Procuste

What Dominique Pagani says

Dominique Pagani returns to the myth of Procrustes from 2014 to 2021, always as a figure of formalism. The brigand who cuts or stretches passers-by so that they are exactly the length of his bed, or of his table, helps him show what happens when an abstract measure is imposed on reality without mediation12. In a session on Kant, he applies the image to bloody revolutionary utopias, which bend reality to an abstraction3. Elsewhere, he describes it as the abstraction one wants to make real4. In the more recent sessions, the emphasis shifts slightly toward the opposition between the real and the imaginary. In connection with Michel Foucault, the myth shows that reality never matches the imaginary5. In a session on the dialectics of identity and difference, the bed stands for the imaginary imposing itself brutally on reality6.

1. 1P comme Peuple30 Dec 2014 · 11:11
2. 2Hegel Plage 2/51 Feb 2016 · 48:18
3. 3Kant11 Dec 2015 · 1:31:02
4. 4#2.5 Entre crise et guerre : Philosopher ?1 Aug 2017 · 7:08
5. 5Dominique Pagani ▷II Michel Foucault2 May 2019 · 28:31
6. 610#2 Dialectiques de l'identité et de la différence6 Oct 2021 · 2:06:33

Summary produced automatically from 7 of the passages below, to be reviewed; the numbers link to the moment in the session.