Re: Parrhesia

On parrhesia, the Berkeley lectures that Stuart mentions is certainly the most
important document available in English (or in print, for that matter). It
was not published at all, strictly speaking, but is available in photocopied
manuscripts prepared by Joseph Pearson, who was a graduate student at
Northwestern. Some libraries have copies, which could be obtained through
interlibrary loan. In addition to the website that Stuart noted, this text
was translated and published in other languages, including, I believe, Dutch.
(Copies of these translations, as well as the original typescript by Pearson,
are available at the IMEC in Paris.)

But these Berkeley lectures represent a mere skeletal outline of just part of
the work that Foucault presented in the last two years of his lectures at the
College de France (1983 & 1984) -- which are both devoted primarily to the
topic of parrhesia. Interestingly, Foucault begins this 2-year discussion not
with the ancient Greeks (which will dominate much of the lectures) but with
Kant. About one-third of the first lecture of 1983 has been published and is
available in English translation and reprinted in a number of sources. It is
no. 351 in _Dits et Ecrits_. The initial publication of the English is:
"Kant on Enlightenment and revolution" Economy and society 15:1 (Feb 1986),
pp. 88-96. Translated by Colin Gordon. This is also available in _Foucault's
new domains_; and a translation by Alan Sheridan is "The art of telling the
truth" in _Politics, philosophy, culture_.
You'll notice some remarkable parallels between this text and the "What is
Enlightenment" piece included in _The Foucault Reader_.
Unfortunately, these two lecture courses have not yet been published, but they
are available on audiocassette at the IMEC in Paris.

As far as secondary literature goes, James Miller makes some use of the 1984
lectures in _The passions of Michel Foucault_, and a colleague of mine is
currently writing a dissertation largely centered on this topic.

I hope this additional info is helpful...
Richard

On Thu, 22 Jun 2000 18:48:33 GMT
owner-foucault-digest@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx (foucault-digest) wrote:
>
>Loren,
>
>Foucault gave some lectures at Berkeley in late 1983 on this topic. The
>version published as Discourse and Truth: The Problematization of Parrhesia
>is unofficial and basically just a transcription of tapes (rather like the
>new Seuil/Gallimard lecture courses) I think it was published by
>Northwestern Univ Press in 1985, but there is an on-line version at
>
>http://perso.club-internet.fr/kmille/discourse.htm
>
>Best
>Stuart
----------------
Richard A. Lynch
Department of Philosophy
Boston College
Chestnut Hill, MA 02467 USA
(617) 552-3851 (office)
(617) 552-3874 (fax)
(617) 734-7488 (home)
lynchrb@xxxxxx
----------------


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