Absolute knowledge

savoir absolu

Worked through in 13 videos · 24 passages.

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Summary

Dominique Pagani takes up Hegel's absolute knowledge, the endpoint of consciousness's journey in the Phenomenology, and sets aside the idea of a knowledge of all things. He sees it as a knowledge that reflects on itself, the reverse of neo-Kantianism, and that becomes accessible to all with modernity1. To reach it is to let earlier certainties collapse so that truth can prevail: no longer being able to believe that a god makes it rain, knowing oneself to have historical depth, understanding that destiny is up to man2 3 4. This knowledge involves a loss of substance and threatens psychic balance. For this reason, in his view, it is doubled by an absolute non-knowledge, which he likens to Freudian repression: a secret known to all that no one wants to know5 6. He follows its effects in Nerval and Rimbaud, with the collapse of the ideal self, and in modern art, which "knows too much" to paint like Fra Angelico. He also finds it in Brünnhilde, who says "I know everything," and in Kleist7.

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

Series · 29 Sept 2023Kleist, “On the Marionette Theatre”

40:24The last chapter of the history of the world that Kleist speaks of joins the Hegelian attainment of absolute knowledge.

Cycle 9.2 · 14 Apr 2021#9.19 Twilight of the Gods, or from repetition to liberation (part 2)

28:41Brünnhilde, in mourning, says "I know all": she attains absolute knowledge and settles the action of the gods.
1:29:11All this had to happen so that a woman could attain knowledge.

Cycle 8 · 21 Jun 2020#11 Return to the logics of the subject

1:22:30The modern knows too much to paint like Fra Angelico.
1:38:08Art never ceases to progress, but it can no longer represent the absolute: modern man knows too much to be a full-fledged artist.

Cycle 7 · 17 May 2020#8 Harnessed to confinitude

44:21Absolute knowledge carries something dangerous; money suits me by exempting me from knowing.
48:25In Nerval, Rimbaud, and modernity, absolute self-knowledge produced the collapse of the ideal self.

Cycle 7 · 18 Apr 2020#5 Harnessed to confinitude

15:59Hypothesis: absolute knowledge tends to be repressed and replaced by an absolute non-knowledge, brought close to Freudian repression or denial.
28:05To attain absolute knowledge is to let certainties collapse so that truth may be established.

Cycle 7 · 11 Apr 2020#4 Harnessed to confinitude

15:33Absolute knowledge is not knowledge of everything; its access through modernity makes certainties collapse in favor of truth.
33:06Because all knowledge entails losses, the emergence of absolute knowledge gives rise at the same time to an absolute non-knowledge.

Cycle 7 · 4 Apr 2020#3 Harnessed to confinitude

1:09:02Understanding that one has a historical depth, whereas before each century lived itself as an eternity.
1:13:09When it appears, it engenders an absolute non-knowledge: a secret known to all that no one wants to know.
1:34:53Not knowing everything: what makes certainties collapse for the sake of truth, with the loss of substance coming before any gain.

Cycle 7 · 30 Mar 2020#2 Harnessed to confinitude

28:17It is not a knowledge of everything: it is no longer being able to believe that the Earth is cubic or that a god makes it rain.
33:03It is the sum of disillusionments and the collapse of certainties, until truth prevails.
35:46Because it is perilous for consciousness, it is matched by an absolute non-knowledge, a repression.

Cycle 6 · 29 Mar 2020#6.6 The logic of the subject in the face of the reconstitution of Nazism

8:21A term for the path of consciousness in the Phenomenology; access to it harbors a danger, like a secret that puts an entire life in question.
26:10A knowledge that causes the previous certainties on which psychic equilibrium depended to collapse.

Cycle 6 · 19 Feb 2020#6.5 The logic of the subject in the face of the reconstitution of Nazism

37:40Not the claim to know everything, but a knowledge accessible to all, the stage which modernity reaches.
1:01:00To realize that destiny is inscribed neither in nature nor in God, and that it is for man to decide.

Cycle 5.1 · 15 Oct 2018#5.0 Presentation of the 2018-2019 workshop

15:42In Hegel, consciousness reaches it when it understands that its content is the spirit of a people.

Series · 5 Jul 2018Being and Code

1:51:30Need for totality in the Hegelian sense: not an exhaustive knowledge, but a knowledge that reflects upon itself; neo-kantianism is its opposite.

Cycle 4 · 16 May 2018#4.8 Angélique (by Nerval)

1:37:34What man has repressed since the origin and can no longer repress in modernity; its historical conditions are fulfilled.