Democracy and Defiance
Ranciere, Lefort, Abensour and the Antinomies of Politics
1st Edition
Published on 30. April 2024
240 pages
978-1-4744-7724-6 (ISBN)
Description
This book explores an often neglected current in contemporary French political thought that challenges the limits of the concept of democracy. It situates the projects of Jacques Ranciere, Claude Lefort and Miguel Abensour in relation to each other, as well as to the larger philosophical question of the nature of democracy itself. In doing so, Bryan Nelson illuminates democracy's potential as a profound emancipatory and transformative project, offering an unprecedented challenge to modes of domination, strategies of inequality and hierarchies of all kinds. Against prevailing interpretations, the author draws on the central concepts, problems and polemics in the works of Ranciere, Lefort and Abensour to develop a bold conception of democracy that allows us to rethink its character, power and broader social and political implications.
More details
Language
English
Place of publication
Edinburgh
United Kingdom
Target group
Professional and scholarly
File size
24,33 MB
ISBN-13
978-1-4744-7724-6 (9781474477246)
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Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
Book
04/2024
Edinburgh University Press
€121.50
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Content
- Intro
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction: The Antinomies of Politics
- 1. Towards Democracy's Anarchic Condition
- Democracy as Critique
- Plato Discovers the Political: Ranci.re's Reading of the Allegory of the Ship
- Philosophy's Sovereignty over Politics: Abensour's Reading of the Allegory of the Cave
- The Polemics of the Polis: The Greek Invention of Politics
- Democracy's Anarchic Condition: A New Political Ontology
- Making Politics Thinkable
- 2. Dissolution of the Archê
- In the Name of Democracy: The Kratos of the Demos
- On the Universality of the Problem of the Archê
- The Nature of Rule: An Interpretation of Plato's Laws
- Commandment and Commencement: The Strange Logic of the Archê Principle
- In Summary: Archic Government
- Enter Democracy: What Does It Mean to beagainst the Archê?
- Understanding Democracy's 'Anarchic Title'
- Democracy as 'Political' or 'Anarchic' Government
- Anarchy: The Infinite Opening
- 4. Democratisation of the Sensible: Democracy against the Police
- On the Many Forms of Being-Against
- Politics and the Police: A Radical Dichotomy
- Foucault, the Police and Governmentality
- The Government of the Sensible and the Symbolic Constitution of Society: Ranci.re's Concept of the Police
- 'Logical Revolt': Towards a Theory of the Political Subject
- On Political Names
- The 'History' or 'Tradition' of Emancipation
- 5. The Politics of Emancipation: Democracy against the State
- Social Domination and Political Emancipation: An Introduction to Abensour's General Approach to Democracy
- From the Frankfurt School to Lefort and Machiavelli: Abensour's Critical Political Philosophy
- Utopia and Democracy
- Against the State: Clastres contra Hobbes
- Marx's 'Machiavellian Moment': Hegel, Sovereignty and Political Alienation
- 'True' Democracy and the Reduction of the State
- Insurgent Democracy
- In Summary: Ranci.re's Democracy against the Police and Abensour's Democracy against the State
- 3. To Think Democracy Otherwise: Claude Lefort and Savage Democracy
- On the Status of Political Philosophy
- Pierre Clastres and the Logic of Being-Against
- The Essence of Democracy: A Question of Interpretation
- Democratic Revolution: Tocqueville and Lefort
- The 'Principle of Anarchy' and the Emancipatory Act of Politics
- Permanent Contestation: Savage Democracy and Human Rights
- Thinking Democracy Savage: A Philosophical Exercise
- Conclusion: 'Hic et nunc' - the Use of Philosophy and the Critique of the Present
- Bibliography
- Index
