Leibniz

What Dominique Pagani says

Dominique Pagani often returns to the formula "there is no concrete except through the abstract", which he takes to mean a necessary detour through mathematics and equations in order to know the world, in the line of Plato12. He regularly recalls the challenge to pupils to find two identical leaves in a park: equality does not exist in nature, it is a construction of the mind3. He quotes the image of the magnetic needle which, if it were conscious, would believe it wanted to go north, and sees in it an exposure of the illusion of consciousness before Marx and Freud4. He notes that the word Unruhe means both anxiety and the pendulum of a clock, and he takes up the small perceptions, the sense of detail, the "conspiracy" of the parts in an organic whole, and the addition "nisi intellectus ipse" set against the empiricists. He recalls the infinitesimal calculus, the universal characteristic and binary notation. He places him among the classical metaphysicians who think within God and give little attention to politics5, and he contrasts his spatial totality with Hegel's temporal one.

1. 1Dominique Pagani "Sur Marx"6 Oct 2018 · 19:33
2. 2Les fondements de la distinction platonicienne et aristotélicienne5 May 2026 · 17:21
3. 39 #11 Comment des sciences de l'histoire peuvent-elles être réelles?7 Jan 2021 · 37:10
4. 4Clouscard : Les métamorphoses de la lutte des classes2 Sept 2024 · 1:17:02
5. 5#3.4 D'Ulysse à Dédale1 Aug 2017 · 53:55

Summary produced automatically from 94 of the passages below, to be reviewed; the numbers link to the moment in the session.