As a whole, this work serves to illuminate the tragic as a fundamental human phenomenon and an objective fact that is distinct not only from comedy and irony but from other forms of calamity and modes of failure. I consider three distinct sources of philosophical knowledge on tragedy. The first is tragic drama and literature, the second is the theory of the tragic and the third source consists of the employment of the concept of tragedy to discuss events or characters that one encounters in life. I carefully draw upon the first two sources to thicken the elaborations of four different facets of the third. In this process, I extrapolate Szondi’s notion that tragedy is a specific dialectic in a specific space. In the course of this work, I place a greater emphasis upon this general concept of the tragic as opposed to a poetics of tragedy. The dissertation bears out, however, that it is ultimately poetics - and not the dialectic as general concept - that provide us with the richer insights into tragedy as it unravels in life. The specific dialectic of tragedy unravels so as to cause the irreplaceable loss of something of great value. This provides me with a structuring element that ties the four central chapters together. In terms of content, I emphasize also upon the tragic flaw as a set of character traits (manifested by an individual or some form of collective) which keep tragedy in place. The consideration of the figure of Willy Loman allows me to examine the tragedy of failure of expectations which is a distinct category of the tragic and yet it oscillates such that ties together the other themes. A central idea that emerges from an analysis of the overlapping themes is that prior to tragedy is the investment of the deepest inner resources into a process. This investment gives rise to identity and to expectations. As a tragedy unfolds, the source of the identity or of expectation becomes also the birth place or the generator of all threats to this identity and the collapse of long nurtured expectations.

As a whole, this work serves to illuminate the tragic as a fundamental human phenomenon and an objective fact that is distinct not only from comedy and irony but from other forms of calamity and modes of failure. I consider three distinct sources of philosophical knowledge on tragedy. The first is tragic drama and literature, the second is the theory of the tragic and the third source consists of the employment of the concept of tragedy to discuss events or characters that one encounters in life. I carefully draw upon the first two sources to thicken the elaborations of four different facets of the third. In this process, I extrapolate Szondi’s notion that tragedy is a specific dialectic in a specific space. In the course of this work, I place a greater emphasis upon this general concept of the tragic as opposed to a poetics of tragedy. The dissertation bears out, however, that it is ultimately poetics - and not the dialectic as general concept - that provide us with the richer insights into tragedy as it unravels in life. The specific dialectic of tragedy unravels so as to cause the irreplaceable loss of something of great value. This provides me with a structuring element that ties the four central chapters together. In terms of content, I emphasize also upon the tragic flaw as a set of character traits (manifested by an individual or some form of collective) which keep tragedy in place. The consideration of the figure of Willy Loman allows me to examine the tragedy of failure of expectations which is a distinct category of the tragic and yet it oscillates such that ties together the other themes. A central idea that emerges from an analysis of the overlapping themes is that prior to tragedy is the investment of the deepest inner resources into a process. This investment gives rise to identity and to expectations. As a tragedy unfolds, the source of the identity or of expectation becomes also the birth place or the generator of all threats to this identity and the collapse of long nurtured expectations.

Notre recherche déploie trois remises en question : avec sa théorie de l’histoire Marx n’évacue pas la politique mais fait de la démocratie la question de la modernité ; le communisme ne rompt pas avec la démocratie mais l’actualise ; ce n’est pas la dictature du prolétariat qui fait problème mais l’auto-constitution de la société en sujet politique. Dès sa jeunesse, Marx critique la politique au nom de l’avènement du politique car la démocratie n’est pas une forme de l’Etat moderne, mais le dépassement de la diremption de la communauté. L’Etat démocratique étant un oxymore, la démocratie vraie ou réelle est le communisme : elle est condamnée au formalisme sans la socialisation de la production et il est condamné à la dictature sur les besoins sans la socialisation de la politique. La question de la démocratie telle qu’elle est posée par Marx constitue donc un fil conducteur tant sur le plan herméneutique que politique. Demeure périlleux le procès de réalisation de la démocratie. La dictature du prolétariat constitue une expansion de la démocratie contre l’Etat, mais la dialectique de la révolution n’a pas donné lieu à un moment subjectif décisif. Reste que les sociétés démocratiques tendent à la socialisation et se heurtent aux conditions d’impossibilité d’une politique juste : un positionnement marxiste permet donc de réouvrir la démocratie comme question et d’interroger la forclusion du moment machiavelien. / Our research calls forth three reassessments : Marx’s theory of history does not expel politics, rather it raises democracy as the issue of modern times; communism does not dismiss democracy but actualizes it; it is not the dictatorship of the proletariat that poses a problem but society’s constitution into a political subject. Already in his first works, Marx criticizes the differentiated sphere of politics for the sake of immanent politics since democracy is not a form of the modern state, but what surpasses the diremption of the community.The democratic state is an oxymoron; true or real democracy is communism. The democratic state is condemned to remain formal without the socialization of the means of production, and communism is condemned to a dictatorship of the needs without the socialization of politics. The issue of democracy the way Marx states it therefore provides a main thread for hermeneutics and political analysis. Remains the precarious process of realizing democracy. The dictatorship of the proletariat is an expansion of democracy against the state, but the dialectic of revolution did not lead to a decisive subjective moment. Yet democratic societies tend toward socialization and endure the conditions of impossibility for fair politics: a marxist stand thus unfolds democracy as an issue and puts into question the closure of the Machiavellian moment.