Michel Foucault and Paul Veyne: the philosopher and the historian. Two major figures in the world of ideas, resisting all attempts at categorization. Two timeless thinkers who have long walked and fought together. In this short book Paul Veyne offers a fresh portrait of his friend and relaunches the debate about his ideas and legacy. ‘Foucault is not who you think he is’, writes Veyne; he stood neither on the left nor on the right and was frequently disowned by both. (...) He was not so much a structuralist as a sceptic, an empiricist disciple of Montaigne, who never ceased in his work to reflect on 'truth games', on singular, constructed truths that belonged to their own time. A unique testimony by a scholar who knew Foucault well, this book succeeds brilliantly in grasping the core of his thought and in stripping away the confusions and misunderstandings that have so often characterized the interpretation of Foucault and his work. (shrink)

Michel Foucault and Paul Veyne: the philosopher and the historian. Two major figures in the world of ideas, resisting all attempts at categorization. Two timeless thinkers who have long walked and fought together. In this short book Paul Veyne offers a fresh portrait of his friend and relaunches the debate about his ideas and legacy. ‘Foucault is not who you think he is’, writes Veyne; he stood neither on the left nor on the right and was frequently disowned by both. (...) He was not so much a structuralist as a sceptic, an empiricist disciple of Montaigne, who never ceased in his work to reflect on 'truth games', on singular, constructed truths that belonged to their own time. A unique testimony by a scholar who knew Foucault well, this book succeeds brilliantly in grasping the core of his thought and in stripping away the confusions and misunderstandings that have so often characterized the interpretation of Foucault and his work. (shrink)

Le philosophe, collègue et ami de Michel Foucault, fait le portrait de ce dernier et présente les grands thèmes de sa pensée philosophique et politique.

Examines the true purpose of writing history, explains how history can be understood in terms of plot, and discusses the progress of history.

The great stoic philosopher, playwright and Roman statesman of the first century, Lucius Annaeus Seneca, exercised enormous influence for nearly fifteen years as tutor and political advisor to the Emperor Nero until forced to commit suicide by his former pupil. In the hands of Annales School historian Paul Veyne, the dramatic story of his life - one of power, politics and intrigue - becomes a mirror of the time in which he lived. Seneca's philosophical writings remain our core source for (...) stoic thought, and their immense influence continues to be felt. Veyne's authoritative exposition of stoicism and the interconnections between Seneca's life and thought, make this book ideal reading for anyone interested in Roman history and philosophy. This compact and compelling book is a brilliant introduction to the life and philosophy of one of the ancient world's greatest thinkers by one of the great historians of our own time. (shrink)

Caesarism is contrasted with medieval monarchies, and the emperor is evaluated as a citizen who is in charge of the Republic and is all-powerful. However, two-thirds of the Augustuses and the Caesars died a violent death, often at the hands of close family members. Nobility is a ruling caste, in which bloody rivalries, usurpations and political romanticism are rife as it struggles to retain its social pre-eminence. The Senate, though, does not itself want to govern and eventually degenerates into an (...) Academy. The imperium, with its patriarchal nature, remains very popular among the people/citizens. Though the imperial cult would lead to tyranny, it continued to express both the stature and love accorded to the individual emperor, and the power of tradition, of charisma and the institution. (shrink)

It is said that reality is stronger than any description we can make of it, and we must admit that atrocities, when we see them, go beyond any idea we may have had of them. On the other hand, when it is a question of values and beliefs, the contrary is true: reality is much less than its representation and the ideas it professes. This loss of energy is called indifference. Madame Bovary believed that in Naples happiness was as firmly (...) rooted as the orange trees and as strong as stone. The wisdom of nations knows that that is not the case: “We hope for Paradise but as late as possible,” affirms a Christian proverb. This indifference poses a problem or an entire series of problems (Georg Simmel's work could be considered from that point of view) unless it arises from all our errors, spontaneous or scientific, concerning man and society. I do not know where I read, or dreamed, the story of a young ethnologist who went to study a tribe that was said to believe that the world would come to an end if the priests let the sacred fire go out. He assumed that the priests were as anxious as though they controlled the detonator of an atomic bomb. Admitted into the temple of the fire, he saw the peaceful religious going about routine tasks. Reality is rarely emphatic. Rites and customs, for example, reflect the beliefs of a society. Paintings and sculptures show what the society believes or serve to make it believe what it sees. Sculpture in cathedrals were the bible of the illiterate. Is that really certain? We notice that most often people perform the rites without believing in their significance and, in any case, without interest in them, because the liturgy is not a means of communication giving information. They do not look at the images. (How many Parisians have looked at the Napoleonic bas-reliefs on the Vendôme column?) and if they tried to do so, they would not be able to decipher their iconography or even see them: placed too high, the images are often undecipherable. So it is necessary to sketch out a sociology of art in which the art work, far from conveying an iconography and an ideology, is a decor that we do not even look at, that we can hardly see and that is however very important. The study of all these insufficiencies would be a vast program. Here we will confine ourselves to art. (shrink)

The Greeks invented the words “city,” “democracy,” “people,” “oligarchy,” “liberty,” “citizen.” It is therefore tempting to suppose that they invented the eternal truth of politics, or of our politics, with only one exception: slavery is the major difference between their democracy and democracy as such. For there must exist an eternal politics about which it is possible to philosophize instead of simply writing history. Therein, across the ages, could be found the central essence of politics; despite their diversity, political regimes (...) would have a functional analogy to one another which could be represented in a variety of ways: establishing justice, making men live in peace with one another, defending the group, exercising a domination of the master class over the forces of production. (shrink)

“There is not, nor has there ever been, ideology,” write Deleuze and Guatter. This sybiiline aphorism is surely true: an ideology is never more than rationalizing and justifying behavior, which convinces no one but the already convinced and amuses or bores the others. It is thus a small thing in comparison with the random wandering of thought throughout history and the arbitrariness of cultures, “nurtures: “ since Nietzsche, or a certain aspect of Nietzsche, taught us to be in despair of (...) the Truth, we can no longer impute this wandering and this arbitrariness to the distortion of who knows what natural light by ideology. (shrink)

The Hellenization of ancient Rome is not a rare kind of event in history; “outer” India or the Chinese world have offered several other different examples. Roman civilization was an important part of Hellenistic culture much like present day Japan participates in Western civilization. Our purpose is not to recall this evidence nor to argue for Roman originality. (Where has an acculturation ever been total?) We shall not allow either the forest or the trees to hide thi other and shall (...) ask ourselves rather what “ acculturation” might mean in the case of Rome. For the question of acculturation, which describes so well the present condition of the Third World, is inapplicable to other historic situations. The richness of the past is such that our sociologies or our praxeologies are often nothing other than rationalizations of a particular case in history. (shrink)

Une inscription trouvée à Chalcis célèbre l'exploit d'un Callinikos qui lors des Dionysia a fait 55 fois le tour de l'orchestra, porté sur une perche, et qui a soulevé seul le phallos. Rapprochement avec diverses traditions populaires.