Apollon

Summary

Dominique Pagani makes Apollo the god of individuation, specifying that this is not individualism1. He sees him as the figure of clear-cut individuality, a more aristocratic one23. For him, Apollo is also the god of the illuminated world, of the concept and of clarity. His sun stands for the Greek and classical model, opposed to the mists of the North, and for the day as a sensible and determinate world. In Debussy, the world of Apollo, that of arrested form and of Noon, is opposed to the nocturnal world of sounds and scents. Set against Dionysus, his lyre represents order, harmony and measure. He qualifies this image, however: in Hölderlin, Apollo is not harmony but a fearsome power that strikes4. Likewise, he mentions Apollo's arrows and the sun as a nuclear plant. Finally, he recalls the prophet god of Delphi, Pythian because he is first a python, who turns the question back on the questioner with "know thyself"5. He distinguishes him from Christianity, whose symbol is the crucifixion.

1. 1#10.2 Dialectics of identity and difference6 Oct 2021 · 1:10:29
2. 2#2.2 Between crisis and war: philosophising?15 Feb 2016 · 1:06:32
3. 3#8 Happiness and unhappiness in music11 Jan 2021 · 10:24
4. 4#11 Return to the logics of the subject21 Jun 2020 · 1:14:04
5. 5Clouscard and the problem of Socrates14 Oct 2022 · 21:48

Summary produced automatically from 16 of the passages below, to be reviewed; the numbers link to the moment in the session.