To browse Academia. The paper explores the concept of parrhesia, or frank speech, as examined by philosophers such as Socrates and Nietzsche, highlighting the historical context in which philosophical life was practiced and perceived. It discusses how modern interpretations, absorbed by scientific knowledge and religious institutions, have overshadowed the original philosophical inquiry into authenticity and moral living. Additionally, the paper proposes a narrative that connects individual lives and philosophical thought, emphasizing the need for further research into the philosophical life as a way of achieving authenticity.
We are very pleased to open Foucault Studies No. Foucault had a complex and ambivalent relationship with philosophy. Although he was originally trained in philosophy in Paris, many of his main sources, interlocutors, and followers are not philosophers per se.
This contributes to making his oeuvre quite multidisciplinary, perhaps the most multidisciplinary since Marx. In the context of this special issue, nevertheless, it might also be worth recalling that Foucault had a number of significant philosophical relationships, while he also persisted in operating at the margins of philosophy proper. In the early fifties, he toyed with the Marxists led by Althusser. Reviewed by Ladelle McWhorter, University of Richmond "Philosopher" was a label that Michel Foucault sometimes resisted, especially in the earlier decades of his career, but Timothy O'Leary and Christopher Falzon have assembled an excellent anthology of articles demonstrating Foucault's engagement with and contributions to contemporary philosophical practice throughout his life's work.
The book examines and situates Foucault's work in relation to several major strands of philosophical tradition. It consists of an introduction and one paper each by the editors and an additional nine papers by well-known Foucault scholars including Gary Gutting, Jana Sawicki, Amy Allen, and Paul Patton, among others.
However, the disagreements and alternative perspectives are informative and thought-provoking. Obviously it is impossible in one review to do justice to all eleven articles, and O'Leary and Falzon do an excellent job of summarizing them in their introduction.
