The lectures of Michel Foucault in 1983 at the Collège de France inaugurate a research on the concept of parrhesia. In this research, Foucault continues to apply his distinctive interpretive lens to ancient philosophy. Through the study of this concept (the truth-telling, sincerity, frankness), Foucault questions the Greek quality of citizenship, showing how the courage of truth constitutes the forgotten moral foundation of Athenian democracy.

He also describes, attempting a new reading of Plato's Seventh Letter, how, with the decline of the cities, the courage of truth transforms and becomes a personal address to the soul of the Ruler. Numerous places in ancient philosophy are put under reconsideration: the Platonic form of the philosopher-king, the condemnation of writing, the Socratic denial of political engagement.

In this series of lectures, Foucault constructs an image of the philosopher in which he recognizes himself: by rereading the Greek thinkers, he solidifies his own inclusion in philosophical modernity, problematizes his own function, and defines his own way of thinking and existing.

“Modern philosophy is a practice that, in its relationship with politics, tests its own reality. It is a practice that, in its critique of illusion, deception, trickery, and flattery, finds its truth-functional operation. It is ultimately a practice that, in the transformation of the subject by itself and by the other, finds the object of exercise of its practice. Philosophy as exteriority in relation to a politics that constitutes the trial of its reality, philosophy as critique in relation to a deceptive field that challenges it to constitute itself as true discourse, philosophy as exercise, that is, as the constitution of the subject by itself – I believe this is the modern way of existence of philosophy, or what continues the way of existence of ancient philosophy in the modern way of existence of philosophy.”

M. F.