Quality

qualité

Worked through in 2 videos · 4 passages.

What Dominique Pagani says

Dominique Pagani addresses quality in the session "Q for Quality" (2014). There he presents quality as what answers the question "what?". In his view, it does not tell us about the thing itself: it tells us about the relation of the thing to me1. It is therefore never objective. It contains at once the subject, the object and the other. It must be taken seriously, but without leaving it in this first state2. In 2021, in a Musicosophie session, he notes that in German quality and property are expressed by the same word. He concludes that quality is a matter of ownership3. He also calls "quality of life" an ideological notion, because it pushes the quantitative, such as wages, into second place4. In 2024, he cites Gracq, who opposes quality to degree. Where quality reigns, according to Gracq, only music provides an adequate analogy5.

Summary produced automatically from 5 of the passages below, to be reviewed; the numbers link to the moment in the session.

Series · 24 Jan 2021Musicosophy 11. Modal and tonal music

18:13Quality and property are the same word in German: quality is a matter of the owner.
19:33"Quality of life" is an ideological notion that relegates the quantitative, such as wages, to secondary importance.

Series · 31 Dec 2014Q for Quality

3:10Quality answers the question "what?"; it does not speak of the thing but of the relation of the thing to me.
8:56It is never objective; it contains at once the subject, the object and the other, and it must be taken seriously without leaving it at this first state.