{"id":1550,"date":"2016-04-01T10:04:37","date_gmt":"2016-04-01T14:04:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.law.columbia.edu\/foucault1313\/?p=1550"},"modified":"2018-08-11T16:54:55","modified_gmt":"2018-08-11T20:54:55","slug":"frank-speech-and-contemporary-critical-thought-comments-on-judith-revel-and-john-rajchman","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.law.columbia.edu\/foucault1313\/2016\/04\/01\/frank-speech-and-contemporary-critical-thought-comments-on-judith-revel-and-john-rajchman\/","title":{"rendered":"Bernard E. Harcourt | Epilogue: Frank Speech and Contemporary Critical Thought"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Bernard E. Harcourt\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Thank you, Judith Revel, Sharon Marcus, and John Rajchman, for brilliant presentations that take us to the core of these 1983 lectures: the relationship between the study of ancient parrhesia and the task of contemporary critical thought.\u00a0Let me address the\u00a0interventions in reverse order.<\/p>\n

John Rajchman challenges us to delineate, with greater clarity, the political project in these 1983 lectures, despite Foucault\u2019s \u201cdifficult legacy\u201d\u2014that difficult legacy being, in effect, the lack or absence of political or ethical imperatives by contrast to someone like Kant, also at the heart of our conversation, who so forcefully advanced categorical imperatives.<\/p>\n

In his presentation, John Rajchman underscores the dramatic changes and shifts in the political environment over the course of the entire lecture series at the Coll\u00e8ge de France: from 1971 or ’72 when the repressive French state was so overwhelmingly present that it could be seen just by opening one\u2019s eyes\u2014recall, \u201cno introduction, one need only open one\u2019s eyes\u201d\u2014to the period of these lectures, 1982-1983, marked instead by a muted political climate and a deafening silence of intellectuals\u2014a \u2018present\u2019 marked by \u2018de-politicization\u2019 and \u2018de-solidarization.\u2019<\/p>\n

It is in the context of these changing political circumstances that Foucault\u2019s political and critical theoretic project shifts toward the object of parrhesia\u2014and this is John\u2019s brilliant insight, that politics and truth follow similar paths. John helps us to discern how this new political object, this political praxis, this risky truth-telling, comes into existence, in the very same way that (as John writes) \u201cat a specific time and place some things rather than others become up-for-grabs as true or false, by whom, for whom, through what practices and consequences.\u201d<\/p>\n

So we need to read these lectures on parrhesia as Foucault\u2019s answer to the problem of de-politicization of intellectuals. Foucault is offering in these lectures a way forward, one that is all about in-servitude and disobedience. The \u201ccritical philosophy\u201d that Foucault has on offer, and which draws on Kant\u2019s essay, is to think through the present through the praxis of risky speech that confronts others.<\/p>\n

The end of the lecture on 2 February 1983 captures this best, on page 184 of the English edition, page 168 of the French edition. The dominant kinds of responses to the political problems of the present, the dominant kinds of responses offered by democratic theory, fall into three categories:<\/p>\n