Slave

Summary

Dominique Pagani approaches the slave first through the Hegelian dialectic of master and slave. He links it to the German pair Herr und Knecht, "you die or you serve me". The vanquished preferred life to freedom: he becomes a slave and finds his independence in thinghood1. Shaped by fear and labour, the servile consciousness is the truth of the master and turns into true independence2. The slave shapes the world with his hands and finds his own image in it, which never happens to the master; the master thus becomes the slave of the slave3. He also gives the slave a historical dimension. The slave is the dominant productive force until the end of Antiquity, and it was force that made the first slaves4. With Rousseau, history takes the place of the natures Aristotle believed he saw5. He also reads the struggle of the Titans and the gods as the conflict between slaves and free citizens6. Finally, he discusses the origin of the word "Slav" and the raids in sub-Saharan Africa, which remain a taboo subject78.

1. 1Hegel on the Beach 4/52 Feb 2016 · 1:21:25
2. 2Hegel on the Beach 4/52 Feb 2016 · 1:41:54
3. 3Z for Zero9 Jan 2015 · 8:31
4. 4Preface to Simon Verdun's master's dissertation, “The critique of neo-Kantianism in Michel Clouscard”5 Jul 2018 · 41:28
5. 5#3.6 From Ulysses to Daedalus1 Aug 2017 · 1:16:39
6. 6Mythology and truth8 Aug 2015 · 28:02
7. 7Imaginary identity15 May 2025 · 12:52
8. 8Imaginary identity15 May 2025 · 28:35

Summary produced automatically from 10 of the passages below, to be reviewed; the numbers link to the moment in the session.