The government of self and others: lectures at the Collège de France, 1982-1983

Foreword / François Ewald / Alessandro Fontana

Translator's Note

1. 5 January 1983: First Hour

Remarks on method

Study of Kant's text: What is Enlightenment?

Conditions of publication: journals

The encounter between Christian Aufklärung and Jewish Haskala: freedom of conscience

Philosophy and present reality

The question of the Revolution

Two critical filiations

2. 5 January 1983: Second Hour

The idea of tutelage (minorité): neither natural powerlessness nor authoritarian deprivation of rights

Way out from the condition of tutelage and critical activity

The shadow of the three Critiques

The difficulty of emancipation: laziness and cowardice; the predicted failure of liberators

Motivations of the condition of tutelage: superimposition of obedience and absence of reasoning; confusion between the private and public use of reason

The problematic turn at the end of Kant's text

3. 12 January 1983: First Hour

Reminders of method

Definition of the subject to be studied this year

Parresia and culture of self

Galen's On the Passions and Errors of the Soul

Parresia: difficulty in defining the notion; bibliographical reference points

An enduring, plural, and ambiguous notion

Plato faced with the tyrant of Syracuse: an exemplary scene of parresia

The echo of Oedipus

Parresia versus demonstration, teaching, and discussion

The element of risk

4. 12 January 1983: Second Hour

Irreducibility of the parrhesiastic to the performative utterance: opening up of an unspecified risk/public expression of a personal conviction/bringing a free courage into play

Pragmatics and dramatics of discourse

Classical use of the notion of parresia: democracy (Polybius) and citizenship (Euripides).

5. 19 January 1983: First Hour

Ion in the mythology and history of Athens

Political context of Euripides' tragedy: the Nicias peace

History of Ion's birth

Alethurgic schema of the tragedy

The implication of the three truth-tellings: oracle, confession (l'aveu), and political discourse

Structural comparison of Ion and Oedipus the King

The adventures of truth-telling in Ion: the double half-lie

6. 19 January 1983: Second Hour

Ion: A nobody, son of nobody

Three categories of citizen

Consequences of political intrusion by Ion: private hatreds and public tyranny

In search of a mother

Parresia irreducible to the actual exercise of power and to the citizen's status

The agonistic game of truth-telling: free and risky

Historical context: the Cleon/Nicias debate

Creusa's anger

7. 26 January 1983: First Hour

Continuation and end of the comparison between Ion and Oedipus: the truth does not arise from an investigation but from the clash of passions

The rule of illusions and passions

The cry of confession and accusation

G. Dumézil's analyses of Apollo

Dumézil's categories applied to Ion

Tragic modulation of the theme of the voice

Tragic modulation of the theme of gold

8. 26 January 1983: Second Hour

Tragic modulation of the theme of fertility

Parresia as imprecation: public denunciation by the weak of the injustice of the powerful

Creusa's second confession (aveu): the voice of confession (confession)

Final episodes: from murder plan to Athena's appearance

9. 2 February 1983: First Hour

Reminder of the Polybius text

Return to Ion: divine and human veridictions

The three forms of parresia: statutory-political; judicial; moral

Political parresia: its connection with democracy; its basis in an agonistic structure

Return to the Polybius text: the isegoria/parresia relationship

Politeia and dunasteia: thinking of politics as experience

Parresia in Euripides: The Phoenician Women; Hippolytus; The Bacchae; Orestes

The Trial of Orestes

10. 2 February 1983: Second Hour

The rectangle of parresia: formal condition, de facto condition, truth condition, and moral condition

Example of the correct functioning of democratic parresia in Thucydides: three discourses of Pericles

Bad parresia in Isocrates

11. 9 February 1983: First Hour

Parresia: everyday usage; political usage

Reminder of three exemplary scenes: Thucydides; Isocrates; Plutarch

Lines of evolution of parresia

The four great problems of ancient political philosophy: the ideal city; the respective merits of democracy and autocracy; addressing the Prince's soul; the philosophy/rhetoric relationship

Study of three texts by Plato

12. 9 February 1983: Second Hour

Plato's Letters: the context

Study of letter V: the phone of constitutions; reasons for non-involvement

Study of Letter VII

Dion's history

Plato's political autobiography

The journey to Sicily

Why Plato accepts: kairos; philia; ergon

13. 16 February 1983: First Hour

Philosophical ergon

Comparison with the Alcibiades

The reality of philosophy: the courageous address to power

First condition of reality: listening, the first circle

The philosophical oeuvre: a choice; a way; an application

The reality of philosophy as work of self on self (second circle)

14. 16 February 1983: Second Hour

The failure of Dionysius

The Platonic rejection of writing

Mathemata versus sunousia

Philosophy as practice of the soul

The philosophical digression of Letter VII: the five elements of knowledge

The third circle: the circle of knowledge

The philosopher and the legislator

Final remarks on contemporary interpretations of Plato

15. 23 February 1983: First Hour

The enigmatic blandness of Plato's political advice

The advice to Dionysius

The diagnosis, practice of persuasion, proposal of a regime

Advice to Dion's friends

Study of Letter VIII

Parresia underpins political advice

16. 23 February 1983: Second Hour

Philosophy and politics: necessary relationship but impossible coincidence

Cynical and Platonic game with regard to politics

The new historical conjuncture: thinking a new political unit beyond the city-state

From the public square to the Prince's soul

The Platonic theme of the philosopher-king

17. 2 March 1983: First Hour

Reminders about political parresia

Point in the evolution of political parresia

The major questions of ancient philosophy

Study of a text by Lucian

Ontology of discourses of veridiction

Socratic speech in the Apology

The paradox of the political non-involvement of Socrates

18. 2 March 1983: Second Hour

End of study of Socrates' Apology: parresia/rhetoric opposition

Study of the Phaedrus: general plan of the dialogue

The conditions of good logos

Truth as permanent function of discourse

Dialectic and psychagogy

Philosophical parresia

19. 9 March 1983: First Hour

The historical turnaround of parresia: from the political game to the philosophical game

Philosophy as practice of parresia: the example of Aristippus

The philosophical life as manifestation of the truth

The permanent address to power

The interpellation of each

Portrait of the Cynic in Epictetus

Pericles and Socrates

Modern philosophy and courage of the truth

20. 9 March 1983: Second Hour

Study of the Gorgias

The obligation of confession (aveu) in Plato: the context of liquidation of rhetoric

The three qualities of Callicles: episteme; parresia; eunoia

Agonistic game against egalitarian system

Socratic speech: basanos and homologia

Course Context

Index of Names

Index of Concepts and Notions