Ontological

Summary

Dominique Pagani links the ontological to the category of being. He mostly uses it critically: ontology posits an "already-there" prior to man (God, nature, birth), which he judges reactionary1 and presents as an old denial of social being and historical becoming. He observes that, as the sciences progress, what was held to be ontological turns out to be relational2. He also mentions Heidegger, for whom the sciences concern only beings, not being3. In Aristotle and under the Ancien Régime, masters and slaves, nobles and commoners form something like different ontologies, and aristocratic ontology ascribes base feelings to the lower classes by nature45. He finds the same pattern in the return of identity politics, which opposes men and women, Black and white people, to conceal the opposition between exploiters and exploited6, as well as in Senghor's négritude and in postmodern ideology78. He nonetheless accepts a revolutionary ontology, provided that it is an ontology of the act9.

1. 1Radio Galère: Michel Clouscard (2)7 Jul 2012 · 33:25
2. 2#1.5 Between crisis and war: philosophising?10 Dec 2015 · 42:11
3. 3#4.9 Angélique (by Nerval)14 Jun 2018 · 13:57
4. 4#1.5 Between crisis and war: philosophising?10 Dec 2015 · 1:04:17
5. 5#5.1 bis Questions (Facebook Live)2 Nov 2018 · 32:03
6. 6“Red-browns”, “decolonial”: should we use the dominant language?31 Mar 2021 · 57:55
7. 7“Red-browns”, “decolonial”: should we use the dominant language?31 Mar 2021 · 1:29:44
8. 8#10.7 “Postmodern” eco-petty-Nazism: Plato's Gorgias23 Dec 2021 · 38:41
9. 9#9 Benefits and harms of amnesia…17 Dec 2020 · 39:08

Summary produced automatically from 13 of the passages below, to be reviewed; the numbers link to the moment in the session.