The invention of the modern subject (continued) : will and action (7)

The lecture on March 10 was an opportunity to take a break, with a first synthesis of the elements gathered. Starting from the Wilhelmian "I didn't want that", the first hour was devoted to a general reprise and orientation. Putting the agent and the subject - the ὑποκείμενον and the ὑπόστασις, the subject of khrêsis, the "subject of use", κεχρημένος - back at the center of the problem of agency is to determine how the subject of attribution becomes the supplicant of actions: the guiding problem of the archaeology of the subject. Recalling the distinction between two competing metaphysical models applied by the medievals, and beyond, to the various aspects of psychic life, the Augustinian model of perichoresis (or mutual immanence) and the Aristotelian model of subjectivity (the substance-accident relationship), it was announced that the remainder of the lecture would for the most part focus on Aristotle's model. From there, we returned to the "Syriac source" evoked on January 6, this time tackling the epochal work of Nemesius († circa 420), bishop of Emesa (present-day Homs): the Περὶ φύσεως ἀνθρώπου, synthesis of ancient anthropology and first mediator of Aristotle's Ethics . After presenting the Latin versions by Alfano of Salerno (second half of the ^xie century) and Burgundio of Pisa (c. 1165), the focus was on the Nemesian theory of action, beginning with his definition of praxis: Πρᾶξίς ἐστιν ἐνέργεια λογική and its Latin(gestio est actus rationalis), French (including Thibault, 1844: L'acte est l'exercice intelligent d'une fonction) and English translations(Action is rational activity). We then returned to the distinction between the voluntary and the involuntary, before examining the posterity of Nemesius: Jean de Damas' De fide orthodoxa, and comparing the various notions involved in the translations of the two works: action, acte and gestion. We then dealt with the rationality of human action and the basis of ascription (imputability) in Aristotelian ethics, presenting in detail Nemesius's thesis, which is the most faithful interpretation of it: one can attribute human actions neither to God, nor to necessity, nor to fate, nor to nature (φύσει, naturae), nor to fortune (τύχῃ, eventui), nor to chance (οὔτε τῷ αὐτομάτῳ, neque casui). Man's acts can only be attributed to him alone: he is the principle and performs them freely. Based on a close analysis of the chapter περὶ τοῦ ὅτι ἐστὶν ἐφ' ἡμῖν τινά (De eo quod sunt quaedam in nobis), we then showed how, from Focus onwards, we moved from the notion of responsibleagent to that of responsible subject . In this connection, we stressed the importance of the principle of causal immanence (PIC): "What the principle is in us, it is in our power to do or not to do."