Cycle 15 · 8 Oct 2026Nature vs. freedom?- 1:14:01Artificial intelligence is, like the knife, a means in the service of an end. It multiplies the power to do good as well as evil.
Tool
Worked through in 23 videos · 29 passages.
Summary
Dominique Pagani takes up Hegel's conception of the tool. He makes it the existing, rational middle term of the syllogism of labour: passive toward the worker, active upon the object worked1. The worker and the object wear out in the labour process, while the tool remains. It is in the tool that labour has its permanence: it is passed on to the following generations, avoids starting again from zero, and carries the progress of the productive forces23. He stresses that Hegel counts the tool among the three powers of spirit, along with memory and language: without the tool, there is no spirit4. He distinguishes the tool from the animal's instrument, which is found and modified: the tool has a typical form, an eidos, which presupposes an idea prior to its production5. Finally, from the club to artificial intelligence, he maintains that one does not put the tool on trial. One must judge the person who uses it and the ends they pursue, and so return to the subject6.
- 1A chapter of Marx written by Hegel22 May 2021 · 19:24
- 2Work and the right to work20 May 2018 · 37:21
- 3Worldliness in Clouscard: the world as “cunning of reason”22 Jul 2023 · 1:27:21
- 4Praxis and psyche27 Mar 2023 · 26:53
- 5M. Clouscard's reply to C. Morilhat (1987)23 Aug 2019 · 45:07
- 6Heidegger, or panzer-philosophy21 May 2021 · 12:13
Summary produced automatically from 29 of the passages below, to be reviewed; the numbers link to the moment in the session.
Cycle 15 · 8 Oct 2026Nature vs. freedom?
Cycle 13 · 25 Jul 2025Naturalist ideology: answers to questions- 46:12The tool differs from the animal instrument by its typical form, which presupposes a model and prior thought before production.
Cycle 11 · 22 Jul 2023Worldliness in Clouscard: the world as “cunning of reason”
Talks · 27 Mar 2023Praxis and psyche
Cycle 11 · 28 Sept 2022And what about the subject in all this? Hölderlin, Mallarmé and Baudelaire- 1:48:26Technology is the world of means; it is the one who wields the tool who is responsible, not the tool.
Series · 22 May 2021A chapter of Marx written by Hegel
Series · 21 May 2021Heidegger, or panzer-philosophy- 12:13A club or a particle accelerator: one does not put the tool on trial, but those who use it and their ends; return to the subject.
Cycle 9.2 · 12 May 2021#9.21 Science and/or philosophy of “artificial intelligence”- 1:53:10One does not send the knife to prison; the more powerful the tool, the more it increases power, but it is up to the collective subject to decide between good and evil.
Cycle 9.2 · 14 Jan 2021#9.12 How can sciences of history be real?- 1:15:50Evil does not lie in tools, the helmet or the ring, but in the one who uses them for purposes of exploitation.
Cycle 9.1 · 23 Oct 2020#2 Benefits and harms of amnesia…- 1:25:12The tool, of typical form, is the first victory over chaos and time; together with memory and language, it gives rise to spirit.
Series · 23 Aug 2019M. Clouscard's reply to C. Morilhat (1987)- 45:07Unlike the instrument, found and modified, the tool imposes a typical form, the eidos, which repeats itself.
Cycle 5.1 · 6 Dec 2018#5.2 bis Questions (Facebook Live)- 36:52The animal uses instruments already at hand; man produces a tool of typical form, which presupposes a fixed representation, an eidos.
Cycle 5.1 · 6 Dec 2018#5.2 ter Questions, following workshop #5.2 (Facebook Live)- 1:06:48The tool is the middle term that persists when the worker and the object have vanished; it alone allows progress and the stability of the human world.
Cycle 5.1 · 21 Nov 2018#5.2 The philosopher's Odyssey: revolutionary thought
Talks · 2 Jul 2018Tribute to Domenico Losurdo- 2:01:57In the syllogism of labor, the worker and the object wear out, the tool remains for future generations and reacts on the one who holds it.
Talks · 20 May 2018Work and the right to work
Cycle 3 · 1 Aug 2017#3.4 From Ulysses to Daedalus- 1:29:23The tool progresses endlessly because it serves an infinity; one judges the end pursued by whoever uses it, not the means.
Cycle 3 · 1 Aug 2017#3.2 From Ulysses to Daedalus- 21:48A middle term between the worker and the worked object, both worn down in the labor process; the tool remains and becomes the essential thing.
Cycle 3 · 1 Aug 2017#3.1 From Ulysses to Daedalus- 1:43:14In Hegel, the tool is the third power of spirit after memory and language: no spirit without the tool.
Series · 2 Feb 2016Hegel on the Beach 4/5- 35:20The instrument is the existing rational middle term between the worker and the object; it sustains labor and transmits the acquisitions of history.
Series · 29 Jan 2016What is to be done? 1/3- 21:20Middle term between the worker and the object, the tool outlives both and carries the progress of the productive forces.
Series · 8 Dec 2015Michel Clouscard, the paths of praxis (2/2)- 14:12For Hegel, the tool is a power of spirit. It is the existing rational middle term, at once passive and active, where work acquires its permanence.
Series · 23 Dec 2014I for Island- 3:09Robinson saves material tools (saws, hammers, nails) and theoretical tools (calendar, sextant).