Monique Dixsaut – författare

Agonistes comprises a collection of essays presented by his friends and colleagues to Denis O'Brien, former Directeur de recherché at the Centre Nationale de Recherché Scientifique, representing the full range of his scholarly interests in the field of ancient philosophy, from the Presocratics, through Plato, Aristotle and Hellenistic philosophy, to Plotinus and later Neoplatonism. The honorand himself leads off with a stimulating Apologia, sketching the development of his scholarly interests and dwelling on the issues that have chiefly concerned him. The contributions then follow in chronological order, under four headings: I From the Presocratics to Plato (Frère, Brancacci); II From Plato to the Stoics (Brisson, Casertano, Dixsaut, Kühn, McCabe, Narcy, Rowe, Goulet); III Plotinus and the Neoplatonist Tradition (O'Meara, Sakonji, Gersh, Steel, Dillon, Smith); IV Saint Augustine and After (Pépin, Rist, Brague/Freudenthal). They comprise a significant representation of the most distinguished scholars both on the continent and in the British Isles, and fairly represent the wide influence which Denis O'Brien has had on his contemporaries. The volume includes also a full bibliography of O'Brien's works.

Agonistes comprises a collection of essays presented by his friends and colleagues to Denis O'Brien, former Directeur de recherché at the Centre Nationale de Recherché Scientifique, representing the full range of his scholarly interests in the field of ancient philosophy, from the Presocratics, through Plato, Aristotle and Hellenistic philosophy, to Plotinus and later Neoplatonism. The honorand himself leads off with a stimulating Apologia, sketching the development of his scholarly interests and dwelling on the issues that have chiefly concerned him. The contributions then follow in chronological order, under four headings: I From the Presocratics to Plato (Frère, Brancacci); II From Plato to the Stoics (Brisson, Casertano, Dixsaut, Kühn, McCabe, Narcy, Rowe, Goulet); III Plotinus and the Neoplatonist Tradition (O'Meara, Sakonji, Gersh, Steel, Dillon, Smith); IV Saint Augustine and After (Pépin, Rist, Brague/Freudenthal). They comprise a significant representation of the most distinguished scholars both on the continent and in the British Isles, and fairly represent the wide influence which Denis O'Brien has had on his contemporaries. The volume includes also a full bibliography of O'Brien's works.

Agonistes comprises a collection of essays presented by his friends and colleagues to Denis O''Brien, former Directeur de recherché at the Centre Nationale de Recherché Scientifique, representing the full range of his scholarly interests in the field of ancient philosophy, from the Presocratics, through Plato, Aristotle and Hellenistic philosophy, to Plotinus and later Neoplatonism. The honorand himself leads off with a stimulating Apologia, sketching the development of his scholarly interests and dwelling on the issues that have chiefly concerned him. The contributions then follow in chronological order, under four headings: I From the Presocratics to Plato (Frère, Brancacci); II From Plato to the Stoics (Brisson, Casertano, Dixsaut, Kühn, McCabe, Narcy, Rowe, Goulet); III Plotinus and the Neoplatonist Tradition (O''Meara, Sakonji, Gersh, Steel, Dillon, Smith); IV Saint Augustine and After (Pépin, Rist, Brague/Freudenthal). They comprise a significant representation of the most distinguished scholars both on the continent and in the British Isles, and fairly represent the wide influence which Denis O''Brien has had on his contemporaries. The volume includes also a full bibliography of O''Brien''s works.

Agonistes comprises a collection of essays presented by his friends and colleagues to Denis O''Brien, former Directeur de recherché at the Centre Nationale de Recherché Scientifique, representing the full range of his scholarly interests in the field of ancient philosophy, from the Presocratics, through Plato, Aristotle and Hellenistic philosophy, to Plotinus and later Neoplatonism. The honorand himself leads off with a stimulating Apologia, sketching the development of his scholarly interests and dwelling on the issues that have chiefly concerned him. The contributions then follow in chronological order, under four headings: I From the Presocratics to Plato (Frère, Brancacci); II From Plato to the Stoics (Brisson, Casertano, Dixsaut, Kühn, McCabe, Narcy, Rowe, Goulet); III Plotinus and the Neoplatonist Tradition (O''Meara, Sakonji, Gersh, Steel, Dillon, Smith); IV Saint Augustine and After (Pépin, Rist, Brague/Freudenthal). They comprise a significant representation of the most distinguished scholars both on the continent and in the British Isles, and fairly represent the wide influence which Denis O''Brien has had on his contemporaries. The volume includes also a full bibliography of O''Brien''s works.

This book uncovers in the works of Plato and Nietzsche, not some royal road to truth, but rather the intensity of their love and commitment to the life of thought, whatever it discovers and wherever it might lead. Plato explored this in his ubiquitous absence from the adventures of thought depicted in his Dialogues. Nietzsche followed suit with his unrelenting presence as the grim and forceful conscience behind all the masks through which he spoke in his chaotic oeuvre. It is not a matter of biography or of shared doctrine, some favourite thoughts by which their lesser exegetes can keep them in their respective stables and move on to others with other favourite thoughts. To discover Plato and Nietzsche's kinship required something more, an intensive, lifelong philosophical engagement that Monique Dixsaut's students witnessed in her teaching at the Sorbonne, now available in English via this translation, which is suitable for academics, intellectuals and general readers alike. The ‘other way’ to philosophise proves to be the practice of philosophy itself.

The Greek notion of the “sophist” might seem antiquated or meaningless, until we look at the world we are living in: a world of images, counterfeits, and false appearances, starting even with our own, a world where money has become the criterion for all other values and deceptive advertisement the pinnacle of commercial astuteness, where expressing opinions has become tantamount to liberty, where all dialogue becomes debate, while debate is reduced to a mere spectator sport. Living in such a world is leading us to mistrust language and to deny its potential for truth. Plato’s Sophist is nothing less than an attempt to save language and its truth, by anchoring it in being. This recent translation and commentary by Monique Dixsaut of the Sorbonne, newly translated from the French by Kenneth Quandt, aims to show how Plato’s bold project makes his Sophist the most radical and most exciting of all the dialogues, and how it remains relevant today.

In this penetrating and graceful analysis, Monique Dixsaut reveals that the project of Plato's dialogues is to "invent the philosopher" in a sense the term never again had. The dialogues show, by dramatic and dialectical instantiation, that a person seeking truth engenders a coherent system intended to determine what is. Since one cannot judge a path until he has taken it to the end, this "science of free men" comes upon truth and acquires intelligence; the ideas develop from a thinking that desires to think in a different way, without asking whether this is possible. One who thinks in this way does not have to become a philosopher. He is one, and can only know what that means because he already is one. For him, intelligence supersedes logic, desire is more compelling than duty, pleasure signals hierarchy more strongly than values, and the fact of finding, seeing, and becoming more inventive guarantees truth more surely than conforming to method. Dixsaut's treatment is fundamental, yet unique. For those who love the dialogues of Plato, this book will help them understand why in a profound new sense.

La plupart des études réunies ici s’efforcent d’expliquer quelques passages des Dialogues. Le principe de lecture adopté est qu’il ne s’agit pas seulement de résoudre les difficultés liées à certaines thèses, mais de découvrir l’unique question qui traverse et retourne toutes les autres, celle de la pensée. Ce qui revient à dire que philosopher signifie pour Platon inventer et conjuguer tous les moyens de penser mieux, de penser plus, de s’assurer toujours de quoi penser, sans jamais disposer du critère objectif qui permettrait de distinguer la pensée véritable de tout ce qui est la négation ou n’en a que l’apparence. L’actualité de la philosophie platonicienne réside sans doute au fond en cela : nous rappeler inlassablement cette question que la pensée est, doit être et doit rester pour elle-même.Normalienne et agrégée de philosophie, Monique Dixsaut est professeure émérite de philosophie antique de l’université de Paris-1.