World congress – Foucault: 40 years after.

Forty years after Foucault’s death, it is worth contemplating what kind of parrhesiastic pact is possible in the era of post-truth? Are the four meanings of truth — unconcealed, unalloyed, straight, and unchanging (217) — still dictating the standards of truth in times when “the government of the world” needs, more than ever, the ethical elements of “the cynic mission”, “endurance, vigilance, inspection” (291)? As critical perspectives addressed to the Foucauldian legacy move back and forth between carefully documented historical and philosophical reconstructions of genealogical regimes of truth, we should undoubtedly keep in mind what the French author deemed to be one of the most provocative features of his late writings, namely, the attempt to place parrhesia at the heart of European philosophy and its evolution. Therefore, among the perspectives that could untangle the philosophical and political implications of parrhesia, we should question what remained from the Foucauldian ambition to track down the history of modern European philosophy as a history of practices of veridiction?

Call for papers here