Abstract
Based on a “chiasmatic” understanding of the relation between rhetoric and philosophy - two disciplines advocating the force and meaning of human linguistic expression -, the article shows how resistance within and through speech has been challenging philosophical thought from the very beginning. The critique of the purported neutrality of philosophical thought opens up rhetorical leeways - leeways which theories of free speech, dissent, and agonism consider to be the vital element of the political. What comes into view here is not only the question of whether and how linguistic resistance can and should be (politically) exercised, but also the possible ways in which linguistic resistance affects and queries the borders of the political itself.
