Truth-telling as an Educational Practice of the Self: Foucault,Parrhesia and the ethics of subjectivity

This paper is devoted to an examination of Foucault's changing notion of truth in relation to the changing practice of education. In the first section I examine briefly the notion of truth as Foucault uses it to investigate the socio-political sphere. The remainder of the essay is given over to Foucault's six lectures entitled 'Discourse and Truth: the problematisation of Parrhesia', given at Berkeley during the months of October-November in 1983. In these lectures, Foucault outlines the meanings and the evolution of the classical Greek word 'parrhesia' and its cognates, as they enter into and exemplify the changing practices of truth-telling in Greek society. In particular, Foucault investigates 'the use of parrhesia in specific types of human relationsips' and 'the procedures and techniques employed in such relationships' (34/66). Central to his analysis is the importance of education and its relations to 'care of the self', public life and the crisis of democratic institutions.