Sur la mise en scène de la mort des philosophes

Abstract

If the Phaedo and its definition of death as unbinding the body and the soul (an activity which also corresponds to the philosophical practice) open the way to the development of a literature of philosophers death-scenes, it is clear that this criterion is not always relevant. Poor readers, such as Cleombrotus of Ambracia, may substitute the suicide to the reflective practice, whereas others, like Hermotimus of Clazomenae, by bringing the principle to its perfection, actually twist it: the bodys destruction becomes the sign of the true death. As death turns out to be the endpoint of the philosophical quality, in Diogenes Laertius it is exposed, multiplied in verse as in prose, and built as a staging. If different topoi can be identified, the fact remains that death, whether heroic or absurd, is always meaningful and may also create a new paradigm of the philosopher dying for his ideas.