The Courage of Untruth?

• Authors: Michał Herer

Abstracts

EN

Michel Foucault defined parrhesia as “the free courage by which one binds oneself in the act of telling the truth.” Could telling objective untruth also be a parrhesiastic act, insofar as it requires courage and initiates subjectivation? Climate deniers, anti-vaccinationists and other groups that delegitimize the authority of science present themselves as courageously standing up against the dominant discourse, as rebellious subjects who speak the inconvenient and unaccepted truths. It is not difficult to prove that their truths are untruths, but it remains problematic to distinguish true courage from its simulacra. This article argues that Foucault’s investigations of truth, subjectivity, and power become of great use in the face of today’s confusion. The phenomenon of post-truth cannot be explained simply as the product of postmodern relativism. The will-to-truth, along with the will to constitute oneself as a truth-telling subject, persists, requiring critical analysis more than ever. What may prove politically efficient is to engage in the kind of critique that would account for actual power relations and unmask false courage rather than debunk specific concepts or ideas.

Keywords

EN

Michel Foucault; parrhesia; truth; post-truth; courage; subjectivity; power

• Publisher: Uniwersytet Warszawski
• Journal: Eidos. A Journal for Philosophy of Culture
• Year: 2022
• Volume: 6
• Issue: 2
• Pages: 62-69

Dates

published

2022

Contributors

author

Michał Herer

• Faculty of Philosophy, University of Warsaw

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Identifiers

DOI

10.14394/eidos.jpc.2022.0016

Biblioteka Nauki

2143157