"Adulterate the value of the currency": Possibilities for a positive biopolitics from the cynic lifestyle

• Main Authors: Sergio Fernando Maciel Corrêa, Castor Bartolomé Ruiz
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina, Programa de Pós-graduação em Linguística 2019-10-01
• Series: Fórum Linguístico
• Subjects: cinismo; parresía; modo de vida; biopolítica
• Online Access: https://periodicos.ufsc.br/index.php/forum/article/view/60817

“Adulterate the currency” [parakharáxon to nómisma] with boldness and courage in order to transfigure political customs and create a new kind of political responsibility for philosophy. The cynical life, in its simplicity and transparency, transmutes itself in philosophical activism which in turn transforms into a kind of political action that calls into question the way of living, of doing politics and practice philosophy. Following the studies of Michel Foucault, the article tries to problematize,  the traditional ways of thinking the political action, and at the same time pleading a type of political responsibility for philosophy. In this sense, from cynicism and with the cynicism, one questions: how to think of a positive biopolitics whose political action is not effected through the law but rather through the formation of a subjectivity that is impelled to make itself and its  way of life a parrhesiates political ethos?