Political philosophy

What Dominique Pagani says

Dominique Pagani approaches political philosophy first through Rousseau. He reads the Social Contract as a refusal to base right on force, which is a concept from physics. There the right of the strongest is "gibberish", and the modern theory of evil lies in bringing the relation of force back into the civil state1. He links this thesis to Socrates' critique of Callicles in the Gorgias, and then to Hegel as a reader of Plato. In Plato, he argues, politics frames philosophy at both ends: a political trauma at its origin, and the return into the cave at its close, since there is no individual salvation2. Rousseau's draft constitution for Corsica allows him to distinguish revolt from revolution, which must pass through theory3. In a 2025 session, he follows Clouscard in distinguishing the State, understood as the general will, from the State apparatus that oppresses. He sees totalitarianism as the rule of a part over the whole4. In a debate with Emmanuel Faye, Arendt's notion of totalitarianism is criticised as tied to the Cold War5.

1. 1Que faire ? 2/329 Jan 2016
2. 2#3.5 D'Ulysse à Dédale1 Aug 2017
3. 3#3 Le mythe du bon sauvage chez Rousseau !23 Sept 2014
4. 4ÉTAT ET APPAREIL D'ÉTAT - Le conflit du public et du privé29 Aug 2025
5. 5Arendt et Heidegger : la destruction de la pensée24 Sept 2020

Introduction produced automatically from the 6 sessions on this theme, to be reviewed; the numbers link to the sessions.