Historical sciences

sciences historiques

Worked through in 11 videos · 19 passages.

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Summary

Dominique Pagani calls what are usually termed the human and social sciences "sciences of history" or "historical disciplines": none of them makes sense outside history, taken to extend beyond writing1. He includes culture in them, as opposed to nature2. In his view, these sciences were invented to lock down nascent Marxism, and their scattered state contrasts with the unity Marxism would have given them3. Marx lifted the barrier that prevented access to them4. He explains their late appearance by an order of the sciences that moves closer to man, and by a resistance to letting truth into the "secret garden"5 6. He does not ask how they are possible: he wants to show that they can be real, with a rigour equal to that of the natural sciences, though of a different order, because their ends differ7 8. He gives as examples Wagner's Ring, Phèdre, Bach and Nerval, whose texts are arranged as rigorously as the movement of the Moon9. The aim is to throw a bridge across the abyss that Kant places between the two orders of science.

Summary produced automatically from 19 of the passages below, to be reviewed; the numbers link to the moment in the session.

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

1:02:23The sciences appear in an order that draws closer to the concrete, to us; he would call the human sciences sciences of history.
1:20:50The progression of the sciences moves toward man as toward an asymptote; if politics were a science, it would spill less blood.

Cycle 9.2 · 9 Jun 2021#9.23 “Ruled like music paper!” Bach, Nerval, Lévi-Strauss

4:17They already have an object as rigorously formalizable as the motion of the stars.
26:20Texts are as rigorously arranged as the motion of the Moon around the Earth.

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

8:19The Ring serves as an example for making the sciences of history as rigorous as the hard sciences, according to a different rigor since the aims differ.
1:48:37Question of the cycle: throwing a bridge over the gap that, according to Kant, separates the hard sciences from the sciences of history.

Series · 31 Mar 2021Wagner and his interpreters, approaching Clouscard, Marx = Theseus?

3:38The human sciences come late because the gaze there draws closer to itself and a resistance opposes the entry of truth into the secret garden.
1:09:48Against those who judge them lacking in rigor, the reading of Phèdre shows an arithmetical rigor.

Series · 31 Mar 2021A balance in nature?

5:42He asks whether historical sciences are possible; Marx opened the way, and Vatan's work proves the movement by walking.

Cycle 9.2 · 18 Feb 2021#9.15 How can sciences of history be real?

1:10:49It is shown that there can be, in the sciences of history and culture, a rigor comparable to that of the natural sciences.

Cycle 9.2 · 5 Feb 2021#9.14 How can sciences of history be real?

23:54This is the name grouping the human and social sciences and the culture opposed to nature; they already belong to collective memory.
39:35Marx lifted the barrier that blocked the way to them: he made them possible.

Series · 2 Feb 2021#13 Mozart restored

1:22:57Passage from the psychological field to the field of history; socialism is a discipline aiming at scientific expression, a collective and multidisciplinary work still to be done.

Cycle 9.2 · 29 Jan 2021#9.13 How can sciences of history be real?

7:28These are sciences that have nothing to envy, in rigor and logic, to the natural sciences, except that it is neither the same logic nor the same rigor.
19:25We no longer say "human sciences" or "social sciences" but "sciences of history," whose rigor is of an entirely different order than that of the hard sciences.

Cycle 9.2 · 7 Jan 2021#9.11 How can sciences of history be real?

5:25The sciences of history designate the whole of the human sciences; none has meaning outside of history, taken in an extensive sense beyond writing.
1:39:38The point is not to ask how they are possible, but to show that they can be real, by analyzing the logic at work in the productions of a subject.

Series · 23 Aug 2019M. Clouscard's reply to C. Morilhat (1987)

7:33The human sciences only make sense within the element of history; they should be called historical disciplines.
1:04:17The human sciences were invented to lock down nascent Marxism; their anarchy contrasts with the unity Marxism would have given them.