Althusser

What Dominique Pagani says

Dominique Pagani treats Althusser as his main opponent within the Marxist field. His chief criticism is that Althusser uncouples Marx from Hegel: in Reading Capital, all readers of Marx are said to have gone wrong through a Hegelian reading, except Lenin. He sees this as the reverse of Lenin's approach, and he points out that Althusser admits he never read Hegel and that in 1953 he praised Stalin for condemning the negation of the negation12. He also criticises the formula "Marxism is not a humanism", which in his view amounts to throwing the baby out with the bathwater3, and an economic determination "in the last instance" that never comes into play in concrete cases4. Still, he grants Althusser a few points: the scientific continents, with Marx opening the continent of history, even though the note on Freud ignores that Marx already thinks the unconscious5; the idea that Marxism is not an economism; symptomatic reading; and his Montesquieu. He regularly contrasts him with Clouscard, who was sidelined in the PCF in his favour, while on other counts still regarding him as a comrade6.

1. 1Hommage à Jacques D'Hondt (1)2 Aug 2016 · 44:23
2. 2Hommage à Domenico Losurdo2 Jul 2018 · 11:52
3. 310#6 Guerre et Paix : "Les pulsions de mort progressent en silence..." (Freud)8 Dec 2021 · 1:02:09
4. 4TOUT EST PERMIS, RIEN N'EST POSSIBLE ! Michel Clouscard, Mai 68 et le capitalisme de la séduction14 Jul 2021 · 22:48
5. 5D. Pagani / Réponse de M. Clouscard à C. Morilhat (1987)23 Aug 2019 · 4:01
6. 69 #23 "C'est réglé comme du papier à musique !" • Bach • Nerval • Lévi-Strauss9 Jun 2021 · 33:21

Summary produced automatically from 115 of the passages below, to be reviewed; the numbers link to the moment in the session.