La parresia dell'antica Grecia nel pensiero di Michel Foucault

This essay resumes first the reasons of late Foucault’s interest for parrhesia, a particular way to tell the truth to oneself and the others, reporting the original interpretation which he gives of it. In this interpretation its difference with other historical forms of subjectivity come into play. In particular, an important difference is stressed between ancient and modern subjectivity: if the latter is structured on coercive schemes, the former seems constructed, through parrhesia, on forms of self-government. In this sense, it would seem, that the study of parrhesia shows that alternative forms of subjectivation to the coercive and disciplinary ones established in modernity are at least possible. Could this mean that according to Foucault it is legitimate and within an emancipating perspective necessary to propose them again? Considering some of Foucault’s not unambiguous statements, the essay tries to give an answer to this question.