Symbol

symbole

Worked through in 16 videos · 22 passages.

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Summary

Dominique Pagani distinguishes the symbol from comparison. Comparison is binary and remains tied to the real. The symbol, by contrast, does not give the thing compared: it keeps a mystery, like surplus value, and presupposes a third term to be sought, in the manner of reflective judgement1. In the human domain, he places the sense-sign pair before the cause-effect pair of the natural sciences. The unconscious therefore expresses itself symbolically rather than causally, and the economic is always lived in displaced form, as religion or identity2 3. In Freud, he points to transcultural symbols, such as high and low or the erection of the signs of power; Mime's sword is one example4. Desire, first names and the sunset belong to the symbolic field: "we think we are in the real, we are in the symbol"5. He also links the symbol to Rousseau, to Nerval, to Baudelaire's correspondences and to symbolism as Hegel sees it, for whom the sphinx is "the symbol of the symbol"6.

Summary produced automatically from 23 of the passages below, to be reviewed; the numbers link to the moment in the session.

Cycle 10 · 10 Feb 2022#9 Pictures at an Exhibition: art, seen from here or from the other side?

46:32In symbolism, the absolute content seeks its form without finding it and does violence to matter: proliferation, gigantism.
53:11For Hegel, the sphinx is the symbol of the symbol, the enigma par excellence, whose answer is man.

Series · 23 May 2021From the lost voice to the path of modernity: from modal music to tonal music

16:43The extinguished paschal candle in the water symbolizes Christ's death and descent into hell.

Series · 7 Apr 2021#1 Mignon, or the song of silence

1:02:10"All that is transient is but a symbol" expresses, for Wagner, the spirit of the plastic arts, spatial and motionless.

Series · 25 Mar 2021#18 What is musical in music

1:08:08Music symbolizes an immateriality without giving it existence.

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

1:02:15The sword is a phallic symbol of strength and mastery, like the scepter or the chief's staff; Mime cannot forge it, a sign of impotence.

Talks · 4 Oct 2020Calves and Things: the preface

14:11The sun centralizes the sky: it has a paternal, dictatorial figure.

Cycle 8 · 9 Jul 2020#13 Return to the logics of the subject

26:47Art is almost the only thing to evoke, via the symbolic order, other aspects of life than those reported by the news.

Cycle 8 · 11 Jun 2020#10 Return to the logics of the subject

16:49For Baudelaire, the poet opens onto the world of correspondences and symbols, not that of politics.
24:50The earth and its spectacles are a correspondence of the sky, just as the sensible refers to the intelligible in Plato.

Cycle 5.1 · 31 Dec 2018#5.3 The philosopher's Odyssey: revolutionary thought

1:39:14Comparison is binary and tied to the real; the symbol presupposes a third term to be sought, as in reflective judgment.

Cycle 4 · 15 Jan 2018#4.4 Angélique (by Nerval)

5:54In the Senlis scene, all reality has evaporated; only a symbolic function remains.
12:19We believe we are in the real, we are in the symbol: the sunset is more melancholy because it signifies decline.

Cycle 4 · 18 Oct 2017#4.1 Angélique (by Nerval)

1:24:18Rousseau's empty tomb is a pure sign (soma/sema): one does not look underneath, one raises one's eyes.
1:29:34First names belong to the symbolic field: Sylvain appears in the forest, Sylvie is an emanation of the forest.

Cycle 2 · 1 Aug 2017#2.6 Between crisis and war: philosophising?

1:44:05In Freud, the symbol is a content common to all dreamers, anthropological: the symbolic high and low and the erection of signs of power are transcultural.

Series · 1 Feb 2016Marx on the Beach 1/2

1:00:08The expression of the unconscious is not causal like the grinding of an engine, but symbolic.
1:02:04In the human domain, the pair meaning-sign is more important than the pair cause-effect of the natural sciences.
1:15:21The economic is never lived as economic but displaced, in religious, identitarian, ethnic form; the symbolic function serves to recognize it.

Series · 1 Feb 2016Marx on the Beach 2/2

1:17:09Unlike comparison, the symbol does not give the thing compared; it keeps a mystery, like surplus value.

Series · 19 Dec 2014E for Enfance (Childhood)

14:37The island, from childhood to Ermenonville, is a symbol without which Rousseau cannot be understood.

Series · 17 Dec 2014D for Desire

5:00The desire for a drink or for tobacco belongs to the symbolic field, like everything that is cultural and historical: the aperitif, the friends, the peace pipe.