DOI: 10.4231/yqfg-wk90
title: Foucault: Lecture 8, 17 December 1985

description: &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;The Deleuze Seminars&lt;/em&gt; is a collection of audio recordings, transcriptions, and English translations of, and supplemental materials from, the lectures French philosopher Gilles Deleuze gave during his career at the University of Paris 8.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&quot;Foucault&quot; was a 26-lecture seminar given from October 1985 to June 1986. In these lectures, Deleuze offers his interpretation and analysis of French philosopher Michel Foucault&#39;s work. Examining the theoretical foundations and major themes of Foucault&#39;s philosophy, Deleuze dedicates several lectures to each of what he calls the &quot;three axes&quot; of Foucault&#39;s thought. This seminar coincides with the publication of Deleuze&#39;s book &lt;em&gt;Foucault&lt;/em&gt; (1986).&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;In the 17 December 1985 lecture, shifting now to the discussion of power, Deleuze examines a particular passage in &lt;i&gt;The Archeology of Knowledge&lt;/i&gt;, Foucault&rsquo;s choice of a statement example, AZERT (QUERTY equivalent on French keyboards). Deleuze emphasizes key points on the as a condition of designating and as neither banal nor original, but regular, a regularity implying &ldquo;facultative rules&rdquo; of enunciation and an emission of singularities that Deleuze demonstrates with several drawings in order to introduce the key term, a &lt;i&gt;series&lt;/i&gt; of regular points, with all statements being serial. Elaborating the linkages between enunciation and singularities with reference to different mathematical perspectives (cf. Albert Lautman, Henri Poincar&eacute;), Deleuze shows that the statement is a function, and that for Foucault, a linkage exists between the emission of singularities and &ldquo;rapports de force&rdquo;, i.e., force relations, in short, knowledge as integrating force relations between things, people, letters, shadow and light, between everything. Deleuze then indicates that Foucault&rsquo;s method of singularities, developed in &lt;i&gt;The Archeology of Knowledge&lt;/i&gt;, was applicable to other domains: for the aesthetic domain, Deleuze takes Mallarm&eacute;&#39;s poem, &ldquo;A Throw of the Dice Will Never Abolish Chance&rdquo;, to apply this method, concerning chance and singular points. For the social domain, the confession and related terms (sacrament, guilt) imply an envelope of singularities relating to the concept of &ldquo;pastoral power&rdquo; in contrast to royal power (cf. &lt;i&gt;Confessions of the Flesh&lt;/i&gt;). Given Foucault&rsquo;s shift of emphasis in his final books, Deleuze offers examples from Foucault, the constellation of singularities in the formation of psychiatry and of pathological anatomy. Linking these relations back to the knowledge series, to light as the integration of singular points, the verbal series and the luminous series, Deleuze draws from Vel&aacute;zquez&#39;s &lt;em&gt;Las Meninas&lt;/em&gt; and Roussel, arguing that the two series can be interlaced as an instances arising from another dimension, and he also insists that the Foucault-Blanchot intersection emerges within the three notions: the neutral or the &ldquo;one&rdquo;; the singular; and the multiple opposing the same, hence, the force relations and singularities constituting the bases for the knowledge power-system. &lt;o:p&gt;&lt;/o:p&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;This dataset for the new version includes four files, the translation and transcription of the session in Open Data Text (odt) format, an aggregate version of the audio recordings in a single mp3, and the original Paris-8 French transcription of the recorded lecture. The aggregate audio file has been downsampled.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;-&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Les S&eacute;minaires de Deleuze&lt;/em&gt; sont une collection d&#39;enregistrements audio, de transcriptions et de traductions en anglais et de documents compl&eacute;mentaires des conf&eacute;rences que le philosophe fran&ccedil;ais Gilles Deleuze a donn&eacute; lors de sa carri&egrave;re &agrave; l&#39;Universit&eacute; de Paris 8.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&laquo;Foucault&raquo; &eacute;tait un s&eacute;minaire de 26 conf&eacute;rences donn&eacute; d&#39;octobre 1985 &agrave; juin 1986. Dans ces conf&eacute;rences, Deleuze offre son interpr&eacute;tation et son analyse de l&rsquo;&oelig;uvre du philosophe fran&ccedil;ais Michel Foucault. En examinant les fondements th&eacute;oriques et les th&egrave;mes majeurs de la philosophie de Foucault, Deleuze consacre plusieurs conf&eacute;rences &agrave; chacun de ce qu&#39;il appelle les &laquo;trois axes&raquo; de la pens&eacute;e de Foucault. Ce s&eacute;minaire co&iuml;ncide avec la publication du livre de Deleuze &lt;em&gt;Foucault&lt;/em&gt; (1986).&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Dans la conf&eacute;rence du 17 d&eacute;cembre 1985, les sujets de discussion comprennent: &lt;em&gt;L&#39;arch&eacute;ologie du savoir &lt;/em&gt;de Foucault; l&#39;&eacute;nonc&eacute; et son double; l&#39;&eacute;nonc&eacute; comme le double de quelque chose qui lui est &eacute;trangement sembable et quasi identique: &lt;em&gt;AZERT&lt;/em&gt;; la copie; r&egrave;gles de l&#39;&eacute;nonc&eacute; et singularit&eacute;s; discours et singularit&eacute;s; math&eacute;matiques et points singuliers; les lignes de r&eacute;guliers et l&#39;id&eacute;e de s&eacute;ries; l&#39;&eacute;nonc&eacute; comme une r&eacute;gularit&eacute;, une s&eacute;rie, l&#39;&eacute;mission de singularit&eacute;s; le pouvoir et les rapports de forces; le savoir comme une int&eacute;gration des rapports de forces; philosophie, math&eacute;matiques et singularit&eacute;s; le po&egrave;me de Mallarm&eacute; &lt;em&gt;Un Coup de D&eacute;s Jamais N&#39;Abolira Le Hasard&lt;/em&gt;, le hasard et les points singuliers, les singularit&eacute;s de la pens&eacute;e et des concepts, et le philosophe allemand Friedrich Nietzsche; le champ social et les rapports de forces; le hasard comme un rapport de forces; le pouvoir pastoral et royal; l&#39;individualisation des sujets; l&#39;actualisation de ces individualisations par les institutions, et le savoir pastoral en g&eacute;n&eacute;ral; les s&eacute;ries historiques de Foucault, les dur&eacute;es, et l&#39;historien fran&ccedil;ais Fernand Braudel; la notion d&#39;&eacute;v&eacute;nement et les mutations sociales; la cha&icirc;ne de Markov; la lumi&egrave;re comme l&#39;int&eacute;gration des points singuliers; la s&eacute;ries verbales et la s&eacute;ries lumineuses; la lumi&egrave;re dans &lt;em&gt;Les M&eacute;nines&lt;/em&gt; de Velasquez; Roussel; l&#39;entrelacement du visible et de l&#39;&eacute;non&ccedil;able; la dimension informelle des relations des rapports de forces entre le visible et l&#39;&eacute;non&ccedil;able; Foucault et Blanchot, le neutre ou le &lt;em&gt;on&lt;/em&gt; s&rsquo;opposant &agrave; la personne, le singulier s&#39;opposant &agrave; l&#39;universel, et le multiple s&#39;opposant au m&ecirc;me; et le syst&egrave;me du savoir-pouvoir.&lt;/p&gt;
description: Lecture given by French philosopher Gilles Deleuze at the University of Paris 8, 17 December 1985. This is lecture 8 of a 26-lecture seminar Deleuze taught between October 1985 and June 1986.