Definition:
Free, frank, and fearless speech.
Etymology:
From the Greek, "telling all" or "free speech"Examples and Observations:
- "The author of ad Herennium discussed a figure of thought called parrhesia ('frankness of speech'). This figure occurs 'when, talking before those to whom we owe reverence or fear, we yet exercise our right to speak out, because we seem justified in reprehending them, or persons dear to them, for some fault' (IV xxxvi 48). For example: 'The university administration has tolerated hate speech on this campus, and so to some extent they are responsible for its widespread use.' An opposing figure is litotes (understatement), where a rhetor diminishes some feature of the situation that is obvious to all."
(Sharon Crowley and Debra Hawhee, Ancient Rhetorics for Contemporary Students, Pearson, 2004) - "To best reflect the meanings in its own context, parrhesia should be thought of as 'true speech': the parrhesiastes is the one who speaks the truth. Parrhesia required that the speaker use the most direct words and expressions possible in order to make it clear that whatever he might be saying was his own opinion. As a 'speech activity,' parrhesia was largely limited to male citizens."
(Kyle Grayson, Chasing Dragons, University of Toronto Press, 2008) - "What is basically at stake in parrhesia is what could be called, somewhat impressionistically, the frankness, freedom, and openness, that leads one to say what one has to say, as one wishes to say it, when one wishes to say it, and in the form one thinks is necessary for saying it. The term parrhesia is so bound up with the choice, decision, and attitude of the person speaking that the Latins translated it by, precisely, libertas [speaking freely]."
(Michel Foucault, The Hermeneutics of the Subject: Lectures at the College de France 1981--1982, Macmillan, 2005)
Pronunciation: pah-REEZ-ya
