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Foucault underlined, throughout his whole intellectual activity, the question of truth as an effect of power-knowledge. There are not properly truths as substances, but effects of truths as incorporeal practices of discourse, that change slowly, but inevitably, the limits of our knowledge. We can say then that he has always been a pragmatist, unbeknown to him. However, it was during the last two courses delivered at the Collége de France, recently published with the title of The Government of Self and Others and The Courage of Truth, that he recognized explicitly his pragmatic vein. I will show two specific points of his philosophical testament (as we can consider the two courses). Commenting Plato's Seventh Letter, he said the philosophy coincides with "its practices" (pragmata). Philosophy is an ergon, a work, a labor, a practical and "real" activity, that must undergo the test of praxis (and of politics). Secondly, commenting Platos' Lachetes and the Cynical attitude, he referred to the Greek Parrhesia, the will to speak freely. It has evidently a pragmatist imprint: the philosopher who serves to find the truth must manifest in his way of life a congruence, a tuning between bios and logos, gestures and meanings, between the body, with its bearings and manners, and the truth conveyed. The real correspondence is not between words and facts, but between words and actions. It is not, therefore, sufficient a truth be expressed by words: it must be acted. It must transform into habits, take form in a corporeal life, in an existence, in a praxis: this is the teaching not only of the pragmatist school, but also of the hermeneutical one starting from Nietzsche to the last Foucault. Philosophy must return to be a form of life, and to witness in practice its ideas.

"Clear-sighted, darkly comic, and tender, The Twenty-Seventh Letter of the Alphabet is about a daughter's struggle to face the Medusa of generational trauma without turning to stone. Growing up in the New Jersey suburbs of the 1970s and 1980s in a family warped by mental illness, addiction, and violence, Kim Adrian spent her childhood ducking for cover from an alcoholic father prone to terrifying acts of rage and trudging through a fog of confusion with her mother, a suicidal incest survivor hooked on prescription drugs. Family memories were buried -- even as they were formed -- and truth was obscured by lies and fantasies. In The Twenty-Seventh Letter of the Alphabet Adrian tries to make peace with this troubled past by cataloguing memories, anecdotes, and bits of family lore in the form of a glossary. But within this strategic reckoning of the past, the unruly present carves an unpredictable path as Adrian's aging mother plunges into ever-deeper realms of drug-fueled paranoia. Ultimately, the glossary's imposed order serves less to organize emotional chaos than to expose difficult but necessary truths, such as the fact that some problems simply can't be solved, and that loving someone doesn't necessarily mean saving them."--Provided by publisher

"Clear-sighted, darkly comic, and tender, The Twenty-Seventh Letter of the Alphabet is about a daughter's struggle to face the Medusa of generational trauma without turning to stone. Growing up in the New Jersey suburbs of the 1970s and 1980s in a family warped by mental illness, addiction, and violence, Kim Adrian spent her childhood ducking for cover from an alcoholic father prone to terrifying acts of rage and trudging through a fog of confusion with her mother, a suicidal incest survivor hooked on prescription drugs. Family memories were buried -- even as they were formed -- and truth was obscured by lies and fantasies. In The Twenty-Seventh Letter of the Alphabet Adrian tries to make peace with this troubled past by cataloguing memories, anecdotes, and bits of family lore in the form of a glossary. But within this strategic reckoning of the past, the unruly present carves an unpredictable path as Adrian's aging mother plunges into ever-deeper realms of drug-fueled paranoia. Ultimately, the glossary's imposed order serves less to organize emotional chaos than to expose difficult but necessary truths, such as the fact that some problems simply can't be solved, and that loving someone doesn't necessarily mean saving them."--Provided by publisher

Cover -- Copyright and Licence -- TITLE PAGE -- CONTENTS -- Dedication -- A Note on the Author -- List of abbreviations -- Chapter 1: Life and Times -- Chapter 2. Intellectual Background -- 1. Presocratic Philosophers -- 2. The Sophists -- Chapter 3. The Dialogues -- 1. Chronology of the Dialogues -- 2. Documenting the Limitations of Writing -- 3. The Neoplatonic Curriculum -- Chapter 4. Other Platonic Productions -- 1. Spuria -- 2. Dubia -- 3. Letters and Epistles -- 4. The "Unwritten Doctrines" -- Chapter 5: The Forms -- 1. Form(al) Introduction -- 2. Knowledge as Recollection -- 3. Truth and Opinion -- 4. The "Good-Beyond-Being" -- Chapter 6: God and the Soul -- 1. God -- 2. Soul -- Select Bibliography -- Humanities Insights.

First published in 1981, this unique study discusses the evolution of Plato's thought through the actual developments in Athenian democracy.

1. Plato and the modern world -- 2. The historical background -- 3. Socrates -- 4. Plato -- 5. Plato looks at British democracy -- 6. Plato looks at British education -- 7. Plato looks at the family -- 8. Plato looks at communism -- 9. Plato looks at facism -- 10. Why Plato failed -- 11. The modern Plato once more -- 12. Epilogue.