Book 7

An exciting and highly original examination of the practices of truth-telling and speaking out freely (parr?sia) in ancient Greek tragedy and philosophy. Foucault discusses the difficult and changing practices of truth-telling in ancient democracies and tyrannies and offers a new perspective on the specific relationship of philosophy to politics.

This book derives from Foucault's lectures at the College de France between January and April 1978, which can be seen as a radical turning point in his thought. Focusing on 'bio-power', he studies the foundations of this new technology of power over population and explores the technologies of security and the history of 'governmentality'.