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Discourse and Truth: the Problematization of Parrhesia: 6 lectures given by Michel Foucault at the University of California at Berkeley, Oct-Nov. 1983

— Foucault, Michel. “Discourse and Truth: the Problematization of Parrhesia.” 6 lectures at University of California at Berkeley, CA, Oct-Nov. 1983.

“My intention was not to deal with the problem of truth, but with the problem of truth-teller or truth-telling as an activity. By this I mean that, for me, it was not a question of analyzing the internal or external criteria that would enable the Greeks and Romans, or anyone else, to recognize whether a statement or proposition is true or not. At issue for me was rather the attempt to consider truth-telling as a specific activity, or as a role.”

Table of Contents

Alexandra Meets Diogenes
Alexandra Meets Diogenes Source: M.Toumbis, Postcard, Athens No.48

Editor’s notes: The text was adapted for the web, as a digital archive, by Foucault.info in 1999 from photocopies of the verbatim transcription of the lectures by J. Pearson, consulted at the Bibliothèque du Saulchoir in Paris. The footnotes and bibliography added by J.Pearson were not included. In 2006, the text was proofread and reorganised into six files for better readability on screen.

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