Prophecy and parrēsia

foucauldian critique and the political role of intellectuals

Christina Hendricks

pp. 212-230

in: Karinde Boer, Karin de Boer, Ruth Sonderegger (eds), Conceptions of critique in modern and contemporary philosophy, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 2012

Abstract

In various interviews Michel Foucault refuses to take on the political role of what he calls a "prophet", someone who tells others, "here is what you must do — and also: this is good and this is not".² According to Foucault, intellectuals can contribute to political change by employing critique to undermine what appears in the present to be stable, certain or necessary: "The work of an intellectual … is, through the analyses he does in his own field, to re-examine evidence and assumptions, to shake up habitual ways of working and thinking, to dissipate conventional familiarities, to re-evaluate rules and institutions."³ Foucault develops a historical form of critique that he calls "genealogy" to engage himself and his audience in a deep transformation of their relationship to their own present, in order to open up new paths for thinking and acting differently. His genealogical narratives show present conditions to be the result of contingent relations and practices of power, revealing some of them to be dangerous but also open to resistance. Still, he insists, whether and how to resist power relations in the present must be decided by those who will be participating in such a battle themselves.⁴

Cited authors

Foucault Michel