How can the concept of parrhesia be used to challenge the
politics of sovereign exceptionalism?

Abstract

This research paper is one that seeks to contribute to the resistance debate that focuses on ‘life’ as a governmental practice of ‘sovereign exceptionalism’. Sovereign exceptionalism is a term given to encompass a wide-ranging literature with its key analysis on ‘biopolitical life. It is through the works of Giorgio Agamben and his reintroduction of sovereignty as a problematic to the biopolitics literature that this thesis takes its cue to focus on the more ‘thanatopolitical’, rather than biopolitical effects of sovereignty. What is argued in this paper is that the current literature as biopolitical or thanatopolitical hold a critique of the metaphysical conceptions of the subject as being problematic and leading to the crisis of sovereign exceptionalism. Through arguing against this point, what is suggested is that it is the very metaphysical status of the subject that allows for further resistance through the use of an ancient Greek concept called ‘parrhesia’. Building on a reanalysis of philosophical debates surrounding the subject, the final conclusions made in this thesis are that ‘parrhesia’ as a ‘mode of being’ is a distinctly political way of ‘life’ that seeks ‘truth’ to challenge sovereign order.