Courage of Truth

In these lectures given by Michel Foucault at the "History of Thought Systems" chair at the Collège de France between 1970 and 1984, we witness how the thinker processed the historical materials he had and how he knitted the ties between philosophy and history. In these lectures, Foucault presents historical research ranging from the establishment of money in Ancient Greece to the urbanism of 18th century France, from psychiatric power to modern state reason, from Christian forms of subjectivity to the human understanding of neoliberalism, by questioning the forms of the relationship between truth and the subject.

Istanbul Bilgi University Publications publishes these lectures, which have been published in France since 1999, have become a starting point for many new researches and have become a turning point in the reception of Foucault's thought, together with new forewords written for the Turkish edition. This last lecture, given by Foucault a few months before his death, can also be read as a kind of philosophical testament of the thinker. On the one hand, the analysis of the concept of parrhêsia, which began in earlier years, turns into a general analysis of forms of truth-telling in Ancient Greece. On the other hand, Foucault turns this course into a study about "philosophical life" by discussing the attitude of Greek thought towards death and the concern for the self.

“What I wanted to show both to you and to myself was this: how, with the emergence and foundation of the Socratic parrêsia, existence (bios) was constructed in Greek thought as an aesthetic object, as the object of aesthetic transformation effort and aesthetic perception, as a 'beautiful work'. was it done? A very rich historical field opens before us here. Of course, a history of the metaphysics of the soul should be made. But in the same way, the history of the style of existence and the history of life as a possible beauty should be made, which constitutes the other side and alternative to the history of the metaphysics of the soul.” (Lecture of February 29, 1984)

(From the Promotional Bulletin)

Dough Type: 2nd Dough

Size: 16 x 24

First Print Year: 2018

Number of Printings: 1st Edition