Parrhesia Ancient and Modern Perspectives on Freedom of Speech

This paper considers how Ancient Greek philosophers, medieval theologians, classical liberals, and reactionaries have considered the topic of freedom of speech. It examines the arguments for suppressing and for allowing dangerous conversations and argues that the medieval disputation provided a privileged arena for free speech within a context of repression of speech perceived as being dangerous, suggesting a potential compatibility between unhindered and regulated discourse. The reactionary argument that freedom is only valuable within a context of certain undisputed values is considered, as are the contemporary arguments leveled against classical liberals like Rousseau, Locke, and Mill. In connection with the disputation, a Kantian case for academic freedom within the context of social speech regulation is considered.

Humans are born free in the moral sense. This widely recognized principle of natural freedom implies that exercising freedom should not require moral justification; but rather; its restriction must be based on valid justifications. Nevertheless, the burden of justification appears to have been reversed in the context of free speech. A rich jurisprudence has been developed for justifying free speech. Why and how did such reversion happen? This paper is a historical analysis for answering that question through three arguments. (1) It argues that the primitive forms of mythologies, superstitions and religions can be considered the oldest sources of limitation on expressive activities. (2) It finds that the first restrictive laws of freedom of speech were religious in nature, and the first justificatory arguments for freedom of speech were reactions to such religious restrictions. (3) It concludes that justifications of freedom of expression have evolved in parallel with the manifestation of power in both religious and political institutions. These three critical arguments can be a strong base for asking whether exercising or restricting freedom of speech requires moral justifications. [ The Journal Jurisprudence, 2015, Volume 28, 487-506 ]

International Journal For the Semiotics of Law Revue, 2010

The article is the author’s endeavor to reconstruct the semiotic conflict in the transatlantic legal appraisal of hate speech (between the USA and Europe) through Ancient Greek concepts of παρρησία (parrhēsia) and ισηγορία (isēgoria). The US Supreme Court case law on the First Amendment to American Constitution is, therefore, counter-balanced vis-à-vis la jurisprudence de Strasbourg on Article 10 of the European Convention of Human Rights. The author suggests that an adequate comprehension of the contemporary constitutional concepts of the right to free speech in Western democracies is deceptive without a thorough analysis of its genealogy in the Ancient rhetorical cradle.

UReCA: The NCHC Journal of Undergraduate Research and Creative Activity , 2019

In 1644, John Milton published and distributed his pamphlet Areopagitica amid political, religious, and martial tensions. His arguments against prior censorship in Areopagitica contribute to early ideas of freedom of speech as expressed through the writings of influential European philosophers, which ultimately manifest in the early American concept of freedom of speech. In tracing the history of the idea of free speech, it appears that the scope of censorship and freedom of speech has long been affected by the role of Judeo-Christianity in European and American governments. Milton’s original notion of freedom from print licensing in his Areopagitica inspired the work of other European political writers who, in turn, inspired the conventions that founded the American democracy. This is evident through the writing of political philosophers such as Voltaire, John Locke, de Tocqueville, Thomas Paine, and the Federalists. The concept of and practice of freedom of speech evolved tremendously over the course of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries with both the help and the hindrance of Judeo-Christian philosophies. Since then, ideas on individual liberties and freedom of expression have become increasingly important in an era during which the written word can spread more quickly than ever. While the modern argument surrounding censorship addresses concerns Milton could never have fathomed, his ideas remain relevant in the twenty-first century. From the Areopagitica to social media, the ability to exchange, express, and examine ideas is essential to obtaining the “utmost bound of civil liberty … that wise men look for” (Milton 395).

WYDAWNICTWO INSTYTUTU WYMIARU SPRAWIEDLIWOŚCI, 2019

„Freedom of Speech: A Comparative Law Perspective offers a wide-ranging review of free speech law in Europe, the U.S., Canada and Australia, with a special focus on hate speech and on artistic and scientific speech. It provides a great deal of information on these topics, in a single volume, which presents a considerable value to anyone who wants to study the subject.” PROF. CHRISTOPHER WOLFE, UNIVERSITY OF DALLAS “The book is disturbing. It encourages to pose serious questions, in particular about the phenomenon of the persecution for expressing traditional views, which ceased to be accepted by certain political and intellectual elites. It presents the context which allows us to realize how difficult it is to address such issues. Nevertheless, searching for the answers seems absolutely necessary. The analyses of the US law could be considered a universal parable about the awareness of free speech. The analyses of the law in other countries warn us how fragile the protection of freedom of expression is.” PROF. FRANCISZEK LONGCHAMPS DE BÉRIER, JAGIELLONIAN UNIVERSITY IN KRAKÓW

CAS Working Papers Series: Advanced Academia Programme, 2019

This paper illustrates fragments of the pre-Miltonian history of ‘the liberty to know, to utter, and to argue freely’ in two of its key (even if not directly interrelated) thematic aspects: the protection of human dignity as a counterpoint to the absolutely unlimited freedom of speech – in the context of Thomas Aquinas’ (1224/5–1274) discussion of verbal injuries; and the inviolability of personal freedom of thought and expression – in the context of Johannes Reuchlin’s (1455–1522) defence of Jewish writings. On that basis, the paper finally attempts to outline the significance which the views of authors such as Aquinas and Reuchlin may have in a broader cultural and historical context.

2019

This lecture is concerned with the shift in the legitimation foundations of rights, with special emphasis on freedom of speech. In order to make intelligible the latest shift that started in the late 20th century borne by the ‘expressive revolution’, it builds up a background by first tracing the shifts that took place in the course of the change from feudalism to early modernity in the 16th-17th century – that is, the shift to an anthropological grounding of rights – and from early modernity to the rise of modernity in the 18th century – that is, the shift from the anthropological to a social grounding of rights. Since the most influential version of the social grounding is Jürgen Habermas’s ‘discourse ethics’, and since the late 20th-century shift is associated with the ‘expressive revolution’ (a revolution that also played a central role in the ‘European Revolution of 1989’ involving the East-Central European countries), the lecture considers next the different critiques of discourse ethics that are inspired by the expressive revolution. Included are not only the voluntaristic or neoliberal and the postmodern critiques, but also critiques of Habermas by some his own followers. The analysis of these critiques leads to the conclusion that the majority of the critics, although assuming the expressive revolution and critiquing the social grounding, fail to make the shift to a new legitimation foundation for rights, particularly freedom of speech which is intrinsically connected with the expressive revolution. Taking cues from the feminist and the ecology movements as manifestations of the expressive revolution, only a very few of the critics from Habermas’s own camp appreciate that, beyond the social grounding, nature – both internal and external nature – has emerged as a new legitimation foundation of rights, particularly freedom of speech. In our own time, nature has acquired a voice and a right to the freedom of speech that contemporary society can ignore only at its own expense.