The Government of Self and Others: (Michel Foucault: Lectures at the College De France)

The lectures given by Michel Foucault in 1983 at the College de France launch an inquiry into the notion of parrA"sia and continue his rereading of ancient philosophy. Through the study of this notion of truth-telling, of speaking out freely, Foucault re-examines Greek citizenship, showing how the courage of truth forms the forgotten ethical basis of Athenian democracy. He describes how, with the decline of the city-states, the courage of truth is transformed and becomes directed personally to the Prince's soul, giving us a new reading of Plato's seventh letter. The platonic figure of the philosopher king, the condemnation of writing, and Socrates' rejection of political involvement are some of the many topics of ancient philosophy revisited in Foucault's lectures. In the midst of brilliant interpretations of Greek tragedy, political theory, and philosophy, Foucault allows us to rethink the role, the significance, and the transformation of practices of parrA"sia from antiquity to the present. Moreover, in these lectures Foucault constructs a figure of the philosopher in which he recognized himself and with this rereading of Greek thinkers he assures his own placement in philosophical modernity, problematizes his own function, and defines his mode of thinking and being. 'Modern philosophy is a practice which tests its reality in its relationship to politics. It is a practice which finds its function of truth in the criticism of illusion, deception, trickery, and flattery. Finally, it is a practice which finds the object of its exercise in the transformation of the subject by himself and of the subject by the other. Philosophy as exteriority with regard to a politics which constitutes its test of reality, philosophy as critique of a domain of illusion which challenges it to constitute itself as true discourse, and philosophy as ascesis, that is to say, as constitution of the subject by himself, are what constitute the modern mode of being of philosophy'.

Table of Contents:
Foreword: Francois Ewald and Alessandro Fontana Introduction: Arnold I. Davidson Translator's Note 5 January 1983: First Hour 5 January 1983: Second Hour 12 January 1983: First Hour 12 January 1983: Second Hour 19 January 1983: First Hour 19 January 1983: Second Hour 26 January 1983: First Hour 26 January 1983: Second Hour 2 February 1983: First Hour 2 February 1983: Second Hour 9 February 1983: First Hour 9 February 1983: Second Hour 16 February 1983: First Hour 16 February 1983: Second Hour 23 February 1983: First Hour 23 February 1983: Second Hour 2 March 1983: First Hour 2 March 1983: Second Hour 9 March 1983: First Hour 9 March 1983: Second Hour Course Context Index of Notions Index of Names

About the Author :
MICHEL FOUCAULT, acknowledged as the pre-eminent philosopher of France in the 1970s and 1980s, continues to have enormous impact throughout the world in many disciplines. ARNOLD I. DAVIDSON is the Robert O. Anderson Distinguished Service Professor at the University of Chicago and Professor of the History of Political Philosophy at the University of Pisa, Italy. He is co-editor of the volume Michel Foucault: Philosophie. GRAHAM BURCHELL is Translator, and has written essays on Michel Foucault. He is an Editor of The Foucault Effect.

Review :
"The publications of Foucault's lectures at the College de France have given us an incredible view of the development of his thinking. This new volume, The Government of Self and Others, shows us how Foucault was conceiving the relation between the self and the others who make up the political, how fearless speech (parrA"sia) is at the center of both, and how parrA"sia defines, for Foucault, philosophical action itself. Thanks to these lectures, we see Foucault as the great thinker he is." - Leonard Lawlor, Sparks Professor of Philosophy, Penn State University, USA. "The publication of Foucault's lectures is momentous not only because they deepen our understanding of his books and essays, but because they dramatically change the way we read him. This study of the ancient practice of parresia -- philosophical truth-telling -- forces us to abandon the view that his late thought was a turn away from politics. The key question in these lectures is the relationship between philosophy and politics: their necessary dependence, but impossible coincidence. The political significance of philosophy was an acute problem for Foucault throughout his life. It remains a definitive question today for anyone concerned with the future of Western political thought and practice." - Johanna Oksala, University of Dundee, UK.