Agatha Christie

Summary

Dominique Pagani mentions Agatha Christie from two angles, always in passing. The first is the structure of the detective plot. He cites And Then There Were None (Dix petits nègres), where the culprit is among the victims or among the dead. He sees it as a high point of the genre, but he judges that this device does not match the scenario of Oedipus Rex, where the investigator discovers that he himself is the culprit12. He repeats this comparison in 2025: even in her work, one does not find a plot like that of Oedipus Rex3. The second angle is the character of Hercule Poirot, whom he compares with Plato's Socrates4. The passages do not all point the same way. In one, he states that Plato does not make Socrates triumph the way she makes Poirot triumph, which marks a difference5. In another, he says that Plato makes Socrates speak the way she makes Poirot speak, which marks a parallel6.

1. 1#1.8 Between crisis and war: philosophising?28 Jan 2016 · 1:13:36
2. 2#10 Benefits and harms of amnesia…24 Dec 2020 · 56:01
3. 3The repression of the subject in bourgeois civil society9 Aug 2025 · 33:14
4. 4#5.2 ter Questions, following workshop #5.2 (Facebook Live)6 Dec 2018 · 5:27
5. 5#8 Philosophising under threat27 Jan 2022 · 45:23
6. 6From Plato to world revolution14 Jul 2022 · 44:01

Summary produced automatically from 6 of the passages below, to be reviewed; the numbers link to the moment in the session.