The Truth-Telling of Democracy and Tyranny: An Analysis of Political Parrhesia in Antiquity Based on Michel Foucault

UMA ANÁLISE DA PARRESÍA POLÍTICA NA ANTIGUIDADE A PARTIR DE MICHEL FOUCAULT

Abstract

This article seeks to understand the relationships between truth, power, and subject, central themes in Michel Foucault's work, with an emphasis on his final courses based on the Greek tragedies Ion and Oedipus Rex. We will revisit the concept of parrhesia, etymologically understood as the practice of “saying everything,” examining how this notion crosses the fields of aleturgy (production of truth), governmentality (government of others), and subjectivity (government of oneself). The approach to the crisis of parrhesia in the midst of democracy and tyranny is a point of articulation, in which Athens is placed at the center of the analysis for its claims to be the ideal space for the exercise of frank speech and where the tragedies used in this work are a mirror of how politics worked in the ancient city of Athens. To this end, the methodology adopted is bibliographic and analytical-descriptive in nature, with the aim of examining the primary sources of the lectures given by Foucault and the concepts he developed.