Death

Summary

Dominique Pagani approaches death mainly through Hegel. In the struggle between self-consciousnesses, death is the "absolute master". The slave, who has felt the anguish of dying, frees himself through labour1. Knowing that one will die annihilates animal nature as a power of enjoyment: man then gives himself a second nature, custom, and becomes a being of infinite desire. He shows this with Pascal, Senancour and the fragment of Hölderlin's Mnemosyne, for whom "the echo changes" among mortals2. He rejects the idea that this thought paralyses: through praxis and detour, death opens a world produced by man3. He links it to the sign, the first of which is the tomb, and to funerary rites, which belong to the private sphere in Antigone4. He also follows it in literature: the march towards death and the "gentle carnage" of Nerval's Angélique5. In music, Schubert and Vinteuil's little phrase in Proust appear as a victory over death. He sees in this the Aufhebung: negating finitude without ignoring it6.

1. 1Hegel on the Beach 4/52 Feb 2016
2. 2#5 Benefits and harms of amnesia…19 Nov 2020
3. 3#5.2 bis Questions (Facebook Live)6 Dec 2018
4. 4A for Antigone15 Dec 2014
5. 5Introduction to the upcoming workshops23 Mar 2020
6. 6#15 Plato, Rousseau, Hegel and music9 Feb 2021

Introduction produced automatically from the 8 sessions on this theme, to be reviewed; the numbers link to the sessions.