00 - presentation of the popular university of caen

it's possible to practice history of philosophy as an historian, memorizing dates and facts, births, the dialogs of plato, the content ,the Phaedo, the allegory of the cave etc
and it's possible to practice history as a philosopher, deconstructing history of philosophy: following history of philosophy made by other stories or proposing another, making historical work ex: showing how we live under a platonician writing regime of history of philosophy, an idealist writing. Onfray says there were 3 catstrophes in history of philosophy: platonic idealism , christian idealism and german idealism .
In plato, the real only have interest because it participates to the intelligible, pure idea, that's why it exits the materialists ... that's why as an example, démocrite is presented as a presocratic althoug he was "socratic": he died 40 years after socrates.
There is a philosophical work to be done on history of philosophy.

Making one's philosophical autoportrait is another way to deconstruct history of philosophy because platonic regime says pure ideas proceed of them selves, proceed from an intelligible world and nothing else. It's not a new idea, Nietzsche also said it: philosophy proceeds from a biography, an autobiography: how confessions can allow one to say from what are proceeding concepts that we are using, putting in perspective the life and the philosopher that comes with it, and the construction of the self, as an independant autonomous existence: greek, roman and antique thoughts all said this, that one can't be a philosopher only from 9 to 5 but in everything, from the way to dress, the communications with others, etc etc
It's interesting to examine the validity of a thesis in the rapports it entertains with the individual that enunciates that thesis.

It's not an invitation to "rape the author" : leucippus only left a fragment, the goal is not to pull it in the direction that one wants, but it's difficult with so little to work on, Onfray says the lecture is subjective and his, and if someone knows better they can always make another interpretation possible: he propose his arguments and let people decide.

Hedonism supposes a tragic philosophy. It's easy to discredit hedonism with a caricature... but the choice is between a tragic hedonism and a deathly pessimism.
It's because there is death, because there is no god, no back-worlds and ideologies of a salvation possible and thinkable that a hedonist philosophy must be built.
Death is the cause of this key philosophy.
It's less to have to die than to live well before, and to resist, of course.

Here's a bit of information on Michel Onfray.

He's from humble family, working class and decided to always stay faithful to this class, never forget humiliations his parents had to face, stay true to this childhood. He had many chances to change of class but never did. At one point he wanted to give back all he had recieved: his parents always working and not intellectuals couldn't answer all his questions, it is philosophy that got him out of the pains of childhood and teenagehood, with the help of his master Lucien Jerphagnon.

The train industry didn't want from him so before his military service he went to the university in philosophy. He was interested in philosophy, having read nietzsche, marx and freud; nietzsche helped him fix problems he had with christianism and the preist's holy water saturations of his childhood, he found answers about the exploitation of his parents with marx and about his adolescent sexuality that was working him , with freud. He recieved so much that at one point he decided to be the Jerphagnon for someone else, to be the chance of another, a relay. He had enough of national education system, the policing, watching, direction, inspection... tough to deal with all this, use to create obedient students, using philosophy against what it is... after 20 years of teaching, for the pleasure of transmission, and since he doesn't need to work because of the revenues from his books, his conferences were always a success, he saw an interest in philosophy was there so he decided to keep the pleasure of teaching by making the popular university. It works, there's always 300 people attending each classes. So he remained faithful to his childhood, teenage commitments, giving back what he recieved, and have the egoistic pleasure of transmitting.

So, what differenciates these old philosophers from philosophers of today, why philosophers of today don't teach ways of life? Where is the break with this tradition?
answer: christianism. Pierre Hadot propose the thesis that the fathers of the church is the moment where philosophy started to be at the service of theology; lectures, demonstrations, concepts, citations, references etc all were put to the serevice of the christian program, to philosophize on the sex of angels, the possibility to be 3 persons at the same time of the trinity buisness etc...
It is there, that philosophy stopped to be the occasion of a self-transfiguration; with the conversion of constentine that christianism became more a state religion than a philosophical invitation to transformation of the self...

There was not a total disparition of that tradition, there is always masters of ways of life: montaigne, nietzsche, schopenhauer are examples. But is it possible to live as a hegelian? nope! What interests Onfray is when a lifestyle is possible with a corpus.

There is a return to a philosophy that is practical, not obscure anymore, so it's not surprising there is a return to the definitions made at th 4th century bc and up: to live as a philosopher, not thinking for the sake of thinking but an ideal portrait of the philosopher as a sage, a return of Pierre Hadot, Jerphagnon etc that the last work by foucault made possible: the use of pleasure, the care of the self, L'ecriture de soi: these are all themes of today, what to do with oneself? What is a good life (and not a successful life)? : a successful life is binded to things, like being the boss, congressmen, minister etc and the good life is the contrary: turn back to those trinkets, passions for honnors, cash, richnesses.

So the thematics of antiquity are back, Hadot, Conche, Jerphagnon: individuals that never ceased all their lives to say how it is posible to live as a stoic, an epicurian, cyrenaic, how wisdom of antiquity can be transfered in this era that lost values: a disparition of christianism making possible a new way of thinking. A pre-christian thought permitting to consider a post-christian thought.

Christianism was not the start of everything, let's reactivate those things. Let's see how it's possible to be stoician, epicurian, cynical, cyrenaic.

Reading antique philosophy on one hand, and with the other writing one's existence for oneself.

Onfray is on the side of the forgotten: there are lines of force in history: hedonism, ascetism and triumph of christianism.
He pays attention to the "minor" philosophers, entire continents that were submerged and put aside voluntarly, were forgotten for ideological reasons because they were representing a danger, dangerous potentialities; epicurism is a dangerous potentiality when christianism prevails. Epicurism is a philosophy of combat.
Anti-christians, during 20 cenuries, were almost all epicurians, going back to the materialist philosophy of epicurus.
There were ideological stakes at play to explain why there never was cyrenaic fragments, although they exist, but they were forgotten, until recently they never were in a french edition and this silence means something, the silence on a great movement. Philebus by Plato was written against the cyrenaic thesis...
It's not cheap to let plato have his fights, and fight democrites... we must take the context in consideration. Eratosthenes of Cyrene and diogenes didn't have their proper place in history of philosophy because plato is less embarrassing, easier to be used by the dominating side, the powerful, the side of bosses, chiefs, men in politic: it'S possible to be platonician and council of a prince or minister but it's not possible to be epicurian in the sens of epicurus and minister: it's a contradiction of terms.
There are antique lines of strenght that we find today: there are resistances to systems a and collaboration with systems, we'll see see more about the philosophers who resist systems.