12 January 1983

Abstract

SO, IN ORDER TO try to begin to disentangle the general and rather shaky formula I have just put forward—by [taking as] a limit-situation [that] of the parrhesiast who stands up, speaks, tells the truth to a tyrant, and risks his life—I will take as a point of reference (it has become an old chestnut, but maybe it’s handy), as a counter example, as a form of enunciation which is exactly the opposite of parrēsia, and which has been called for some years now the performative utterance.¹ You know that a performative utterance requires a particular, more or less strictly institutionalized context, an individual who has the requisite status or who is in a well-defined situation. Given all this as the condition for an utterance to be performative, [an individual] then makes this statement. The utterance is performative inasmuch as the enunciation itself effectuates the thing stated.* You are familiar with the extremely banal example: the chairman of the meeting sits down and says: “The meeting is open.” Despite its appearance, the statement “the meeting is open” is not an assertion. It is neither true nor false. What is essential is simply that the formulation “the meeting is open” opens the meeting. Or again, in a much more weakly institutional­ized context, but one which nevertheless implies a set of rituals and a well-defined situation, when someone says, “I apologize,” he has in fact apologized, and the enunciation “I apologize” effectuates what is stated, namely that someone has apologized to someone else. So, on the basis of this example, let us now take up the different elements of parrēsia again, of the statement of truth and especially of the scene in which parrēsia is effectuated. In Plutarch’s text—and to some extent there is an element in common with performative utterances here—we find ourselves in a typical, familiar, and institutionalized situation of the sovereign. The text clearly shows this situation: the sovereign sur­rounded by his courtiers. The philosopher arrives to give his lesson, and the courtiers applaud the lesson. The other scene in the text is very similar, hardly different: it is still the tyrant Dionysius in his court. The courtiers present are laughing at Dionysius’ puns and some­one, Dion, stands up and speaks. It is a classical scene of sovereign, courtiers, and the person who tells the truth (the scene also, you recall, of Oedipus the King).

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 parrēsia: democracy (Polybius) and citizenship (Euripides).