Civil society

What Dominique Pagani says

Dominique Pagani understands civil society on the basis of Hegel, as the translation of bürgerliche Gesellschaft, literally "bourgeois society": in his view, "bürgerlich" and "civil" come to the same thing etymologically1. Distinguished from the State following Ferguson, it forms the middle term between the family and the State, made up of the juxtaposition of families, and it is the world into which one is thrown without ties of blood23. He makes it the site of the understanding, which separates and differentiates4, and an essential concept of modernity, linked to the city and to the mixing of classes. As a blind system of mutual dependence, it is a "wild beast" that the State must tame with severity56. For him, the problem of our time is to reconcile civil society and the State, the latter understood as the general will7. Capitalism, by contrast, has reduced it to a generalised market of desire, and it would like to make it the only horizon8. He attributes its excess to the capitalist option, not to modernity. He also notes that civil society, meaning foundations and NGOs, is used to get around the State.

1. 1Dominique Pagani - Qui se cache sous les surfaces ? Esthétique et politique20 May 2022 · 5:41
2. 2Hegel et les gilets jaunes (1ère partie)13 Feb 2019 · 27:50
3. 3UN PRINTEMPS DES PEUPLES ?18 Mar 2023 · 1:47:36
4. 4Ce soir, on repolitise. 2ème partie31 Mar 2018 · 1:14:28
5. 5Un chapitre de Marx écrit par Hegel • Q&A Philosophique • Dominique Pagani22 May 2021 · 29:03
6. 6L'idéologie naturaliste / Réponses aux questions - Dominique Pagani25 Jul 2025 · 25:34
7. 7#3 • Les Attelé(e)s de la confinitude4 Apr 2020 · 1:45:27
8. 8D. Pagani / Réponse de M. Clouscard à C. Morilhat • Seconde Partie10 Sept 2019 · 1:42:45

Summary produced automatically from 20 of the passages below, to be reviewed; the numbers link to the moment in the session.