The Aufklärung as the courage of the truth: notes on a Foucauldian read-ing of Kant
Abstract
The 1984 text “What is Enlightenment?” marks a turning point for the French philosopher Foucault’s reading of Kant’s work. Our proposal consists of approaching this text by taking as a starting point Foucault’s work on parrhesia. In this context, the Enlightenment appears in a new light that will no longer show us its obscure inventions, or the limits of its own thought; nor will it be solely the point marking the appearance of a critical attitude whose radical stance will go beyond Kantian criticism. Taking as a more general framework the study of parrhesia, the Enlightenment now reappears as the courage of truth and it shows us Kant as a parrhesiast, a truth-teller. In other words, the ‘critical attitude’ is reformulated as a courageous truth-telling.
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