just as much aphrodisia as eating and drinking, should be allowed in public. That one considers masturbation shameful is strange given that one does not consider eating and drinking shameful.
The third Cynic practice was the use of provocative dialogue. This is often depicted as dialogues between Diogenes and Alexander the Great. One example from the texts is that Diogenes told Alexander to move out of his way because Alexander was blocking the sun. Another example would be Diogenes calling Alexander a bastard. To say such a thing to the emperor, especially in public, is indeed provocative. From Diogenes' point of view, Alexander just is not so great! Foucault points out that "whereas Socrates plays with his interlocutor's ignorance, Dio- genes wants to hurt Alexander's pride" (ibid. : 126). In other words, the provocative dialogue is a unique variation of Socratic dialogue: by showing someone that they are not true to what they claim, the philosopher encourages the interlocutor to examine oneself and begin to take care of oneself.
Preaching, acting out and attacking pride: these were the three main categories of the public use of parrhesia performed by the Cynics. Foucault would have more to say about the Stoics in the 1984 lectures at the College de France. This is because, as Foucault states, "the Cynic parrhesiastic game is played at the very limits of the parrhesiastic con- tract. It borders on transgression because the parrhesiastes may have made too many insulting remarks" (ibid. : 127). 7 The Cynics reappear as examples for Foucault because they take truth-telling to its absolute limit; parrhesia is the modus operandi of the entire Cynic worldview. Perhaps no other group completely embodied parrhesia in their own persons in the way that the Cynics did.
The final arena for the use of parrhesia is in one's private life, includ- ing one's personal relationships. One needs truth-telling such that one is one's own interlocutor: pride and flattery are possible even with one's self. One needs parrhesia in order to stay away from self-deception. The group that best represents this use of truth-telling is the Stoics, although Foucault would later add early Christians to the list.
At the heart of Stoic life was self-examination. This self-examination is not the same as confession in the later Christian period. Instead, self- examination was more of an administrative activity. As Foucault notes, Seneca does not account for "sins" but:
mistakes . . . inefficient actions requiring adjustments between ends and means . . . The point of the fault concerns a practical error in his behavior since he was unable to establish an effective
? 153
?
