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JACQUESRANCIERE'SCONTRIBUTION
TO THEETHICSOF RECOGNITION
136
Deranty/ REVIEWESSAY 137
jects. They were the representativesof the working classes against the
exploiting minority, and as such they defended the rights of the universal
againstthe particularprivilegesof domination.But they could only act as the
representativesof the universalcause because they had somehow left it, as
idle proletarians,proletariansduringthe day andidle thinkersat night.12This
is an illustrationof Ranciere'sontological choice of focusing on paradoxical
processes of subjectivation,againstthe generalizationand substantialization
of social sciences. By reducing all the individualhistories of the workers'
movement to general features of one anonymous, collective identity, the
identity of a class, historiansand sociologists attachthe proletariansto an
essence anda destiny.The questionof whetheror not this identityunderliesa
historyof emancipationbecomes irrelevantin view of the overridingpracti-
cal, political consequence of such reduction.In the end, the proletariansare
unableto free themselves by themselves. As the etymology of the word tort
tells us,13Ranciere'slogic, the logic of the tort,is twisted logic. It is not dia-
lectical logic leading to higher synthesis. As the embodimentof that logic,
proletarianphilosophers and poets mostly had doomed fates; they were
rejectedby all the forces of the social field.14 But their dreamsof emancipa-
tion reveal much aboutthe logic of dominationand the fight againstit.
Having engaged directly with the voice of the dominated,Rancierewas
then able to gatherall the philosophicalcontentof his previousbooks into a
more explicit and systematicexposition, which lays out in full detail his the-
ory of recognition and social and political integration.The central work
where he fully explains the logic of the tort is La mesentente,as well as a
series of key articles publishedas a book in Aux bords du politique (On the
Shoresof Politics) (1998, second edition).To demonstratethe contributionof
Ranciereto the ethics of recognition,one mustunderstandthe fundamentals
of this logic.
Ranciere'spoliticalphilosophyandontology arestructuredby a paradoxi-
cal logic. His thesis is thatpolitics (la politique) is opposed in essence to phi-
losophy,or thatthereis no such thing as politicalphilosophy.It is not false to
say thatRanciere'spolitical philosophy attemptsto prove thatpolitical phi-
losophy is a logical impossibility.
Typically,when turningits attentionto the organizationof the polis, phi-
losophy does so with the resourcesof rationalityas a means of criticallyana-
lyzing existing communitiesand normativelyestablishing principles,rules
of functioning,andso on, of whatis in essence a political community,a polis.
Philosophyattendsto politicalmattersas it does with all othermatters.It pre-
supposes thatthere are rationalways of accountingfor the existence, struc-
turing, and functioning of political communities. This in turn means that
thereareunderlyinglogical or ontologicalprinciplesthatgive rationaljustifi-
Deranty/ REVIEWESSAY 143
cation for the social and political order.The presuppositionof the existence
of an arkhe,an underlyingprinciple,of the political communityimplies that
there are good reasons for linking certaingroupsof individualswith certain
political functions within the polis. In otherwords, philosophy poses one or
severalprinciplesof the communityby somehow articulatingthe political to
the social. Political philosophyhas always been aboutgiving reasonfor the
specific link between individualsas citizens, andbetween the communityas
a whole and the particularindividuals.Even in the liberal tradition,the ulti-
matereasonbehindthe structuralprincipleof the communityis a certainrela-
tion to a social orderanalyticallyreducedto atomisticindividuals.However,
the ultimateconsequence of this rationalisticapproachto the science of the
polis, is the denialof the polis as the productof its citizens' activity.If the task
of politicalphilosophyis indeedto find a rationaljustificationforthepolitical
orderthatis based on a stateof the social order,all this amountsto is ajustifi-
cation of social hierarchy,and a justificationof the projectionof this hierar-
chy into the political;in otherwords, a justificationof domination.By defin-
ing its object in relation to social hierarchy,political philosophy ends up
defining a nonpolitical object. This is evident in the classical metaphorsof
the communityas an organism,a geometricalorder,a well-oiled machine,or
a Leviathan.
Ranciere sets out to develop a thinking that opposes this movement by
which the politicalmomentis ejected out of politicalthinking,a thinkingthat
encapsulatesthe originallogic or the specific ontology of the political.To do
that,one mustrupturethe traditionalrelationbetweenthe social andthepolit-
ical and oppose them. The social field is always the field of hierarchyand
domination,the absence andthe ultimatedenialof an independentlogical or
ontological status of the political. Its basic logic is that of inequality.The
structurethat regulates the articulationand good functioning of that field,
Rancierecalls the police, la police, in referenceto the broad,nonaxiological
sense of the termin eighteenth-centuryFrenchpolitical economy (the same
sense that can be found in the Hegelian Polizei). In essence, la police is oli-
garchic. On the other hand, the political works on the basis of the opposite
principle, that of radical equality, the equality of anyone with anyone. La
politique is therefore in essence democratic. Ranciere's political thinking
rests upon this opposition.51I will now relate some of the argumentsput for-
wardby Ranciereon the basis of this opposition.
The social does not found the political;rather,the political notionfounds
the social. The condition of possibility of inequalityis equality.The reason
Ranciere gives for this has a strongresemblanceto the logic of the master/
servantrelationshipin Hegel. The mastersdemandto be recognizedas mas-
ters by those they dominate.However,for this recognitionof inequalityto be
144 POLITICALTHEORY/ February2003
NOTES
1. JacquesRanciere'swritings to date are as follows:
Contributionto Lire le Capital (1964; reprint,Paris:PUF, 1996). Reading Capital,2nd ed.,
trans.Ben Brewster(London:Verso Books, 1998).
La legon d'Althusser(Paris:Gallimard,1974). Quoted as La leqon.
La nuit des proletaires (Paris:Fayard,1981). Quotedas La nuit. TheNights of Labor,trans.
John Drury(Philadelphia:Temple UniversityPress, 1991).
Lephilosophe et sespauvres (Paris:Fayard,1983). ThePhilosopherand His Poor(Philadel-
phia: Temple UniversityPress, 1991).
154 POLITICALTHEORY/ February2003
-Jean-Philippe Deranty
Macquarie University
156 POLITICALTHEORY/ February2003