The Government of Self and Others

Foreword: François Ewald and Alessandro Fontana

Translator’s Note

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One: 5 January 1983: First Hour

Remarks on method. — Study of Kant’s text: What is Enlightenment? — Conditions of publication: journals. — The encounter between Christian Aufklärung and Jewish Haskala: freedom of conscience. — Philosophy and present reality. — The question of the Revolution. — Two critical filiations.

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Two: 5 January 1983: Second Hour

The idea of tutelage ( minorité ): neither natural powerlessness nor authoritarian deprivation of rights. — Way out from the condition of tutelage and critical activity. — The shadow of three Critiques. — The difficulty of emancipation: laziness and cowardice; the predicted failure of liberators. — Motivations of the condition of tutelage: superimposition of obedience and absence of reasoning; confusion between the private and public use of reason. — The problematic turn at the end of Kant’s text.

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Three: 12 January 1983: First Hour

Reminds of method. — Definition of the subject to be studied this year. — Parresia: difficulty in defining the notion; bibliographical reference points. — An enduring, plural, and ambiguous notion. — Plato faced with the tyrant of Syracuse: an exemplary scene of parresia. — The echo of Oedipus. — Parresia versus demonstration, teaching, and discussion. — The element of risk.

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Four: 12 January 1983: Second Hour

Irreducibility of the parrhesiastic to the performative utterance: opening up of an unspecified risk/public expression of a personal conviction/bringing a free courage into play. — Pragmatics and dramatics of discourse. — Classical use of the notion of parresia: democracy ( Polybius ) and citizenship ( Euripides ).

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Five: 19 January 1983: First Hour

Ion in the mythology and history of Athens. — Political context of Euripides’ tragedy: the Nicias peace. — History of Ion’s birth. — Alethurgic schema of the tragedy. — The implication of the three truth-tellings: oracle, confession ( l’aveu ), and political discourse. — Structural comparison of Ion and Oedipus the King. — The adventures of truth-telling in Ion: the double half-life.

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Six: 19 January 1983: Second Hour

Ion: A nobody, son of nobody. —Three categories of citizen. — Consequences of political intrusion by Ion: private hatreds and public tyranny. — In search of a mother. — Parresia irreducible to the actual exercise of power and to the citizen’s status. — The agnostic game of truth-telling: free and risky. — Historical context: the Cleon/Nicias debate. — Creusa’s anger.

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Seven: 26 January 1983: First Hour

Continuation and end of the comparison between Ion and Oedipus: the truth does not arise from an investigation but from the clash of passions. — The rule of illusions and passions. — The cry of confession and accusation. — G. Dumézil’s analyses of Apollo. — Dumézil’s categories applied to Ion. — Tragic modulation of the theme of the voice. — Tragic modulation of the theme of gold.

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Eight: 26 January 1983: Second Hour

Tragic modulation of the theme of fertility. — Parresia as imprecation: public denunciation by the weak of the injustice of the powerful. — Creusa’s second confession ( aveu ): the voice of confession ( confession ). Final episodes: from murder plan to Athena’s appearance.

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Nine: 2 February 1983: First Hour

Reminder of the Polybius text. — Return to Ion: divine and human veridictions. — The three forms of parresia: statutory-political; judicial; moral. — Political parresia: its connections with democracy; its basis in an agnostic structure. — Return to the Polybius text isegoria/parresia relationship. Politeia and dunasteia: thinking of politics as experience. — Parresia in Euripides: The Phoenician Women; Hippolytus; The Baccahe; Orestes. — The Trial of Orestes.

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Ten: 2 February 1983: Second Hour

The rectangle of parresia: formal condition, de facto condition, truth condition, and moral condition. — Example of the correct functioning of democratic parresia in Thucydides: three discourse of Pericles. — Bad parresia in Isocrates.

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Eleven: 9 February 1983: First Hour

Parresia: everyday usage; political usage. — Reminder of three exemplary scenes: Thucydides; Isocrates; Plutarch. — Lines of evolution of parresia. — The four great problems of ancient political philosophy: the ideal city; the respective merits of democracy and autocracy; addressing the Prince’s soul; the philosophy/rhetoric relationship. — Study of three texts by Plato.

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Twelve: 9 February 1983: Second Hour

Plato’s Letters: the context. — Study of Letter V: the phone of constitutions; reasons for non-involvement. — Study of Letter VII. — Dion’s history. — Plato’s political autobiography. — The journey to Sicily. — Why Plato accepts: kairos; philia; ergon.

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Thirteen: 16 February 1983: First Hour

Philosophical ergon. Comparison with the Alcibiades. — The reality of philosophy: the courageous address to power. — First condition of reality: listening, the first circle. — The philosophical oeuvre: a choice; a way; an application. — The reality of philosophy as work of self on self ( second circle ).

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Fourteen: 16 February 1983: Second Hour

The failure of Dionysius. — The platonic rejection of writing. — Mathemata versus sunousia. — Philosophy as practice of the soul. — The philosophical digression of Letter VII: the five elements of knowledge. — The third circle: the circle of knowledge. — The philosopher and the legislator. — Final remarks on contemporary interpretations of Plato.

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Fifteen: 23 February 1983: First Hour

The enigmatic blandness of Plato’s political advice. — The advice of Dionysius. — The diagnosis, practice of persuasion, proposal of a regime. — Advice to Dion’s friends. — Study of Letter VIII. — Parresia underpins political advice.

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Sixteen: 23 February 1983: Second Hour

Philosophy and politics: necessary relationship but impossible coincidence. — Cynical and Platonic game with regard to politics. — The new historical conjuncture: thinking a new political unit beyond the city-state. — From the public square to the Prince’s soul. — The Platonic theme of the philosopher-king.

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Seventeen: 2 March 1983: First Hour

Reminders about political parresia. — Points in the evolution of political parresia. — The major questions of ancient philosophy. — Study of a text by Lucian. — Ontology of discourse of veridiction. — Socratic speech in Apology. — The paradox of the political non-involvement of Socrates.

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Eighteen: 2 March 1983: Second Hour

End of study of Socrates’ Apology: parresia/rhetoric opposition. — Study of the Phaedrus: general plan of the dialogue. — The conditions of good logos. — Truth as permanent function of discourse. — Dialectic and psychagogy. — Philosophical parresia.

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Nineteen: 9 March 1983: First Hour

The historical turnaround of parresia: from the political game to the philosophical game. — Philosophy as practice of parresia: the example of Aristippus. — The philosophical life as manifestation of the truth. — The permanent address to power. — The interpellation of each. — Portrait of the Cynic in Epictetus. — Pericles and Socrates. — Modern philosophy and courage of the truth.

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Twenty: 9 March 1983: Second Hour

Study of the Gorgias. — The obligation of confession ( aveu ) in Plato: the context of liquidation of rhetoric. — The three qualities of Callicles: episteme; parresia; eunoia. — Agnostic game against egalitarian system. — Socratic speech: basanos and homologia.

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Course Context

Index of Names

Index of Concepts and Notions

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