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Emptiness of Freedom: An Analysis of Jacques Rancière’s Understanding of Politics Through Tocqueville
Abstract
In this article, first, I introduce my account of Ranciere’s political thought. I argue that
Ranciere’s description of politics through disagreement is a novel project due to its
revelation of the paradox of politics as rational . Second, there is a general assumption
about Rancière’s dismissal of any kind of politics within the police order. I oppose this
criticism because Rancière does not define police and egalitarian orders as static and
individual identity and subjectification as singular. Third , I show that there is a crucial
problem in Rancière’s theory in terms of his understanding of the relationship between
equality and freedom. I argue that the connection between equality and freedom may
not be that strong as Rancière wants us to think and that the democratic ideal of
equality may have adverse effects on politics by introducing Tocqueville’s criticism of
democratic equality . Finally, by an analysis of political events presented in
Disagreement, I argue that Rancière’s emancipatory politics demands a supposition of
certain kind of human nature. Hence, the role of politics as the producer of knowledge
and change, and the importance of third parties should be taken account for the
manifestation of incommensurable wrong for Rancière ’s theory of politics to work.
Keywords
References
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Details
Primary Language
English
Subjects
Philosophy
Journal Section
Research Article
Authors
Publication Date
December 15, 2021
Submission Date
May 31, 2021
Acceptance Date
July 8, 2021
Published in Issue
Year 2021 Number: 16