Abstract

This article highlights the debate concerning courage in politics, originating in Athens as the theme of parrhēsia, i.e., truth in democracy, and how the discourse is both enabled and constantly threatened. How does this debate affect the “drama of truth”, in the Anthropocene? From ancient Greece to the present day, philosophical discourse has been seated in necessary interaction between the access to the truth sought after by sciences, political powers and structures, and the formation of êthopoiêsis whereby individuals constitute themselves as the moral subject of their conduct. Modern authors and contemporary philosophers such as Tillich and Foucault especially, invite us to do so in their work on the concept of courage. Through Foucault’s political concepts, we endeavour to construct two dimensions for the courage of truth, ethical (an ethical parrhēsia), and by extension, ecological (an ecological parrhēsia) linked with scientific research and growing awareness of the Anthropocene.