Materialism

matérialisme

Worked through in 18 videos · 24 passages.

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Summary

Dominique Pagani consistently distinguishes materialism from naturalism. For him, the material encompasses both the natural and the artificial: the axe as well as the tree, the hammer as well as the flower1. To confine oneself to the natural part of man is to be only half a materialist. He thus contrasts mechanistic materialism, which is valid in the natural sciences but cannot claim to explain human and social facts, with Marx's dialectical and historical materialism, which integrates time and history2 3. He traces a history of this materialism, from Democritus to Montesquieu, whose determination by climate remains naturalistic. He draws on Lenin, who judges Hegel to be at once the most idealist and the most materialist4 5; in Hegel, nothing is more material than spirit. He also warns against confusing matter with the sensible6: a field is no less material than a particle, and Mozart's music is matter too.

Summary produced automatically from 24 of the passages below, to be reviewed; the numbers link to the moment in the session.

Cycle 15 · 8 Oct 2026Nature vs. freedom?

11:34Mechanistic materialism is valid within the field of the natural sciences. It must be denied any totalitarian claim to also explain human and social facts.
16:25Being a materialist must not lead to confusing matter with the sensible, which is the object of our senses.

Cycle 15 · 28 Aug 2026From Copernicus to Lenin: revolution!

23:37True materialism can only be scientific; it requires being wary of the confusion between matter and the sensible.
1:15:19Democritus opens the history of materialism: nothing exists but atom and void.

Series · 6 Jul 2026From Plato to Proust

21:53Far from immaterialism: it takes matter, a history, a civilization, a social class to give the impression of immateriality.
36:32The vegetal, the aristocratic domain: matter is inseparable from the object of desire.

Series · 13 Jun 2025Our former savagery? An Illumination by Arthur Rimbaud

33:27To neglect nature is not to be a materialist; to see only nature while neglecting history is to be a mechanistic materialist, not a dialectical one.

Cycle 11 · 22 Jul 2023Worldliness in Clouscard: the world as “cunning of reason”

34:25Nothing is more material than spirit in Hegel: making a hammer is nobler than making a child.
1:04:12One must not confuse material and natural: the material encompasses the natural and the artificial, the axe as well as the tree.

Cycle 11 · 9 Jul 2023Worldliness in Clouscard: the clash of worlds?

2:01:49The cunning of reason is not a providence but a materialism: making do with what already exists rather than waiting for grace.

Talks · 27 Mar 2023Praxis and psyche

13:15To confine oneself to man's natural part is to be only half materialist: a hammer is no less material than a flower.

Cycle 11 · 19 Oct 2022“Speech is the best and the worst of things” (Aesop)

28:32Lenin's materialism is not mechanistic but dialectical: he shows this by judging the chapter on the absolute idea remarkable.

Series · 22 May 2021A chapter of Marx written by Hegel

13:33We say "basely material," but Mozart's music is also matter; one must remain materialist in this sense.

Series · 20 May 2021Cynicism of the extreme centre or epistemic heroism? The dialectic of the middle

38:28Historical materialism is opposed to naturalist materialism, which reduces matter to what remains once history is abstracted away; neo-positivism is the dominant ideology.

Cycle 9.2 · 28 Apr 2021#9.20 From signal to sign: Einstein

39:55Never confuse naturalism and materialism: the artificial, a product of technè, is non-natural matter.

Series · 18 Apr 2021#2 Lenin, or the wings of dreams

24:56Asking whether matter precedes spirit is a metaphysical regression; Lenin finds Hegel at once the most materialist and the most idealist.

Series · 9 Feb 2021#15 Plato, Rousseau, Hegel and music

15:02Plato's materialism shows itself in that without matter nothing would be the cause of anything.
26:04A field is no less material than a particle.

Series · 11 Jan 2021#8 Happiness and unhappiness in music

1:06:05Montesquieu provides the first strictly materialist, still naturalistic, determination, through climate and geography.

Series · 17 Dec 2020#7 The Greeks, myth and music

38:01Marx rises to a higher materialism by integrating the temporal and historical dimension, which naturalistic materialism does not do.

Cycle 8 · 2 Jul 2020#12 Return to the logics of the subject

1:29:14The mechanistic materialism of nature (y = f(x)) is distinct from the dialectical materialism of history, where man encounters nature.
1:43:06Materialism is not naturalism: the artificial is material, and origin is not cause.

Series · 5 Jul 2018Being and Code

1:22:44Historical materialism is not a naturalism: matter is sometimes natural, sometimes historical.

Series · 22 Dec 2014H for Hegel

13:18Lenin judges the passage on the idea of the good to be at once the most idealist and the most materialist in Hegel: it is contradictory, but it is a fact.