Molière

Summary

Dominique Pagani often comes back to the "dormitive virtue" of opium in The Imaginary Invalid: there, the fullness of the word fills the emptiness of the thing. He makes it the emblem of the tautologies he points out in the "cognitive sciences", in psychologism and in the theory of faculties1. He takes Harpagon, and also Alceste, as examples of the classical character, entirely reduced to a single trait2. In The Learned Ladies, he sees a critique of a feminism reserved for an elite. In his view, Molière holds the right measure there through Clitandre, between the learned ladies and Chrysale3. The servant Martine has common sense but stays in her place: this is the Ancien Régime4. He places Molière at court, where he entertains the king alongside Lully, and compares him to Hegel in the way he outwits censorship. He also points to the scene of the poor man in Dom Juan5, the charge of immorality Rousseau brings against him, and Monsieur Jourdain's lesson on verse and prose. Finally, he finds something Molière-like in Clouscard, who, like Molière, denounces hypocrisy.

1. 1Sickness, misfortune, evil20 Sept 2024 · 46:45
2. 2#14 Caves of yesterday and today: from Plato to modernity10 Jun 2022 · 52:08
3. 3The feminism of the privileged, puritanical censorship of femininity: Molière, Clouscard, Wagner6 Feb 2022 · 8:41
4. 4#5.1 bis Questions (Facebook Live)2 Nov 2018 · 51:30
5. 5The religion of money29 Sept 2019 · 42:17

Summary produced automatically from 59 of the passages below, to be reviewed; the numbers link to the moment in the session.