English translation of the French transcript, made with AI and not yet proofread — click a paragraph to jump to it. Show the French original
Opening and theme: repoliticizing the political 0:00 What I want is for you, everywhere, to go make it happen, because it's our — we have hubris, it's our thing, long live Rome, long live Rome, long live Rome, long live Rome, long live Rome, long live Rome, long live Rome, long live Rome, long live Rome, long live Rome, long live Rome, long live Rome, long live Rome, long live Rome, long live Rome, long live Rome, long live Rome, long live Rome, long live Rome, long live Rome, long live Rome, long live Rome, long live Rome, long live Rome, long live Rome, long live Rome, long live Rome, long live Rome, long live Rome, long live Rome, long live Rome, long live Rome, long live Rome, long live Rome, long live Rome, long live Rome, long live Rome, long live Rome, long live Rome, long live Rome, long live We don't hesitate, we go straight to the point.
1:02 And they're calling for a vote for the Republicans. Are you going to thank him for that? That's not how it works, that's not... Pass me the salad, I see the rhubarb in it. And the theme will be to keep the security pact alive in order to keep our values alive. Long live it, long live it, long live it! Long live it, long live it! Long live it, long live it, long live it!
2:29 a true house of the mind, and to see familiar, friendly faces again, and so, once again, I thank you for your invitation. So, the theme is one of the themes that I think we need to reflect on, namely that of a repoliticization of the political.
2:59 And that would be the first part, since we might be able to arrange a second session. The first part, then, of this two-part talk. The second would be to develop the idea that politics needs to be depoliticized. Repoliticize politics as to its meaning.
3:33 Depoliticize politics as to its objects. I think that the most serious and most urgent problems we have to face — the political is the place where all confrontations come to be summed up, it's the place where power is exercised. And all power, in whatever domain, is the political.
4:06 Everything that happens in the world, in its reality, in its ideality, even its cultural ideality, happens because the political demands it or allows it. Nothing can happen in actuality except through the authorization, the permission, etc., of the political.
4:37 This is where all decisions are made. And one of the most important aspects of this active presence of the political is the political's laissez-faire, the political's abstention. Abstention on the part of the political, which is perhaps the most difficult action demanded of it — the political's abstention is one of its actions, perhaps even its essential action.
5:18 Refraining from acting. So, I think that, from the point of view of actuality, of the reality of things and events, everything is played out at the political level. You see? And that's why it's fitting to repoliticize the political, which has not been devalued, but has been relativized, to the benefit of the social, in a first period, from 1789 to 1989, and then, with the fall of the communist regimes, there was, if you will, a shift from the attempted predominance of the social to that of the societal.
Liberty, equality, fraternity: three periods of history 6:19 First, the political, with its absolute principle, the demand it carries, freedom. Then the time of equality. From 1789 to 1989, the time of the social, with its essential quest for equality. Egalitarianism could not triumph, could not be realized, quite simply because, given how numerous the parameters involved are, there are never, in reality and in concrete life, two equal situations.
7:10 Equality cannot be determined, cannot be measured, cannot be made concrete. After the time of the political and its primary affirmation, which is that of freedom, then the time of the social and its primary affirmation, which is that of equality, there came, I believe, the third part, the third moment of the republican motto, liberty, equality, and thirdly fraternity.
7:49 Fraternity is, I believe, the value that has essentially been sought since 1989, and this fraternity is what gives value to what is now called the societal — freedom, which appears almost unreal, almost metaphysical; equality, which is objective or wants to be objective; and finally fraternity, which is the triumph of subjectivity or intersubjectivity.
8:33 So, the French revolutionary motto applied, it seems to me, to all history up until its enunciation and pronouncement in 1789. It was the history of the continuous liberation of humanity, which finally succeeded in 1789 in affirming those essential conditions that it formulated in the republican motto.
9:12 Then the time of the equalization sought but not achieved — but that wasn't possible — and since 1989, the time of fraternity or societalism. Freedom, the in-itself, is almost metaphysical. Equality, objectivity, and fraternity, subjectivity, in its true form of intersubjectivity.
9:44 Up to 1789, the liberation that affirms these principles in revolutionary reality and, correspondingly, at the level of culture and ideality with Kant and Hegel. And finally, thirdly, fraternity, intersubjectivity, the era in which we now find ourselves — I'm schematizing in a way that will seem infinitely reckless and excessive to you, but still, it seems to me that up until the Revolution, history is in search of the knowledge, first, and then the realization, of freedom and its essential conditions.
10:36 1789 posits them. The whole span of history, the whole long span of history, has been a history — that of liberation, or that of freedom — which had a meaning. Why? Because the conditions of freedom form a system. The conditions of freedom form a totality. It is a totalization. We eventually came to understand, to know, and that's why there were at that time the great philosophies of freedom, that of Kant and that of Hegel — we finally came to know what the essential conditions of a free existence for men were.
11:27 And this existence, these essential conditions, become totalized because to be free is to be at home in the world, to be at home, that is, identical to oneself amid the variety and diversity of the world — but the identity of self-identity and the diversity of things, that is totality. Free existence is a totalized existence. So there was first the long period of freedom, its conditions forming a system — the history of freedom was an oriented history precisely because of this totalization.
12:12 Freedom demands conditions that are linked to one another, that cannot occur indifferently, arbitrarily. There is an order to the conditions of liberation. Then, the two centuries thought that freedom was all very well but that it should not remain alone or assert itself alone, otherwise it remained an abstraction, and that it needed to be made concrete, and it was thought that this concretization consisted in equalization.
12:52 The equalization of conditions, as Tocqueville spoke of it — this equalization proved impossible because, given the number of moments and parameters that make up a free existence, you will never find how to define a true equality of situation. And we are now in the final phase of realizing the three moments of the republican motto, the moment of fraternity.
13:26 But if the motto has a meaning, this republican motto — I believe it has an essential meaning — the affirmation of a single moment cannot realize it. Consequently, there is no complete affirmation of freedom, since each moment of the whole, and the whole, requires an intimate link with the other moments, and equality itself cannot be sought independently of the other moments, and the same goes for fraternity.
14:09 And you see, the mistake of our era is perhaps to think that fraternity, or intersubjectivity, interaction, reciprocity, can be affirmed on its own and can, by itself, bring about the fulfillment of human existence. That's roughly how I see history. So, up to 1789, the era when the philosophy of history asserted itself as a properly human philosophy.
14:48 that is something other than Bossuet's universal history. At the point when the philosophy of history, as philosophy, that is, as a discourse that becomes fully human — at the time when this philosophy of history became possible, it was precisely because history had achieved the objective that had been essential to it, namely to know, in order to be able to bring about the conditions that form a system, that totalize freedom.
15:26 There was then the great two-century effort of equalization, punctuated by the revolution of 1917, and the fiasco of 1989 gave way to this third moment through which people wanted to bring human existence to fulfillment, namely fraternity. But you see, each moment must at the same time bring about the affirmation of the others, otherwise we're in an abstraction, and the abstraction we find ourselves in today is the intersubjectivist abstraction of the affirmation of fraternity.
Intersubjectivity is not the same as objectivity 16:11 That's why I think — well, I could develop this further, and we'll have the chance to do so, you will rightly object to what I'm saying — one must question a certain number of features of the era that we should not be content with.
16:42 Intersubjectivity is all very well, reciprocity is all very well, but these are categories which, to invoke Hegel, belong to what he calls essence. Hegel distinguishes three levels of existence and of understanding of being: first, being is grasped as it is given immediately, with relations that work upon it — equality or inequality, qualitative difference, quantitative difference, etc.
17:21 but diversity remains predominant, so one strives to aim, through the variety of things, even in the relations they maintain with one another, at a unity that is not apparent, not immediate, but must be presupposed, and that is what is called essence — it is the moment of metaphysics; essence is what has been at issue since Aristotle, after the issue of the immediately phenomenal had been dealt with. So there is essence, and then there is the moment of fraternity, which corresponds to another category — but one must not, each time, remain at a given level. Now, our era is a flood of absolute subjectivism or intersubjectivism, we come to
18:31 define objectivity by intersubjectivity, and there are indeed many Kantian or Hegelian themes that could justify this, but if what is objective allows subjects to meet one another — if what is objective is universal — universality alone does not make objectivity. Everyone can agree, and agree while missing reality, that is, agree while being wrong. So you see, intersubjectivity cannot equal objectivity. Let's put it another way: our era criticizes institutions and exalts participation, it criticizes representative democracy
Participation presupposes institution and the state 19:41 precisely because it is representative, that is, because it establishes a mediation between the governing and the governed, hence the exaltation of participation, and there is such a vigorous push to inject the participatory that it can appear as if it were meant to replace the institutional. But the institutional is what allows participation to develop within an environment, within a framework that is a pacified framework. This pacified framework seems to be taken for granted — but why does it go without saying? Because there is an institutional reality, embodied in particular in the state. That's why I think we must be very critical of
20:51 all discourses which not only affirm that participation is something positive, but which ultimately tend toward replacing the institutional with the participatory — whereas what is objective, the institution, what seems to hem in freedom, free will, etc., is precisely what allows participation, recreation — or re-creation — neighborhood festivities, etc., and God knows all this is pleasant, to be able to unfold within this framework, which can only exist because there is the institution, and the state institution. So, repoliticizing the political means reminding ourselves that, once again, everything happens
22:03 through the political, even if it be through the abstention of the political, which, to speak like Hegel, must let develop within itself, within the authoritative milieu that it constitutes — since the relation of the citizen to the state is first of all a relation of obedience — well, it is within this institutional framework that participation must develop, without seeking to replace it. The intersubjective, however pleasant it may be, cannot by itself constitute objectivity, and I think that in our era we must recall this objective dimension, and in particular the role of the State. So
Robespierre: liberty as principle, not equality 23:14 on the role of the State, I would still like to recall a certain number of themes, to show the presence of this theme of the recognition of the State in thinkers whom one might consider as thinkers who did not recognize the necessity of the State — thinkers who have rather been regarded as people who wanted to revolutionize the State — and I will take two of them: I will bring up Robespierre and then speak of Marx. Robespierre is a pessimist. Robespierre considers inequality to be an absolutely necessary evil. He sets as the principle freedom
24:24 and not equality — not equality, because he believes it to be absolutely unrealizable, and that one must therefore not make it the essential objective, the essential objective for him being freedom. You'll tell me that he therefore doesn't recognize man in his concrete reality as the absolute, since he settles for what is metaphysical in man, and this metaphysical dimension can cover over all inequalities. In any case, for Robespierre, history must ensure that the inequality necessary at the social level is not duplicated at the political level, and at the political level, inequality is the relation of the one who commands to the one who is commanded, of authority to obedience. Consequently
25:35 yes, there is social inequality and it is insurmountable, but that is no reason — quite the contrary — for it to be consecrated politically, and one must ensure that this social inequality remains social and is not consecrated politically. That is what explains the limitation of Robespierre's aim. Robespierre, if you will, is someone who of course recognizes humanity, but who affirms that principles matter more than individuals — principles matter more than individuals — and the principle, the principle of principles, the realizable principle, is freedom. So there is in Robespierre a recognition of authority, and of political
Marx: individuals start from themselves, association 26:45 authority, and thus in him a recognition of the state. In Marx too — I mention this precisely in remarks aimed at exalting a repoliticization of the political — in Marx there is likewise a quite clear affirmation of the necessity of the political. It is not at the level of the political that things happen — it is not at the level of the political that things happen, things happen at the level of the social — but the word 'social' in Marx has, fundamentally, a negative meaning. Marx's foundational assertion is the famous assertion
27:55 from The German Ideology: individuals always start out from themselves and have always started out from themselves. Marx's individualism is his absolute assertion — nothing surprising there, he had written his thesis on atomism, one always remains the man of one's thesis. Reality is the individual, but the atomists, as you know, certainly affirmed the atoms, the individuals, but also the clinamen, the swerve, the inclination, the relation to the other man — yet the principle remains the individual. The relation to the other man, the relation of each man to other men, is not what Marx calls society or the social; it is what he
29:06 calls association, and it is this association that the revolution is meant to establish for him. What will be the status of human relations once the revolution has taken place? It will be the association of workers. Association is a term which, as such, presupposes the primary reality of individuals or atoms. The social, in Marx, is the solidification, the reification, the alienation of inter-individual relations — a solidification which, in a way, through its very massiveness, comes to oppress individuals. I think that in Marx the term 'social' has a fundamentally
30:16 negative meaning.
31:41 Individuals have always started out from themselves, still start out from themselves, yes. They are thrust into a history which, because it is a history of scarcity, as Sartre would later say, etc., gives rise, in the seizing of the means of production, to inequalities, relations of oppression, etc., which must ultimately be annulled, and will be by the Revolution, which will restore the true relations between individuals, which are relations of association.
32:28 So when it was claimed that Marxism's content needed to be corrected, as if it were an innovation, in order to assert the role of personality, etc., people were merely rediscovering what Marx had always affirmed. Individuals have always started out from themselves and still start out from themselves. They must forge relations of association, always mastered by each of them, and put an end to the social as the alienating solidification of inter-individual relations.
34:20 From this point of view, I think Marx was always profoundly humanist and profoundly individualist, while identifying the life, the true life of the individual, with being put into relation, if possible in a positive way, etc., with other individuals.
Spectacle, societalism and the nation-state 34:59 You see, intersubjectivity, which must be restored in the face of objectivity or objectification — which is always tempted, and from this point of view, it seems, remains Hegelian — through alienation. So our era is an era sinking into intersubjectivity.
35:35 It's extraordinary, it's the negation of objectivity. You see, the relation to things comes down to spectacle. To see is to do. And this spectacular relation to the world, this spectacular relation to things, well, it seems to me one of the essential dimensions of the contemporary mentality.
36:06 To see, to be seen, to the detriment of effective action—vision, reaction, emotion, all of that can only provoke agitation, but cannot engage action properly speaking.
36:37 So, we are in this mentality. Societalism, which is the dominant principle, has taken the place of socialism. The flaws of socialism were revealed and confirmed by history. I am convinced that those of societalism will not fail to be denounced by history either.
37:10 Because, once again, objectivity is not reducible to intersubjectivity. So we find that everywhere. Take the theme developed by Habermas or by the Frankfurt School. What counts for him is not the political. As instituted, and the essential political institution, is the nation-state.
37:44 For now, it is the nation-state. There is nothing else. World governance is in the hands, if I may say so, of a few preponderant nation-states. The reality of our era is therefore the reality that Hegel said would be definitive. The nation-states are here. So, of course, we strive to make relations between states more concrete, to organize them.
38:24 But the fact remains that world governance is a theme of discourse, but it is not an effective reality. Until now, the armed arm of the United Nations has been the United States—we cannot consider that a true accomplishment of history. So the situation we are in is a situation full of uncertainties.
The end of a meaningful history, infra- and suprapolitical problems 39:08 As long as history was driven by the search for, the knowledge of, and the realization of freedom in its constitutive conditions—as I was saying earlier, the conditions of freedom form a system. History thus progressively realized these conditions, since they constitute a certain order. One cannot begin with cultural freedom and leave aside the most real freedom, which is socio-economic freedom, etc.
39:46 There is thus an order of realization of these conditions, and history has therefore been meaningful. From the moment history, having discovered what the essential conditions of a free life were—and we now know what a free existence consists of—history verified it, showed the unworthiness of regimes that violated this rational totalization of the conditions of freedom.
40:23 History wanted to realize equality—that was the two centuries in which, again, history stammered. One cannot discern a genuine meaning of history between 1789 and 1989. There was a profusion of events, there were catastrophic, appalling events. We cannot consider that they marked out a progression in the accomplishment of human existence.
41:00 And as for the era we have entered, that of fraternity, I am even less certain that this history will reveal a certain order of its own, and I think we are going to remain in this situation, that of the end of history, of the end of a meaningful history developing in a certain order—we have entered a history where everything is possible, and where things are radically unpredictable.
41:46 The great problem, it seems to me, for politics, is not the theoretical problem of knowing what it must consist of. I think the political instrument is henceforth—what it must be in order to confront the major problems of the era, which are problems not of a political nature, but problems, for example, linked—I've been saying this for 10 or 20 years—to the African situation, the problem is first, and is going to become increasingly, a demographic problem.
42:30 There is a demographic problem, there is the problem of climatic conditions, etc., the problem of migrations—these are problems that are not essentially political in nature, that is, inherent to the organization of the rational or reasonable state. But since everything can only be settled through the intervention of the sole power existing on Earth, the power of the nation-state, this political instrument must achieve the most complete rationality, in order to no longer reflect on itself, meditate endlessly and again on politics, but, despite its imperfections, directly confront the problems assailing us, which are infra- or suprapolitical problems—infrapolitical: climatology, demography, etc.—suprapolitical: the problem of the existence of religions,
43:42 of the activity of certain religious groups, etc. Only the state can take these problems in hand; for that, it must be better organized, from the point of view of reason—that is what I tried to recall—in order to confront, instead of endlessly rehashing itself and sinking into a narcissism that would consist, again and again, in reflecting on the problems of political organization, in order to confront with the means at hand the great problems of the era, which are much more difficult problems to solve than properly political problems—infrapolitical or suprapolitical problems.
44:29 That's the essential of what I wanted to say. I forced the point a bit—though you didn't need that anyway—so that you would react, but my position is thus: the political instrument, well, we know more or less what it should be, let's get to the real problems, which are problems of extreme difficulty, of extreme gravity.
Questions on Aristotle, the nation-state and the sixth thesis on Feuerbach 45:01 No more political narcissism. That's roughly, Mr. organizer, gentlemen organizers, what I wanted to say. Bravo, first of all. Thank you. We'll pass the floor, of course, to the audience, but perhaps Aymeric and Dominique wanted to add something, or ask Bernard questions themselves based on what has just been said.
45:34 I think it would take a whole evening of questions, it's so rich. And I've also read this book. And the one that preceded it, and I know your political work a little, Acts of the Spirit, Hegel, Political Thought, which dates from '68. So I see the whole coherence of it. And I think readers will get a sense of the acuity, of this gaze you cast on our very current era as well.
46:06 That's exactly right about what you call societalism. And I'm struck by your praise of the nation-state. Well, it doesn't surprise me coming from a Hegelian. But I see a parallel with what quite a few Aristotle specialists have pointed out. That when Aristotle writes about the zoon politikon, it's at the moment when Alexander is about to build his empire.
46:37 An empire that would collapse through the Diadochi, that would not hold together in a way, even if this idea is not without grandeur, since there was also the will to intermarry peoples, beyond Greek racism, which was nonetheless inherent to their way of thinking. But nevertheless, the very term politikon implies polis. I no longer remember if it was Pierre-François Moreau or someone else, but it poses a problem even for commentators, wondering—why does Aristotle... isn't there a form of resistance? It means that man is a political animal, but it also means an animal within a city.
47:07 That's too... well, right. And when you insist on this nation-state as an unsurpassable framework—and God knows we can see well that attempts to go beyond it only appear as imperialism, because the novelty is not... you're right to point to this fraternity, this societalism being proposed to us, and what the reality was after the fall of the Berlin Wall—let's say it was also a resurgence of what Lenin called imperialism, that is, appalling wars.
47:40 And so, it's above all this tendency of states to step outside their framework, and to want to impose a... how shall I put it... a world order that indeed finds its limits, finds its limits also with... And that is somewhat the paradox of history, and perhaps there we should... But I know well that you yourself see that this thinking divided into three stages necessarily undergoes certain nuances. The states that have put an end, that are in the process of putting an end to this excessive American imperialism, are precisely China and Russia, that is, states that have retained a good deal of communism, in any case that present themselves as nation-states.
48:21 And what also strikes me is that you are a loyal adversary of Marxism, and you've proven it, since in the most liberal sense of the term—this liberalism we miss, where the Italians distinguish between liberalismo and liberismo, liberalismo being Thatcher, liberalismo being the great liberal idea—since you allowed Marx to be included in the agrégation in philosophy, well at least you contributed to that, and so you remain a loyal and resolute adversary; what strikes me is the...
48:53 since, well, it happens that I speak as a Marxist publisher, I am also the publisher of Domenico Losurdo, who is your friend—I know you founded this Hegel-Marx society—but I am struck by the possible convergences between your works on the state, and God knows Domenico Losurdo is the thinker who most valued the enduring relevance of the national question, which had escaped many Marxists, in any case because of a form of messianism, and truly this framework, essential, and there I think that even with many left-wing activists, who are not necessarily your close friends, but people that you...
49:32 we would find common ground on, for example, your critique of a certain conception of Europe that would precisely deny this reality of nation-states, notably of our own country, and its institutional framework, including the revolutionary one, because it is a lasting institution that has perpetuated itself, including for example the gains of 1945, which are the fruit of a form of revolution that is the Resistance, or in any case a form of armed struggle. So, sorry, I've gone on at length, but it was more to express my admiration, and the number of bridges we see between Marxists, those who dare to claim that term, and the immense Hegel specialist that you are.
50:15 And so, for me, that was my only question, well for now, for the moment, but let's give the floor to the room. You spoke of the rejection of the societal in Marx—do you mean it in the German sense of 'sozial' or 'gesellschaftlich'? Because I think there's already this term. And it occurred to me—perhaps for me it was... maybe I didn't fully understand that meaning—but the famous sixth thesis on Feuerbach: the human essence is not an abstraction inherent in the [individual]—in Hegelian terms—in reality, it is the ensemble of social relations.
50:45 I don't think I'm misremembering the terms too much. There we clearly see something that goes beyond this methodological individualism, which is the relation, since for Marx, capital is not a thing but a social relation. And that's precisely where he is particularly dialectical. And precisely, isn't there also in Marx this... I noted well what you say, you're quite right, when you say the free association of associated producers is Marx's socius, it's a form of association that seems to present itself, indeed, as somewhat da capo, without taking into account—
51:18 But that, perhaps, is a limitation in the formulation. But is there really such a strong methodological individualism in Marx, such that one could compare it to liberals? I'm thinking of Jacques Sapir's latest book, a theoretical book, where he almost accuses Marx of a kind of liberalism... You can feel that... the Hegel lesson isn't far off. So, what do you think? I'll let you answer these questions—not directed at me—but I just wanted to add one thing. Yes, yes.
51:48 Because that was one of the objections I wanted to raise. It seems to me that in the understanding of the French public today, rather than association—and for it to be clearer in relation to Marx's ideas—we should think of cooperation in the sense of a cooperative. Yes. The social, human objective, which is doing, productive activity. Yes. In Marx—I no longer remember which German terms Marx uses—but I think that if we want to properly understand what this is about, rather than association, we should speak of cooperation, in the sense of cooperators, and in the sense we're familiar with of a cooperative, sometimes agricultural or otherwise, that is, of producers associated in their activity, because of course there's the consequence, of course, of class relations, of class struggle, but there is above all the notion of ownership of the productive apparatus.
52:45 That's a dimension that's missing, as you know. It's one of our main reproaches to Hegel. It was moreover what Marx himself reproached Hegel with, among other things. But, to add just a bit, I think I'm not in disagreement with your idea, this notion, not just of association, but of cooperation, which is at that point consistent with the thesis on Feuerbach that Aymeric just recalled, and which might seem a little contradictory with what you were mentioning, notably The German Ideology.
Fraternity, friendship and the political as real universal in Marx 53:16 There, that was just to complete the question. Oh, no, no, I don't at all want to be as elaborate as Aymeric just was, who nonetheless recalled the sensitive points. No, no, I just—because I don't want to take the floor away from the audience, I'd like to give it back as much as possible—I'd just like to add a harmonic to your insistence on the third term, on fraternity. Yes. I see it entirely as opposed to contemporary societalism. I'm not betraying your thought in saying that.
53:46 I'm thinking of the fall of the Phenomenology... 'aus dem Kelche dieses Geisterreiches' [from the chalice of this realm of spirits]. The fact that the last two lines of the Phenomenology are a quotation from a hymn to fraternity by Schiller is not entirely a coincidence. There, I just wanted to add that harmonic. I quite agree with you regarding fraternity. Praise of fraternity must always be accompanied first by that of freedom, and I think I would perhaps prefer the term friendship to fraternity, because the friend is the one I respect as perhaps what is most real, whom I must always treat as the other most positive—
54:56 for me—but recognizing the being of the friend. I would also like to come back to something: Marx critiques the state insofar as it is separated from social existence, but accomplished life, human or interhuman accomplished life, truly universal life, has its place in Marx in the political—politics, and not the social; the political is the real universal, and Marx identifies the universalization of life with the politicization of life. Class—
56:06 and not a purely social reality, because the social is relations and interrelations between individuals, but they are competitive, they don't present themselves first as a unity, and this unity is aimed at through the political, even if the latter is at first an illusory and even alienating unity, since the management of the political is in the hands of the ruling class—it remains the case, Marx always insists on this, that the subject of the political is not the ruling class, but the ruling class, that is to say, the relation—
57:16 of classes, or the totality of classes, is always at the level—that's why class would not exist without a politicization of existence; class, even if it appears defined by its social and socio-economic content, class for Marx is the first moment of the objective universalization of existence, whose second moment is the state. But again, the social by itself is not constitutive of unity or universality. So the problem is that the political should not be separate, ideal, illusory, and thus alienating, but should be realized at the very level of the social, in order to—
58:26 universalize it and suppress these alienating particularizations. So the true level of existence, for Marx, is the political level, even if reality plays out—the actualization of existence—in the social domain. This poses, moreover, a real problem regarding Marxism: being and the true are not originally the same. Being is the social, but the true is the political—hence the extreme difficulty of the junction, the reunion in Marx of the social and the political, and in particular the extreme difficulty of this reunion at the historical level. But I insist on this point, and there Marx—
Marx is not Sartre: totality against totalization 59:36 remains very much a Hegelian: unity is something other than interaction. You see, the total is something other than the mere totalization of existence, or to put it another way, Marx is not Sartre, it's something else entirely. That clarifies a lot of things for our generations, perhaps less so for today's, but it's good to recall it. Yes, you see, Sartre loves totalization but hates totality. You see, he's an absolute individualist—so totalitarianism, if I may say so, he truly abhors, well said moreover—Sartre refuses all totality but loves totalization.
1:00:46 You see, progressive totalization. The problem is therefore the following: from a metaphysical point of view, is the first, the principle, totality, that is, the one, or is it totalization, that is, unification? Sartre—read the Critique of Dialectical Reason—it's the anti-Marx, and yet it's the project, it's his project, that is, it was written for that. Yes, it's his project, but he admits in the end, he admits he doesn't succeed. Yes, yes. Whereas for Marx, totality exists—that's what he calls generic existence, the human genus. You see, totality exists; it's not only totalization, there is totality from that point of view.
1:01:59 Marx belongs to the lineage of the great thinkers and the great philosophers—the one is primary, you see, the one is primary. Marx is an atomist, but Epicurean, not Democritean—the atomist, the atom, yes, but with the clinamen: individuals set off and always set off from themselves, but they are immediately bound to one another, bound to one another, but their affirmation, their affirming being, is the individual. You see, the individual who affirms the one and realizes it in unification. Marx is atomist, but—
1:03:09 what is an atom? It's the declination, it's the clinamen—there, it's the clinamen. Incidentally, just an aside, to explain to what extent Althusser is entirely wrong when he speaks of a process without a subject—if you followed well the reasoning Bernard Bourgeois just recalled, you see, what does it mean to be an individual? It means affirming others, but this affirmation is always an individual affirmation, and if it is coerced, we know what has come of it—you see, freedom, the affirmation of self, the affirmation of everything by the self, is primary, even if what it affirms fundamentally is in truth the relation to others—but to impose the relation to others by denying freedom—
Objections: social production, class as eidos, Epicurus 1:04:19 in the name of equality, denying freedom, is to redo what has been undone by history, that is, to return to the societies studied by Lévi-Strauss, that is, societies without history—there, without history in every sense of the term, expressly—it's he who coined the expression—so Marx is a humanist thinker, obviously, he's a thinker, that's all—you wanted, before... yes, you want to add something—I'd just like to insist again on what Aymeric said, even on the paradox—I know you're doing it on purpose, pushing the point about Marx's individualism—well, Marx didn't remain a Feuerbachian either, it's not libertarian, even if that's very deep-rooted in him otherwise, and you're quite right to speak of a relation to the other that is freely decided, we entirely agree—but still, there isn't only something negative in the connotations of the social in Marx: in the social production of their existence—that's still the beginning of Marx's most famous text, and doubtless—
1:05:29 the most exhaustive one: in the social production of their existence, we learn that man is produced, and produced socially—his very existence, ontologically—I'm not forcing this, it's just a recollection of speech—is produced socially. Now, whether this socius is that of class, as you developed so well, I'm not here to evaluate—I'd feel a bit intimidated—but I would propose, as a research direction, to see whether social class might not be the realization of the eidos, that is, of the species, that is, the fruitful middle term between the excessive generality of the genus and the individual in the libertarian sense—precisely, social class would be the right mediation. Did you want to add something too, and then we'll pass the floor—yes, yes, no, simply I wonder whether we couldn't give a chance to this totalization that Marx was perhaps seeking, precisely by opposing so head-on Epicurus and Democritus, and rather rightly—I believe it was Cyril Bailey, the great specialist on Epicureanism, who showed—
1:06:39 to what extent he had risen to the level of an incredible philological material for his time, what he was looking for perhaps is also what he sought a lot in Aristotle, who is without doubt, after Hegel, his favorite philosopher—I think he says it in a letter to Lassalle—it's perhaps entelechy, this matter moving forward, this possibility perhaps that matter develops, and so precisely we would give a new chance to this totalization in relation to totality, just as liberation would take on a more active side than freedom as already given—and yes, otherwise I wanted, because especially in that book, which is perhaps not the topic, but I think you oppose the Marxian end of history to the Hegelian end of history, and you are quite categorical in judging that it is Hegel who triumphs with his liberal state, but a somewhat solidarist state, solidary, let's say—but isn't it precisely that I see in your way of approaching Marxism
1:07:49 you distinguish several types of people, and in particular you're able to oppose Sartre and Marx head-on, for instance Sartre, from the point of view of what mattered most in the 20th century, what presided most majoritarily, let's say, over the destiny of several nations, was canonical Marxism, and Sartre appeared as a Maoist leftist, that is, ultimately a fairly minoritarian movement—at the end, yes, at the end we're already at the Critique of Dialectical Reason and Zaporizhzhia, we're already in that, so I don't know moreover if that's very representative of all of Maoism, a distinction should be made between Mao the war leader against the Japanese and certain excesses of the Cultural Revolution, etc.
1:08:33 never mind, but shouldn't we distinguish a leveling tendency, and from that point of view, which would be much closer to, for example, Bogdanov, whom Lenin opposed—Lenin always defended bourgeois culture, for instance, against a so-called proletarian culture, that's it, and many, if we even speak of Robespierre, if we draw parallels with Lenin, he indeed opposed a certain leftism of the enragés, people who hadn't understood the notion of secularism, and that too I found fascinating, perhaps we'll talk about it next time about the fourth, the fourth term in the republican motto, which is secularism, because it's all-encompassing—but so, when we speak of Marxism, wouldn't there be a need to distinguish between Marxism and what you criticize, and there I can only agree with you, but I just don't call it that, I call it leftism from Lenin's point of view—there again I'll let you answer right away, I'll add a little something to what Aymeric just said, which is the Critique of Dialectical Reason
Sartre, absolute individualist: no emergence of meaning 1:09:43 still, at a certain point, there's that famous phrase: Marxism is the unsurpassable philosophy of our time, because our time has simply not surpassed it, the conditions described by Marx—so that's really where he ends up letting go, we could say, and giving Marx his due. Yes, Sartre, methodologically, is indeed an absolute individualist—all praxis, a bourgeois—all praxis, whatever its most elaborate, most totalized content, all praxis in its sense is the development of the most originary, most native individual praxis, which is the individual's relation to his world through his need, and I believe that in Sartre
1:10:53 because it's the individual who is the agent, individuals always start from themselves and have always started from themselves—he's right—everything that arises in their consciousness in the course of their action, everything that arises in their consciousness is a meaning that only develops the primitively individualist meaning of human existence; no emergent meaning can be considered—well, no meaning can really be considered emergent—because it is born in individual action, it is necessarily a production of the individual, as if the individual could not receive anything that exceeds what he is capable of
1:12:03 originarily there is no emergence, there is no emergence, meaning always and only expresses, at bottom, the individual, and that is what I believe can be contested—and in Hegel, for example, it's not the same, it's not because the individual is the site and agent of all development that all the significations that come to fill him can be mere developments without qualitative change, without mutation, without revolution of the native, essentially sensible, first signification that fills the individual—there is no emergence in Sartre, there is finally no qualitative change in human existence starting from the needy relation
'Making society': essence, concept and the primacy of the whole 1:13:13 of man to his milieu, in all its development there's nothing new—it's this reduction of meaning, you see, that I don't accept in Sartre—the relation, because I had questions from some of the people who were here before the session, about the societal, intersubjective problematic and the Hegelian categories, and to some extent of course Marxist categories too, of action and interaction—I would have liked you to clarify, in this question, it's one of the—the first political question you raise in the opening of these two evenings, 'making society'—as luck would have it, for those who saw the predominance of the Foucauldian formatting in the university today, I think people understand that was the question posed by one of the main sophists
1:14:23 of the 60s-70s, who was Foucault, hence the famous 'making society,' where it was actually a matter of anything but making society—that's what we've just tried to explain—so there's an element missing, in my opinion; perhaps develop the notion of action versus interaction in the sense of Hegelian effectivity, and why what has been called fraternity or otherwise societal, which is supposedly the way of making society today, ends up posing them a big problem with what they call 'living together,' which becomes extremely problematic precisely because they clearly have no project at all of actually living together in their way of making society—so the link between action and interaction in the sense of subjectivity or even subjectivation, as you know it was very fashionable and perhaps still is today, and the character, since we're dealing with interaction and action, essentially reactionary in both the Hegelian and Marxist sense, of this form of evolution of the social relation—it's a question
1:15:34 that comes down to knowing, if we take up Hegel's speculative economy, whether the true meaning of things is delivered at the level of what Hegel calls essence or at the level of what he calls the concept—the essence of essential relations between things culminates in interaction or reciprocity, reciprocal action; at the level of the concept, interaction is only possible on the support of a totality, however inchoate it may be, but in which there is an absolute identity between diversity, or the elements, and their unification—the big problem is knowing whether what is first is the one or unification, whether it is totality
1:16:44 or totalization, and I think that Marx, like Hegel, situates himself at the level of the conceptual relation and not merely the essential relation, and that totality is present as a native signification in man, whatever the confusion in which it finds itself—you see, there is an idea of the whole that is native, and it is on the ground of this idea that determinations, differences, can arise and take their place—is the whole first, or on the contrary last? If the whole is not first, I wonder how it could be last
1:17:55 if we don't start from there, we can't arrive there—that is, all the doctrines that exalt unification, reconciliation and so on among men, are doctrines which in themselves recognize the possibility of realizing their project—what is first? I think it is the whole, even through the most confused and most indeterminate idea of itself—that's the great stake, the great subject, the great problem—so why does spirit alienate itself, so why does spirit alienate itself?
The negation of the negative does not make a position 1:19:23 Is being governed by negation, which culminates in the negation that applies to itself, that is, the negation of the negative? Is the negation of the negative enough to constitute a position? For Hegel, no. Negation of the negative can never constitute a position.
1:19:58 And I believe it's the same for Marx. The situation can be revolutionary and not lead to a revolution. There must be a positive affirmation. In other words, it's not simply misery that gives rise to revolution.
1:20:28 Revolution cannot be brought about by weakness. There must be a force, and the feeling of a certain force, for a revolutionary situation to become a revolution. Listen, Spinozist Hegel—you also bring up this essentially dialectical, Hegelian aspect when it comes to European supranationality. Yes.
1:20:58 Another form of negation, of negation that doesn't lead at all to a positivity. How—you see, Hegel would be, in my eyes, even closer than Marx to affirming that the negation of the negative makes a position. I think Marx is even further than Hegel from affirming that the negation of the negative suffices to make a position.
1:21:36 Is Marx's first affirmation a negative affirmation or a positive affirmation? Is it an affirmation of weakness or an affirmation of force?
1:22:23 Do you have an affirmation of weakness? Is that what justifies your distrust of a logic that would remain at the moment of essence? There you go. That's the fact that in Hegel, it's always connoted with the unhappy consciousness of essence. And you see, Lenin's mistake was to believe that the most important thing in Hegel was the logic of essence. You see? Which still pays homage to the absolute idea, though.
1:22:53 Yes, but I think the conception Marx had of the state is more accurate than the conception Lenin has of it. And in particular regarding the meaning of the relation between the social and the political, when for example the social posits a political, as Marx says, seems.
1:23:29 seems, seems, as if it seemed—there's perhaps the word 'seem' used twice in The German Ideology—seems to posit, you see, a political, a unity starting from the negativity that characterizes the social. I think the first affirmation is a positive affirmation in the relation of the forces of production and the relations of production, of production in its force, which culminate moreover in proletarian violence.
1:24:25 Marx does say that proletarian violence is what recapitulates all the forces of production, in the relation of production in its force, in its energy, and of production in its relations, that is, in its mediations, which is not original.
1:24:58 what is the fundamental moment? Marxists long believed that, at bottom, in the relation between the forces of production and the relations of production, it wasn't the force of production that was primary, because that's economism, but rather the relations of production. The relative—I don't believe it.
1:25:31 I believe that for Marxism, production in its force carries the relations of production, which are only its fixation, its solidification, its fixation at a moment of historical development, and not the energy that it brings.
1:26:03 as a result of this theoretical drift, communist regimes could become what they became, namely the domestication of production in its force by the relations of production, bureaucracy—the force of production carries the relations of production of regulation, that is, limitation, solidification at a given moment of economic development.
1:26:44 Thank you. It's good to recall this difference between Marx and the Marxists, we might say.
Kautsky, Lenin and the two-term contradiction 1:27:15 Yes. I don't know, did you want to add something? Yes, I have the impression we've moved from the Hegel-Marx debate to the Kautsky-Lenin debate. Which is, by the way, fascinating. But of course, this idea of the already-there—if we can summarize in a somewhat media-friendly way this relation to Marx—simply with the development of capitalism that allows the proletariat, what Lenin perhaps sees relative to Marx is also the advanced stage of capitalism's decomposition. And that's the small caveat I'd like to raise when you speak of the absolute victory of the Hegelian conception.
1:27:51 Of the end of history, in the sense that the liberal state is somewhat solidarist, in the form of the nation-state, without reaching a kind of global governance. We thought that could indeed last a very, very, very long time. But what Hegel couldn't see, in any case, whatever his studies of political economy which Lukács had shown, in The Young Hegel—what he couldn't see is the tendential fall of the rate of profit, the absolute crisis.
1:28:31 And what Lenin observes, in any case, is that, contrary to what certain mechanists of the Second International thought—since they weren't only in the Third, they were also in the Second, and mostly in the Second—the development of capitalism, indeed, generated this enormous force, this positivity that is the organized and conscious proletariat. You're right to insist on the progress of political forces. There were historians of the French Communist Party who had shown that over 200 years, the French peasantry, though remaining mostly illiterate, made progress in class consciousness, for instance religious consciousness, consciousness relative to superstition—and this was studied over 200 years, and one sees that between the first Estates-General convened, well, the Estates-General that preceded those of '89, convened by Henri IV, and those of 1614 where the peasantry was almost not represented, you already have a growing consciousness, a whole progress in the struggles.
1:29:29 So this progress of political forces, that's why I want to say that all Marxists have lessons to learn from the most eminent Hegelians, because of course it took them time to follow it. In the reading of Marx. There you go, I recall that because, as you know, it's a subject dear to me, yes. Exactly. And with good Hegelians—and we may have here the best of them—that we learn to read Marx. Precisely, but simply my little objection—what it means is that I won't become a Hegelian tonight, but perhaps I will, in reading you.
1:30:01 My little objection is precisely that what Hegel couldn't see is exactly this cancer within capitalism itself, which is the falling rate of profit, imperialism, and ultimately the extermination of humanity, because that did create two world wars, and could trigger a third. And Lenin is the thinker who thinks the weak link, the historical window—it's hard to prove him wrong compared to Kautsky. And indeed, we can well say from that point of view that he did, as Gramsci said, 'the revolution against Capital,' against the book, Capital.
1:30:33 Yes, and moreover he doesn't merely think it, Lenin. He did it, he acts. He makes history. By forcing it, that's clear, so we're no longer in this already-there, we come out of it, but also because—well, I don't claim to answer these problems, it's humanity that will answer, but anyway. Well, not to mention that beyond the productive forces and the relations of production, and their relation which we've just developed in binary terms, one and the other, there is still a third term in Marx called the mode of production, which comes to effect the synthesis of the previous two.
1:31:08 Historical unity is not the relations of production of the productive forces; historical unity, the historical moment, the figure, in Hegelian terms—if we make a breakdown in Marx, what he calls the mode of production, I don't know, Asiatic, feudal, bourgeois, those are modes of production. That's really what constitutes the properly Marxian historical singularity. That is, the relation of the relations of production to the productive forces.
1:31:40 Yes. The problem here is knowing whether, in a contradiction, certainly, neither of the two terms in this contradiction is in itself the true. We always come back to that. But this true, if it is born, can only be born of this contradiction.
1:32:12 Quite so. I entirely agree. We're at the heart of dialectical logic, for the newcomers. There aren't three, there are two. If we don't want to bring a third term down from the sky, one that would be revealed by realizing itself in the synthesis, then it must be one of the two terms in contradiction that carries out the synthesis in question.
1:32:44 That's why I think Marx's scheme, like Hegel's, is that a contradiction is either X, bearer of its contradictory relation with Y, or Y, bearer of its contradictory relation with X.
1:33:17 It's one of the two terms in conflict, because I don't see where a third term could arise from. We're in full agreement. It's one of the two terms that carries out the reunion, the reconciliation of itself and the other. So which is it? The force of production in its force.
1:33:47 And I recall that the force of production which recapitulates all the forces of production—that's an affirmation of Marx's. It's proletarian violence that sums up in itself all production in its force. All the forces of production. The force of production, but not only economic. Absolutely. It's ultimately political.
1:34:17 The relations of production have a political connotation, of course. There you go. So, is it production in its force, or production in its relation? That is, in its mediation, its determination, its difference. Difference is determination. In its limit, since a determination is a limit, etc. Is it, in the relation between the positive and the negative, between force, energy, and relation, limitation?
1:34:57 Is it force or limit? Is it energy or limit that carries the relation between the two? I think it's force, and not the relations of production. But it seems...
Kant, Habermas: the public or the political 1:35:32 In any case, all four of us agree that Marxism is neither an economism nor a voluntarism. Yes. No, it's not a voluntarism, even though the truth of being, as it appears at the end of the logic of essence—interaction—even though the truth doesn't appear in interaction, at the end of the logic of essence, but at the level of totality, that is, of what is said in the logic of the concept.
1:36:13 I think that Marx is not a Kantian—it's Kant who reduces totality to interaction, to communication—but that he is, from that point of view, a Hegelian, even if, in a different content, at the level of the concept, than Hegel does, and that the essential category in Marx is that of totality and not that of interaction, I believe.
1:36:48 He's not a Kantian. Wasn't Habermas a return to Kant? No, but that's precisely the problem, the Frankfurt School, you see, is the assertion that the public, that is, the simple universal milieu where people meet, exchange, converse with one another, have dialogue, discuss things—is that the truth, or is it rather the political that is not the universal within which individuals can converse, have dialogue, but what is primary is the political as the objective totalization of human relations.
1:37:51 Habermas is the philosopher of the public and not of the political. Our era privileges the public over the political. Civil societies over the State. Yes, that's it, whereas, it seems to me, it is the political that is the truth of the public. To be fair to Kant, though, it must be said that Habermas is perhaps a return to Kant, but to a hollow and boring Kant, particularly boring.
1:38:25 I would say that the Frankfurt School is Kant minus the Critique of Judgment. Yes, no, but it's, if you will, the category... It's not nothing, in any case. It's an enormous regression, on the whole. Look, the category concerning the relation of men in Kant is that of the kingdom of ends. The ends are the persons. The kingdom of persons is the communication and communion of persons.
1:38:56 An intelligible community. It's an intelligible community. It's not simply a commerce. Commerce is interaction. That's the logic of essence. Community is totality, that is, the logic of the concept. Moreover, this evocation of Habermas brings me to one of my pet subjects. This will perhaps be the last question, I don't know, I have others. Habermas is really the thinker of Europe, precisely, of the European Union.
Europe will only be real by becoming a nation-state 1:39:27 We come back to it. So, I'd like you—since you do speak of it quite well in there—precisely about the contradictions, the limits, the aporias that this notion of supranationality opposed to the nation-state leads to, notably on the grounds we've just mentioned regarding Habermas. You speak of it very well. I think that, for the moment, I see no other true formulas, if I may say so, for the relation between men, for the coexistence of men, than the one whose content is the nation-state.
1:40:13 That is, not a communion, but a community of existence that has been forged in a very varied, very diverse way by history. People who formed a community that grew richer, new arrivals came, adopted the customs that were in use—for one part—tried to have their own accepted—for another part.
1:40:49 This community has grown richer through history, it continues to grow richer, accepting the future while at the same time saving the past, achieving a synthesis of the three moments of time. And that is something other than merely attempting, by institutionalizing a certain number of things, to constitute a new relation between nation-states.
1:41:30 I don't think there are other foundations enabling men to accomplish the essential aims they set for themselves in their existence. There is no other effective and efficient foundation for the existence of men than the nation-state. I don't mean to say that history could not form, out of several nation-states, a new, vaster nation-state.
1:42:07 But history has shown that this doesn't happen through decrees and institutions, but that when it does happen, it's a very slow evolution and consequently... Sometimes brutal. Sometimes very violent, yes. It's certain that there is a European spirit, but most regions of Europe have forged relations with regions of other continents, and these relations—the relations between France and Algeria were denser than the relations between France and Colombia.
1:42:46 ...arrive. That means that the constitution of Europe, if Europe is built, is a constitution that will require a great deal of time, and it's difficult because the great European nations have a very rich past, and one shouldn't believe that one can wipe the slate clean of the past without difficulty.
1:43:18 So, what I mean is that Europe will only truly become real if it one day becomes a new nation-state. But for the moment we are not there. We are even very far from it. But in the name of what is merely an abstraction, to summon states, to compel states through directives from Brussels or elsewhere to unite their destiny so closely, is a project that is, if you will, completely aberrant.
1:43:57 One cannot force the march of things. Europe will become a new nation-state only if Europeans feel caught up in a common destiny. And that takes a great deal of time. One cannot—one can accelerate history a little. European institutions may perhaps foster the formation of a European state of mind.
1:44:31 But without that, it is absolutely vain to think that nation-states can, as of now, delegate their sovereignty to this purely administrative entity that for the moment... The mercantile ones. Well yes, we call it Europe. Let's not... One cannot do violence to history absolutely. Guide it, yes, of course.
1:45:01 Try to bend its course, but there is a force of things, and freedom cannot disregard necessity. So the question is whether, for man, interaction by itself—the end point of the logic of essence—suffices to create freedom, the origin of the concept. Can the lesser produce the greater at that level? I doubt it.
1:45:39 I doubt it. In any case, well, the question is whether what is primary is necessity or freedom in history. Essence or the concept. Necessity or freedom. I think that... And so, not to stop at Spinoza, as we said the other day. No, we should perhaps speak of him. There, let's begin and pick up the passage again.
Conclusion: no liberty without liberation 1:46:11 We're not going to go back over that, but since we're raising these questions that are very fashionable among a whole series of neo-philosophers who discover themselves to be both philosophers and Spinozists while saying all sorts of nonsense on the subject, it may be good to point that out. If there are no other questions, I will invite Bernard Bourgeois perhaps to offer us a brief conclusion. Listen, I always love coming here because the problems dealt with are indeed fundamental problems.
1:46:49 The problem discussed this evening, finally, is the problem of the relation between necessity and freedom. And once again, the question is whether freedom can be born—and I'm being cautious even about saying 'born'—whether it can be born if it is not already there from the outset. I think that man—and one must always treat him as such, starting with education—man, as soon as he appears, is from the outset free.
1:47:29 And Fichte pointed out that there is a fundamental difference between the flailing of the newborn human baby and the flailing of the young animal. The unpredictability of the human infant's flailing, compared to that of the young animal, is immediately visible, as if freedom, in its unpredictability, were already there. Man is free from the outset, but freedom cannot simply be that which would be its negation—it can only know, have, itself; it affirms itself only freely, that is, freedom's mode of affirmation is, for it, to liberate itself; being free from the outset also essentially means practicing itself, acting upon itself freely, man,
1:48:39 from the outset, free, and to be treated as such, always, and at the same time, who is free only in ceaselessly liberating himself. The equality of freedom and liberation. No freedom without liberation, and no liberation without freedom—that is, without imposed liberation. Freedom first, very abstract, etc., but first, already there, and at the same time, having always to affirm itself, that is, to be a liberation of self.
1:49:23 If you affirm freedom without liberation, you truncate it, you limit it, and so on, and you turn it into something that is, that is, that one merely undergoes. And liberation without original freedom is what permits all manipulations of man, and that's a problem that arises in a particular way in our era, moreover. I think both assertions must be maintained: man free from the outset, and on the other hand, being such only by always liberating himself.
1:50:03 No freedom without liberation, no liberation without freedom. That seems to me a good program—I hope everyone has taken good note of it, there we are. There we are. Thank you.
