In rhetoric, parrhesia is a figure of speech described as: "to speak candidly or to ask forgiveness for so speaking". This Ancient Greek word has three different forms, as related by Michel Foucault: parrhesia, is a noun, meaning "free speech"; parrhesiazomai, a verb, means "to use parrhesia"; and a parrhesiastes is one who uses parrhesia, for example "one who speaks the truth to power".
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Etymology
The term parrhesia first appears in Greek literature in Euripides and can be found in ancient Greek texts throughout the end of the fourth century and during fifth century B.C. The term is borrowed from the Greek ???????? parrh?sía (??? "all" and ????? "utterance, speech") meaning literally "to speak everything" and by extension "to speak freely", "to speak boldly", or "boldness". It implies not only freedom of speech, but the obligation to speak the truth for the common good, even at personal risk.
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Usage in ancient Greece
In ancient Greece, rhetoric and parrhesia were understood to be in opposition to each other through the dialogues written by Plato. There are two major philosophies during this period, one being Sophistry and one being Dialectic.
Sophistry is most commonly associated with the use of rhetoric or means of persuasion to teach or persuade an audience. In its opposition is the practice of dialectic, supported by Plato and his mentor Socrates, which uses dialogue to break apart complex issues in search of absolute truth or knowledge. In Plato's writings, specifically Gorgias, the term parrhesia is more closely associated with dialectic meaning that it is "free speech" and not rhetoric or manipulation.
Parrhesia was a fundamental component of the democracy of Classical Athens. In assemblies and the courts Athenians were free to say almost anything, and in the theatre, playwrights such as Aristophanes made full use of the right to ridicule whomever they chose. Elsewhere there were limits to what might be said; freedom to discuss politics, morals, religion, or to criticize people would depend on context: by whom it was made, and when, and how, and where.
If a man was seen as immoral, or his views went contrary to popular opinion, then there were great risks involved in making use of such an unbridled freedom of speech, as Socrates found out when he was sentenced to death for not adoring Athens' gods and for corrupting the young.
Cynic philosophers
Parrhesia was a central concept for the Cynic philosophers, as epitomized in the shameless speech of Diogenes of Sinope.
Epicureans
Parrhesia was also used by Epicureans in a friendly manner of frank criticism during teaching Epicurean philosophy and offering psychotherapy.
New Testament use
A related use of parrhesia is found in the Greek New Testament, where it means "bold speech", the ability of believers to hold their own in discourse before political and religious authorities (e.g. Acts 4:13: "Now when they saw the boldness [??? ?????????] of Peter and John and realized that they were uneducated and ordinary men, they were amazed and recognized them as companions of Jesus."). It is also used to describe the reply Jesus made to the Pharisees.
Usage in rabbinic Jewish writings
Parrhesia appears in Midrashic literature as a condition for the transmission of Torah. Connoting open and public communication, parrhesia appears in combination with the term, ????? (dimus, short for dimosia), translated coram publica, in the public eye, i.e. open to the public As a mode of communication it is repeatedly described in terms analogous to a Commons. Parrhesia is closely associated with an ownerless wilderness of primary mytho-geographic import, the Midbar Sinai in which the Torah was initially received. The dissemination of Torah thus depends on its teachers cultivating a nature which is as open, ownerless, and sharing as that wilderness. The term is important to advocates of Open Source Judaism. Here is the text from the Mekhilta where the term dimus parrhesia appears (see bolded text).
In modern Israeli Hebrew,"parrhesia" (??????, ??????) means simply "in public".
Modern scholarship
Michel Foucault developed the concept of parrhesia as a mode of discourse in which one speaks openly and truthfully about one's opinions and ideas without the use of rhetoric, manipulation, or generalization. Foucault's use of parrhesia, he tells us, is troubled by our modern day Cartesian model of evidential necessity. For Descartes, truth is the same as the undeniable. Whatever can be doubted must be, and, thus, speech that is not examined or criticized does not necessarily have a valid relation to truth.
There are several conditions upon which the traditional Ancient Greek notion of parrhesia relies. One who uses parrhesia is only recognized as doing so if he or she holds a credible relationship to the truth, if he serves as critic to either himself or popular opinion or culture, if the revelation of this truth places him in a position of danger and he persists in speaking the truth, nevertheless, as he feels it is his moral, social, and/or political obligation. Further, in a public situation, a user of parrhesia must be in a social position less empowered than those to whom he is revealing.
Foucault (1983) sums up the Ancient Greek concept of parrhesia as such:
So you see, the parrhesiastes is someone who takes a risk. Of course, this risk is not always a risk of life. When, for example, you see a friend doing something wrong and you risk incurring his anger by telling him he is wrong, you are acting as a parrhesiastes. In such a case, you do not risk your life, but you may hurt him by your remarks, and your friendship may consequently suffer for it. If, in a political debate, an orator risks losing his popularity because his opinions are contrary to the majority's opinion, or his opinions may usher in a political scandal, he uses parrhesia. Parrhesia, then, is linked to courage in the face of danger: it demands the courage to speak the truth in spite of some danger. And in its extreme form, telling the truth takes place in the "game" of life or death.
and
To summarize the foregoing, parrhesia is a kind of verbal activity where the speaker has a specific relation to truth through frankness, a certain relationship to his own life through danger, a certain type of relation to himself or other people through criticism (self-criticism or criticism of other people), and a specific relation to moral law through freedom and duty. More precisely, parrhesia is a verbal activity in which a speaker expresses his personal relationship to truth, and risks his life because he recognizes truth-telling as a duty to improve or help other people (as well as himself). In parrhesia, the speaker uses his freedom and chooses frankness instead of persuasion, truth instead of falsehood or silence, the risk of death instead of life and security, criticism instead of flattery, and moral duty instead of self-interest and moral apathy.
Foucault (1984) sums up that:
The Parrhesiastes is the person who says everything. Thus, as an example, in his discourse "On the Embassy," Demosthenes says: It is necessary to speak with parrhesia, without holding back at anything without concealing anything. Similarly, in the "First Philippic," he takes up exactly the same term and says: I will tell you what I think without concealing anything.
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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