Cycle 13 · 13 Oct 2024The eternal return… of the death camps?- 15:42There is no action in nature. The wind that shakes the trees is a subject only metaphorically; to act has meaning only for a subject.
Action
Worked through in 10 videos · 10 passages.
Summary
From 2015 to 2024, Dominique Pagani regularly returns to the same thesis: there is no action in nature, only a chain of passivities or passions, where "effects are everywhere, the cause nowhere"1. To say that the wind stirs the branches is a metaphor, since the wind is as passive as the branches2; doing only has meaning for a subject3. He defines action as the change produced on an object by a subject, and distinguishes it from agitation. To act is to establish an otherness, and he considers the separation between knowledge and action to be a mistake4. Yet action requires deciding before knowing everything, because knowledge demands infinite time and life is short5. He quotes Mallarmé's formula that to act is to produce in many people a movement that sends back the thrill of being its origin, and thus of existing6. He warns against the call to action, which can lead to fascism: true action remains inseparable from value and is not the same as activism7.
- 1#1.3 Between crisis and war: philosophising?14 Sept 2015 · 33:34
- 2What is to be done? 3/329 Jan 2016 · 2:34
- 3The eternal return… of the death camps?13 Oct 2024 · 15:42
- 4#1.6 Between crisis and war: philosophising?10 Dec 2015 · 1:30:21
- 5#9.12 How can sciences of history be real?14 Jan 2021 · 32:11
- 6And what about the subject in all this? Hölderlin, Mallarmé and Baudelaire28 Sept 2022 · 56:24
- 7#3 What is called modern music?3 Dec 2020 · 1:13:05
Summary produced automatically from 10 of the passages below, to be reviewed; the numbers link to the moment in the session.
Cycle 13 · 13 Oct 2024The eternal return… of the death camps?
Cycle 11 · 28 Sept 2022And what about the subject in all this? Hölderlin, Mallarmé and Baudelaire- 56:24According to Mallarmé, to act is to produce in many a movement that returns to him the emotion of being its principle, hence of existing; agitation is not action.
Cycle 9.2 · 14 Jan 2021#9.12 How can sciences of history be real?- 32:11Action requires deciding before knowing everything: knowledge has infinite time, life is short.
Series · 3 Dec 2020#3 What is called modern music?- 1:13:05The call to action can give rise to fascism; true action is inseparable from value, it is not activism.
Cycle 5.1 · 24 Oct 2018#5.1 The philosopher's Odyssey: revolutionary thought- 24:44There is no action in nature; saying that the wind agitates the branches is a metaphor.
Cycle 2 · 1 Aug 2017#2.7 Between crisis and war: philosophising?- 1:42:52To know what one must do, look at what man does: analyze the flagrant instances of action crystallized in his achievements.
Series · 29 Jan 2016What is to be done? 3/3- 2:34There is no action in nature, only passions: the wind is as passive as the branches it stirs.
Cycle 1 · 11 Dec 2015#1.7 Between crisis and war: philosophising?- 1:19Action is not agitation; there is no action in nature, only passions; action is the change produced on an object by a subject.
Cycle 1 · 10 Dec 2015#1.6 Between crisis and war: philosophising?- 1:30:21One is always already in action; the error has been to separate knowledge and action. To act is to establish an otherness, a change.
Cycle 1 · 14 Sept 2015#1.3 Between crisis and war: philosophising?- 33:34There is no action in nature, only a chain of passivities: effects are everywhere, the cause nowhere.