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8 0 I n t e r p r e t a t i o n Volume 41 / Issue 2The word “truth” therefore seems to become almost interchangeable withthe term “opinion”—as is repeatedly suggested by Foucault in Fearless Speechand Le gouvernement de soi. For instance, he writes that “the parrhesiastesis not only sincere and says what is his opinion, but his opinion is also thetruth.” 55 Monoson and Foucault thus both seem to dismiss a little quicklythe need to distinguish between opinion and truth. And yet, at the heart ofmost of Plato’s dialogues rests this important philosophical intuition: onemust differentiate opinion from knowledge, belief from science (and it is, infact, a distinction already formulated in the Gorgias). Even if the “Socratic”dialogues that are of great interest to Foucault do not end with the strongaffirmation of a stable truth, one can nevertheless witness in these early dialoguesa patient and concerned quest for unity and stability.Philosophy for Plato was not just an “attitude” (pace Foucault), or a wayof caring for one’s soul. It was this, but it was also more than this: it consistedin an endless theoretical quest for as stable a truth as possible (onethat radically differs from the ever-fluctuating object of Callicles’s eros). 56Marlein van Raalte is thus right to define Socratic parrhesia as the “freedomof speech in the service of the truth and the good.” 57 Now, one could arguethat it is not surprising to see Plato interpreters understating the importanceof the good in their comments on parrhesia. After all, as we have noted in theintroduction, one of the intentions behind much of this recent work on Platois to dispute the association of Plato with dogmatism and totalitarianism. Inorder to do so, many feel that it is necessary to increase the importance of thestructure and style of Platonic thought at the expense of its content. By insistingon the fact that Plato’s philosophy is largely a matter of sincerity, attitude,and procedure, these interpreters seem to think that it is possible to evacuatethe “problem” posed by Plato’s metaphysics or by his virulent attack againstdemocracy. As we noted above, what unites the works of Foucault, Monoson,and Euben is the shared conviction that it is possible to separate the wordsfrom the deeds or attitude of Socrates. For instance, Peter Euben writes:the question of whether and how Socrates is a democrat is not onlya matter of what is said but of how it is said, not only a question ofexplicit argumentation but of dialectical “method” and of the dramaticmovement of the dialogue. Thus, it would be possible for the way55Monoson, Plato’s Democratic Entanglements, 14. Foucault insists repeatedly on the “caractère absolumentpersonnel de l’énonciation philosophique” of Plato (Le gouvernement de soi, 256; see also 210).56See Gorgias 481d–482c.57Van Raalte, “Socratic Parrhesia,” 301.