TY - JOUR
T1 - Parrēsia, Foucault, and the Classical Rhetorical Tradition
AU - Walzer, Arthur E.
PY - 2013/1
Y1 - 2013/1
N2 - In his last seminars, Michel Foucault analyzed parrēsia (frank speech) in classical Greece and Rome, a subject also addressed by classical rhetoricians. Foucault regards parrēsia as an idealized modality of truth telling-unartful, sincere, courageous speech that tells an unwelcome truth to power. Aligning rhetoric with flattery, Foucault excludes rhetorical parrēsia from his history of thought. This essay offers an alternative analysis of parrēsia from the perspective of classical rhetoric. Drawing especially on the comprehensive description in the Rhetorica Ad Herennium, this essay identifies within the classical tradition a feigned parrēsia as well as a sincere one and a rhetorically artful parrēsia as well as the unartful, bold one that Foucault favors. Furthermore, the essay traces a genealogy that highlights changes in the practice of parrēsia as the term is conceptualized in the context of friendship, at which point parrēsia takes on an unmistakably rhetorical character.
AB - In his last seminars, Michel Foucault analyzed parrēsia (frank speech) in classical Greece and Rome, a subject also addressed by classical rhetoricians. Foucault regards parrēsia as an idealized modality of truth telling-unartful, sincere, courageous speech that tells an unwelcome truth to power. Aligning rhetoric with flattery, Foucault excludes rhetorical parrēsia from his history of thought. This essay offers an alternative analysis of parrēsia from the perspective of classical rhetoric. Drawing especially on the comprehensive description in the Rhetorica Ad Herennium, this essay identifies within the classical tradition a feigned parrēsia as well as a sincere one and a rhetorically artful parrēsia as well as the unartful, bold one that Foucault favors. Furthermore, the essay traces a genealogy that highlights changes in the practice of parrēsia as the term is conceptualized in the context of friendship, at which point parrēsia takes on an unmistakably rhetorical character.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84876258882&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=84876258882&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1080/02773945.2012.740130
DO - 10.1080/02773945.2012.740130
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:84876258882
SN - 0277-3945
VL - 43
SP - 1
EP - 21
JO - Rhetoric Society Quarterly
JF - Rhetoric Society Quarterly
IS - 1
ER -