Abstract

The Force of Truth is the author’s own significantly revised and expanded translation of La Force du vrai, which was published in French in 2017. The French text bears the subtitle, De Foucault à Austin (from Foucault to Austin), reflecting the book’s engagement with performative speech act theory. The American subtitle—Critique, Genealogy, and Truth-Telling in Michel Foucault—gestures instead to new material, including most substantively a final summative chapter, “Critique and Possibilizing Genealogy” (chap. 5), as well as a brief conclusion, “Rethinking Critique.” It is worth emphasizing that six years had elapsed from the publication of La Force du vrai to The Force of Truth. I would note as well that the French text appeared in the early days of Donald Trump’s first presidency in the United States. Since this time, we have witnessed a staggering relativization of truth, including post-truth, “alternative” facts regarding pandemic policy, insurrection and repeated claims of electoral fraud, judicial manipulation in the Supreme Court, and Truth Social. Globally, we have also witnessed the rise to power of right-wing populists in other nominally liberal democracies. Lorenzini’s English translation has been framed with these urgent social and political exigencies in mind. And, with these stakes as its subtext, the book advances “a new reading of Foucault’s project of a history of truth”—most saliently as a genealogy of our own “contemporary regimes of truth,” from which Lorenzini seeks to derive “an ethics and politics of truth-telling” (9).Lorenzini is a meticulous reader of Foucault, and the ease with which he navigates and marshals Foucault’s enormous corpus is humbling. He resists the widespread reductionist—or indeed, reactionary—“(mis)reading” of Foucault on the history of “truth.” This (mis)reading tends, in broad strokes, to paint Foucault as a postmodern relativist who is hostile to objective facts and whose ideas have come to inform the contemporary phenomenon of post-truth. In the opening pages, Lorenzini offers a short list of prominent political theorists and philosophers who have, variously, criticized Foucault in this vein: Nancy Fraser, Jürgen Habermas, Charles Taylor, Hilary Putnam, Daniel Dennett, and Jacques Bouveresse. These critics base their interpretations on early works in Foucault’s oeuvre, falsely claiming that Foucault more or less believed that truth is an illusion. Foucault never made such a claim, as Lorenzini makes clear: “What is an illusion, in Foucault’s view, is rather ‘the Truth’ understood in a Platonic fashion as a timeless and suprahistorical Idea” (3). As a historical—and, as I suggest below, guardedly rhetorical—corrective, The Force of Truth focuses on Foucault’s “later lectures and writings,” which “significantly developed, clarified, and in part transformed his way of conceiving of a history of truth” (3). And Lorenzini is one of the few scholars to appreciate Foucault’s “dialogue with early analytic philosophy of language, and in particular with ordinary language philosophers” (8), including Ludwig Wittgenstein and J. L. Austin (see also 46–49, 63–64; Foucault 2023). He convincingly demonstrates, moreover, that Foucault’s “turn” to ethics in the 1980s is a coherent development true to his earlier interest in politics and power/knowledge, and that these are joined across his oeuvre in his abiding critical methodological commitment to archaeology and genealogy.There is plenty here to engage rhetorical scholars, even if rhetoricians are not quite guilty of the reductionist (mis)readings of Foucault that Lorenzini criticizes in these pages. Following Foucault’s The Order of Things (1970), many of us will understand “the Truth” as a rhetorical accomplishment at the intersecting axes of labor, life, and language. Moreover, rhetoricians are sensitive to the discursive conditions under which something might appear to be true and can take on a truth-function in a particular historical and rhetorical situation (or “game of truth,” as Foucault would say). After all, a history of truth and truth-telling implies far more than logical or epistemological conceptions of truth, although we might argue what this looks like or how it might be mobilized in a “defense” of Foucault’s ethico-political relevance today. But this is not to say that Lorenzini’s opening gambit should be lost on rhetorical scholars. Indeed, we should be mindful of the philosophical and political traditions that are invested in a misreading of Foucault, and why. These include some philosophers in the Anglo-American (or “analytic”) camp, as well as political theorists (or “scientists”) committed to an unreconstructed notion of liberal-humanist subjectivity, which is of course critiqued by Foucault and other poststructuralist thinkers. Rhetoricians might also be familiar with the homophobic ad hominems directed at Foucault and his work (a perennial pastime, it would seem), and more recently the (to my mind) outlandish accusations that Foucault was a closet neoliberal, or somehow even responsible for neoliberalism itself (you can easily Google this; I refuse to add citations to these authors’ indexes). Most of all, perhaps, rhetoricians will be concerned with the history of our present, and the fate of truth and truth-telling in recent years, given the troubling rise of political populism, white nationalism, violent rhetorics, neofascism, and demagoguery. The book also has clear rhetorical implications for what Foucault called “ontologies of veridiction” (2010, 309–10), even as Lorenzini remains somewhat skeptical of rhetoric and studiously avoids the term “ontology” (see Lorenzini and Tazzioli 2020)—but more on this below.In his early work, Foucault had concerned himself with the subject’s relation to particular “games of truth”: “truth games that take the form of a science or refer to a scientific model,” on the one hand, and truth games that one finds “in institutions or practices of control” (1996, 432), on the other. Across the nineteenth century, for example, medicalization, psychiatrization, and criminalization represent sociodiscursive practices that were effectively coercive and “disciplinary” in their truth-functions. In Foucault’s later work, however, we note a decisive shift away from coercion and toward the practice of a subject’s self-formation, “an exercise of the self on the self, by which one attempts to develop and transform oneself, and to attain a certain mode of being” (433). Self-formation is an ascetic practice (askesis) in which the emphasis is no longer on what one does, one’s behaviors, but on who one is, which today is fashioned (most problematically) as the “truth” of one’s identity. This later work of Foucault’s has proven remarkably prescient, anticipating today’s identity politics and cancel culture, our obsession with the inner truth—presumably irrefutable—of personal feelings and experiences, the basis of what Lauren Berlant once called “feeling politics” (1999). The apparent “truth” of who one is belongs, as Foucault might say, to the “confessional sciences,” a secular form of “salvation.” And so, it might be said that ours is a moment of free speech on steroids, yet stripped to its barest form, where I am free to “speak my truth,” and you yours, passionately foreclosing in advance any serious critique of what this might mean for a politics or ethics of truth, let alone an ontology of veridiction.Lorenzini identifies in Foucault three principal regimes of truth: the scientific, the confessional, and the critical. The first two are among “the most pervasive contemporary regimes of truth” (103), whereas the latter has been neglected, Lorenzini contends, and emerges from Foucault’s analysis of ancient parrhesia. As Foucault writes, “In analyzing . . . parrhēsia, I would like also to outline the genealogy of what we could call the critical attitude in our society” (2019, 63). This “critical attitude,” intimate with parrhesiastic practice, is what Lorenzini characterizes as the “possibilizing” dimension of Foucauldian genealogy, namely, the productive, world-making capacities of critique to disrupt reigning regimes of truth. In Lorenzini’s words, to write a history of truth entails “tracing a genealogy of these regimes of truth in order to open up the conceptual and political space that allows us to ask after their effects and value” (6). And, of course, the value of any truth, its effective force, is not “unconditional”; it is historically contingent, and “can never be explained solely on the basis of its reference to or correspondence with reality” (6). Rhetorically, truth is always tied to truth-telling, to veridiction (even when this is nonverbal). It matters who “can and actually does” speak or act, “in what circumstances, and at what cost” (7). For Lorenzini, then, the critical thrust of genealogy will be the counter-conduct it “possibilizes” in and as veridical speech/acts: “Even though genealogy does not legislate the specific content of these counter-conducts, it does define their form, since each aims to criticize and destabilize a given power/knowledge apparatus, a given regime of truth” (105; his emphases). Rhetoricians will be quick to pick up on Lorenzini’s italicized distinction between “content” and “form,” and may understand by “form” something akin to what we might call rhetoricity. For Christian Lundberg, rhetoricity is defined as “the functions of discourse that operate without, and in advance of, any given context”—in other words, “a kind of negative constraint, hindering the presumption that any definition of rhetoric can capture the functions of discourse without remainder” (2013, 250). Critique is possible because regimes of truth are not closed systems of power/knowledge. It is possible to prise them open productively and put them to work politically and ethically.The political and ethical dimensions of truth-telling become clear, Lorenzini argues, when Foucault’s exploration of ancient parrhesia is theorized through Austin’s understanding of speech acts, and in particular, the perlocution. Herein lies one of the book’s significant original contributions to Foucault scholarship, rhetoric, and philosophy. The book asks, “Under what conditions is ‘telling the truth’ an effective critical activity?” (9). The short answer is: none at all, if by “truth” we mean “facts,” such as statistics. Indeed, facts may be veridical, and they may be truths that correspond with reality, but they do not necessarily carry what Lorenzini calls the “force of truth.” In rhetorical parlance, and borrowing from Austin, we might say that the truth-telling of facts is a constative utterance, rather than performative speech—a descriptive claim, rather than a normative one. And as we know only too well, saying something all too often does nothing; an “is” is a far cry from an “ought.” Taking the ongoing European migrant crisis as a brief example (see also Lorenzini and Tazzioli 2020), Lorenzini points out that we can and must repeat the facts—e.g., the reported number of dead and missing migrants in the Mediterranean Sea—but he notes that this alone has done little to stem the tide of xenophobia and racism or to “disrupt” European Union policy. “Unfortunately, truth and facts alone are not enough to sustain an effective critical practice—and they are not enough because they have no force in and of themselves” (10; his emphases). A critical and generative practice requires the force of truth, Lorenzini argues, and truth’s force—the force of Foucauldian parrhesia—carries truth as one of its perlocutionary effects. It is that force by which we not only “accept certain truth claims, but . . . submit to them and give them the power to govern our conduct” (120; his emphases).While Foucault rarely engaged directly with Austin’s work (the few published instances are carefully cited, e.g., Foucault 2023), for Lorenzini the perlocution is a useful tool to understand the rhetorical force of parrhesia.1 Most readers will be familiar with Austin through performative illocutions, which are summed up by the formula “in saying x I do y.” One of Austin’s simple examples is “I bet you sixpence”: in the act of saying this phrase I’ve done (performed) what I’ve said and said what I’ve done, namely, with my illocution I’ve engaged you in a wager. But, according to Austin, perlocutions are performative in a different manner. Perlocutionary speech, true to its prefix per-, is summed up as “by saying x I do y.” Austin writes, “Saying something will often, or even normally, produce certain consequential effects upon the feelings, thoughts, or actions of the or of the or of other and it may be done with the or of the perlocution we are in the of possible and effects. And the rhetorical on the power of by may produce effects that are not necessarily or The force of the perlocution from and it is a It is the to say something that or the and that speech and its effects. the examples of and as two of perlocutionary Austin’s with of Austin, Lorenzini that the perlocution the power to transform the disrupt power and the ethical and he characterizes the parrhesiastic as a critical perlocutionary speech act that and to be clear, we should not to a rhetorical Lorenzini, Austin and some of Foucault’s to rhetoric as the to And if we the of liberal perlocutionary effects and will refer us to the rather than to the rhetorical For rhetorical scholars, of course, speech or or necessarily in But even for a we a reading of Foucault in which is to the to to understand parrhesia we must be defined as an the of (2010, Indeed, Foucault that is no form of rhetoric specific to In parrhesia is necessarily a of These are carefully that parrhesiastic are closed they are not or or to be to particular in the rhetorical For many of this to a philosophical It a rhetoric without a discourse without Moreover, it would the of language like the can be in its would that rhetorical is concerned with the and dimensions of It is not always with truth, as is or on the and it is to and in that often and or the And I take is the kind of rhetorical and that Lorenzini seeks in the critical of counter-conduct that he A rhetorical would to advance his indeed, I would add that for Foucault philosophy is not the to is also a “game of and rhetoric, Foucault are or two of . . . two of of discourse which to the truth and which to the truth in the form of in the of (2010, Indeed, Foucault that “a discourse which claims to the truth should not be by it a history of which would us to or not it the truth” is for a genealogy of philosophical or rhetorical is an or of the discourse of truth” offers a of Foucault’s understanding of rhetoric and philosophy in relation to parrhesia. He notes that Foucault all of the perlocutionary to Foucault’s of where Foucault that does not any between the and what is rather rhetoric is as a relation of power and And by a and between the and what he that the at for it that their their And, if I have understood Lorenzini this may also a between and through the It is a relation of and of but not the may be by the not only by what is but also by of the where the is in with what is where speech and are of some form is for the of the that is to the principal Lorenzini advances in and the power relation between may be in a through the “force of truth” that their and and and As Lorenzini argues, “the between the and is not only a of parrhesiastic utterance, more a of is, a perlocutionary and an ethics of the relation to is we might say, and the is joined in a when that and that are is not always but parrhesia Lorenzini’s final chapter, “Critique and Possibilizing when he that Foucauldian genealogy normative it does not us what we should genealogy a for ethico-political us to certain of the and regimes of truth it us to of This is the most and yet the most It is where Lorenzini the three broad of his and the of a parrhesia and this are as genealogy is so, for it “possibilizes” the “critical that an ethico-political the who and and regimes in the Foucault’s genealogy, Lorenzini argues, in his a of ethico-political commitment toward the or the of the commitment to on their in the present, in a different This is the must be it is also as a of or and It is, moreover, “the of a of and that and contemporary with of different historical and to practices of but this is because Lorenzini Foucault would quite their Lorenzini normative force from its to a for (a genealogy itself to answer the by a of ethico-political commitment in its his here with the and the in Lorenzini’s does critical for a in the of the whose to words, to or at to the of As Lorenzini writes, between the and is not only a of parrhesiastic utterance, more a of . . . and to the in a speak of any however, I we must also take the of which the and the perlocutionary effects may produce in Lorenzini that this does not a rhetorical “the of parrhesia is not or but the violent of the truth” But parrhesia all of And rhetoric, at Lorenzini to Foucault’s often understanding of rhetoric as an of that on the and institutions of speech acts, rather than perlocutionary that may well and Indeed, some rhetoricians will that an rhetoric is possible e.g., if the is not to may perlocutionary of speech can always be to or to and As Lorenzini does to the and of but to do by a of power between speech and the to it is emphasis of such or Lorenzini here to the that the or moreover, by of a power that is always in a of power which is a in the first is always a between Indeed, it to that it is this power that is mobilized in and by the truth, and yet is not quite to is not quite free to do And it is the power that is in the of truth. The act of is itself a critique in this no the content of that it the of that would As Foucault in “What critique is “the of that of must not that the is also a a of In order for to be a we must be to the we must the critical we must the will to truth and in some way to it and to and speak in such a is itself an of the in and by which the This that parrhesia is, at in a of rhetoric and an the am I who to this to this of at this in time, at this of which is to the power of truth in and truths in In Foucault that parrhesia is “a way of which akin to a phrase he had in when he the critical is something in critique that is akin to Critique is “the of not quite emphasis I am of Foucault’s lectures from the 1980s the of the self as the relation to which is a relation of and or the I of of my of my words, my and my or even of my In The of the Foucault that in order to have to the truth, to it and to one must first transform through ascetic This with the practice of from to (from true discourse to what will be the of of course with The self is never or with critique is always a certain of And, if we for the of a the must true for the who to and the is, as who and who and the between the and The have to of Foucault “by the truth” In other words, the will and will a certain if he is to the and its force of be by to and to it as we are always free to the “force of truth,” and because our regime of truth is of the will to and one for the of Lorenzini’s but no less is not should I but should I Lorenzini’s book is as we from the to a mindful of our contemporary regime of truth, which its own I am also speak truth” as to be in and by this but no more and and by feelings that a that claims them and claims the of true facts no “force of truth,” we must not that the the repeat they carry the force of truth. who Lorenzini’s us to on in the many of this In as in language, a force is and only by its effects. The force, for was and in as in language, in order for to be a force we something like a with all its and with all its In other words, in order for to be force to be and for it to have and in must have As Foucault only in relation to something other than But the of any critical is for Lorenzini, “a or is it “in to a For Lorenzini, if I have understood at for although we out an on a force and are not in an the force of and of and Lorenzini his on a force that the of if only to our as something other than it