Parrhesia+(Weiss)

=Parrhesia=

Foucault uses the Greek word //parrhesia// to examine speech activities (as opposed to Searle's "speech acts") regarding truth and power relationships. Although it is normally literally translated into English as "free speech" (French: f//ranc-parle//r, German: //Freimüthigkeit//), there is more to the Greek concept of //parrhesia//, as encompassed in three types: political, Socratic, and Cynic.

Background
There are three forms of the word: //parrhesia//, //parrhesia-zomai// ("to use parrhesia"), //parrhresiastes// ("the one who uses parrhesia"). The etymology, according to Foucault, derives from //pan// ("everything) and //rhema//("that which is said"), into //parrhesiazesthai// ("to say everything"). Although //parrhesia// has been sometimes used in negative ways - as a way of describing low-quality chatter with no filtering for truth or importance - it has mainly been used in a positive way, as a way of expressing sincere belief in truth and of expressing truth itself.

//Parrhesia// is contrasted with rhetoric, which uses technical skill to increase acceptance of a spoken idea; in //parrhesia//, the speaker "emphasizes the fact that he is both the subject of the enunciation and the subject of the enunciandum – that he himself is the subject of the opinion to which he refers. The specific 'speech activity' of the parrhesiastic enunciation thus takes the form: 'I am the one who thinks this and that'."(1)

"History of Thought" vs. "History of Ideas"
Foucault emphasized that his discussion of //parrhesia// was undertaken within his context as a historian of thought, rather than of ideas. He was less interested in tracking the birth, growth, and development of an idea per se, and instead focused on the problematization of previously unquestioned social structures and activities as well as on the responses and solutions to said problems.

//I would like to distinguish between the "**history of ideas**" and the "**history of thought**". Most of the time a historian of ideas tries to determine when a specific concept appears, and this moment is often identified by the appearance of a new word. But what I am attempting to do as a historian of thought is something different. I am trying to **analyze the way institutions, practices, habits, and behavior become a problem** for people who behave in specific sorts of ways, who have certain types of habits, who engage in certain kinds of practices, and who put to work specific kinds of institutions. The **history of ideas involves the analysis of a notion** from its birth, through its development, and in the setting of other ideas which constitute its context. The **history of thought is the analysis of the way an unproblematic field of experience**, or a set of practices which were accepted without question, which were familiar and out of discussion, **becomes a problem**, raises discussion and debate, incites new reactions, and induces a crisis in the previously silent behavior, habits, practices, and institutions. The history of thought, understood in this way, is the **history of the way people begin to take care of something, of the way they became anxious about this or that**– for example, about madness, about crime, about sex, about themselves, or about truth.// (2)

Five Requirements for //Parrhesia//

 * Frankness**: Rather than relying on rhetorical flourishes to dress up one's speech, the //parrhesiastes// is one who has nothing to hide about her/his thoughts and speaks plainly.

//The one who uses parrhesia, the parrhesiastes, is someone who says everything he has in mind: he does not hide anything, but opens his heart and mind completely to other people through his discourse. In parrhesia, the speaker is supposed 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. The word "parrhesia" then, refers to a type of relationship between the speaker and what he says. For in parrhesia, the speaker makes it manifestly clear and obvious that what he says is his own opinion.// (2)


 * Truth**: The concept of //parrhesia// is associated with telling the truth, but that opens up the question as to whether the speaker says what is actually true, or merely what s/he believes to be true.

//To my mind, the parrhesiastes says what is true because he knows that it is true; and he knows that it is true because it is really true. The parrhesiastes is not only sincere and says what is his opinion, but his opinion is also the truth. He says what he knows to be true. The second characteristic of parrhesia, then, is that there is always an exact coincidence between belief and truth.// (2)


 * Danger**: There must be an aspect of risk for the //parrhesiastes// because of power differentials and possibility of loss.

//Of course, this risk is not always a risk of life. When, for example, you see a friend doing something wrong and you risk incurring his anger by telling him he is wrong, you are acting as a parrhesiastes. In such a case, you do not risk your life, but you may hurt him by your remarks, and your friendship may consequently suffer for it. If, in a political debate, an orator risks losing his popularity because his opinions are contrary to the majority's opinion, or his opinions may usher in a political scandal, he uses parrhesia. Parrhesia, then, is linked to courage in the face of danger: it demands the courage to speak the truth in spite of some danger. And in its extreme form, telling the truth takes place in the "game" of life or death.// (2)


 * Criticism**: The purpose of //parrhesia// is not to demonstrate truth, but to use truth to criticize.

//Parrhesia is a form of criticism, either towards another or towards oneself, but always in a situation where the speaker or confessor is in a position of inferiority with respect to the interlocutor. The parrhesiastes is always less powerful than the one with whom he or she speaks. The parrhesia comes from "below", as it were, and is directed towards "above". This is why an ancient Greek would not say that a teacher or father who criticizes a child uses parrhesia. But when a philosopher criticizes a tyrant, when a citizen criticizes the majority, when a pupil criticizes his or her teacher, then such speakers may be using parrhesia.// (2)


 * Duty**: Finally, //parrhesia// is an act done out of a sense of duty; it cannot be coerced.

//The orator who speaks the truth to those who cannot accept his truth, for instance, and who may be exiled, or punished in some way, is free to keep silent. No one forces him to speak; but he feels that it is his duty to do so. When, on the other hand, someone is compelled to tell the truth (as, for example, under duress of torture), then his discourse is not a parrhesiastic utterance. A criminal who is forced by his judges to confess his crime does not use parrhesia. But if he voluntarily confesses his crime to someone else out of a sense of moral obligation, then he performs a parrhesiastic actto criticize a friend who does not recognize his wrongdoing, or insofar as it is a duty towards the city to help the king to better himself as a sovereign. **Parrhesia is thus related to freedom and to duty**.// (2)

Political Parrhesia
From the Greek texts, Foucault identified a core crisis regarding //parrhesia// in two parts: who is entitled to use //parrhesia//, and how do we promote "good" //parrhesia// rather than "bad" //parrhesia//? In the system of Greek democracy, this crisis was seen as a conflict arising from an apparent lack of compatibility between increased access to the public sphere by all (male, Greek) citizens and a need for a certain level of education and knowledge to be able to speak an informed truth. If there were no limitation on participation, then there would be people engaging in "bad" //parrhesia//, the expressing of ideas that were not factual, or worse, people speaking unrestrained who would be classified as //athuroglossos// ("mouth like a running spring") or //athurostomia// ("one who has a tongue but no door").

//"And now I think we can begin to see that the crisis regarding parrhesia is a problem of truth: for the problem is one of recognizing who is capable of speaking the truth within the limits of an institutional system where everyone is equally entitled to give his or her own opinion. Democracy by itself is not able to determine who has the specific qualities which enable him or her to speak the truth (and thus should possess the right to tell the truth). And parrhesia, as a verbal activity, as pure frankness in speaking, is also not sufficient to disclose truth since negative parrhesia, ignorant outspokenness, can also result."// (2)

//Democracy is founded by a politeia, a constitution, where the demos, the people, exercise power, and where everyone is equal in front of the law. Such a constitution, however, is condemned to give equal place to all forms of parrhesia, even the worst. Because parrhesia is given even to the worst citizens, the overwhelming influence of bad, immoral, or ignorant speakers may lead the citizenry into tyranny, or may otherwise endanger the city. Hence parrhesia may be dangerous for democracy itself.// (3)

Socratic Parrhesia
Foucault presents an alternative form of //parrhesia// based in writings about Socrates that can be contrasted to political //parrhesia//:

//Socratic parrhesia differs from political parrhesia in a number of ways. It appears in a personal relationship between two human beings, and not in the parrhesiastes' relation to the demos, or the king. And in addition to the relationships we noticed between logos, truth, and courage in political parrhesia, with Socrates a new element now emerges, viz., bios. Bios is the focus of Socratic parrhesia. On Socrates' or the philosopher's side, the bios-logos relation is a Dorian harmony which grounds Socrates' parrhesiastic role, and which, at the same time, constitutes the visible criterion for his function as the basanos or touchstone.// (4)

There are four key differences between Socratic //parrhesia// and political //parrhesia//:

1) Philosophical in nature, with epistemic, political, and harmonizing roles. 2) Target is an individual who is to be convinced to change her/his life, rather than an Assembly or other political entity. 3) Complex connections between self and truth, whereby //parrhesiastic// practices provide self-knowledge, and such self-knowledge creates access to more truth and knowledge. 4) More versatility of techniques and utilization in places other than the //agora// (king's court).

Cynic Parrhesia
Three types of //parrhesiastic// practices were used by the Cynics: critical preaching, scandalous behavior, and "provocative dialogue".

//Preaching is a form of continuous discourse. And, as you know, most of the early philosophers – especially the Stoics – would occasionally deliver speeches where they presented their doctrines. Usually, however they would lecture in front of a rather small audience. The Cynics, in contrast, disliked this kind of elitist exclusion and preferred to address a large crowd. For example, they liked to speak in a theater, or at a place where people had gathered for a feast, religious event, athletic contest, etc. They would sometimes stand up in the middle of a theater audience and deliver a speech.//
 * Critical Preaching**:

//...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.//

//There is, however, very little positive doctrine in Cynic preaching: no direct affirmation of the good or bad. Instead, the Cynics refer to freedom (eleutheria) and self-sufficiency (autarkeia) as the basic criteria by which to assess and kind of behavior or mode of life.// (4)

//Cynic parrhesia also had recourse to scandalous behavior or attitudes which called into question collective habits, opinions, standards of decency, institutional rules, and so on. Several procedures were used. One of them was the inversion of roles// //...The Cynics also employed the technique of displacing or transposing a rule from a domain where the rule was accepted to a domain where it was not in order to show how arbitrary the rule was.// //...Cynic parrhesia in its scandalous aspects also utilized the practice of bringing together two rules of behavior which seem contradictory and remote from one another.// //For example, regarding the problem of bodily needs. You eat. There is no scandal in eating, so you can eat in public (although, for the Greeks, this is not obvious and Diogenes was sometimes reproached for eating in the agora). Since Diogenes ate in the agora, he thought that there was no reason why he should not also masturbate in the agora; for in both cases he was satisfying a bodily need (adding that "he wished it were as easy to banish hunger by rubbing the belly").// (4)
 * Scandalous Behavior**:

//For example, at the beginning of the exchange, Diogenes calls Alexander a bastard (181), and tells him that someone who claim to be a king is not so very different from a child who, after winning a game, puts a crown on his head and declares that he is king [47-49]. Of course, all that is not very pleasant for Alexander to hear. But that's Diogenes' game: hitting his interlocutor's pride, forcing him to recognize that he is not what he claims to be which is something quite different from the Socratic attempt to show someone that he is ignorant of what he claims to know. In the Socratic dialogues, you sometimes see that someone's pride has been hurt when he is compelled to recognize that he does not know what he claims to know. For example, when Callicles is led to an awareness of his ignorance, he renounces all discussion because his pride has been hurt. But this is only a side effect, as it were, of the main target of Socratic irony, which is: to show someone that he is ignorant of his own ignorance. In the case of Diogenes, however, pride is the main target, and the ignorance/knowledge game is a side effect.// (4)
 * Provocative Dialogue**: