Introduction

This study examines a complex continuity in South African political and intellectual life, and is at the same time concerned with the extent to which this continuity is real or signifi cant. The core of this continuity is a defence of active and ongoing discussion-of freedom of speech, in the classical sense-as a precondition for a good society, as distinct from the liberal defence of freedom of speech as an individual right. It has been characterised by a distinctive commitment, in the phrase of Socrates, to ‘following the argument where it leads’ (Pl. Resp. 394d).1