Interest in the work of Jacques Rancière has dramatically increased in the English speaking world over the past decade, with many of his earlier works coming into translation and a host of new writings being produced as well. Rancière’s has honed his signature philosophical style through works which have frequently engaged with contemporary debates in various fields, including pedagogy and education, the arts, literature, politics, and psychoanalysis. Rancière presumes no ontological foundation or global system, and something that unifies many of his studies is an emphasis on the challenging of presumed roles (dissensus), and of acting on assumptions which cannot be proven (the principle of equality).

This collection of essays work quite well as an introductory course on Rancière’s work, but there is also much in the way of critical analysis that should be of interest to those already versed in Rancière’s writings. And while Rancière writes in an approachable style, it can be difficult to see how his concerns connect. It is also possible to assume too much familiarity with the concepts he employs. This text offers great help on both of these counts. 

Samuel A. Chambers provides an essay which unpacks Rancière’s usage of the the terms “police” and “oligarchy”. These terms get staged in contradistinction to “politics” and “democracy”, respectively, in Rancière’s political works. Chambers explains that “Ranciere proceeds by way of a process that might best be called ‘re-definition’. That is, he starts with phenomena and ideas that his readers already have a clear sense of, those they can easily name. He then swiftly renames these phenomena – a conceptual move that has significant consequences for his theory of politics” (58). What Rancière calls politics is the democratic act of presuming equality with those who would tell us to stay in our place, to not meddle, and so forth. Politics lies in acts of critique and dissent. “Police” refers to policy, means of keeping order. But we generically take these acts of “keeping order” to be what we call politics. Such a design for a system of keeping order is found in Plato’s Republic, which becomes a counterpoint against which Rancière develops and employs many of his key concepts. In the Republic, there is no “politics” as Rancière understands it, only “police.” (Plato is thus exemplary of the Hatred of Democracy, which is the title of one of Rancière’s more recent texts.)

          While he works in areas of both aesthetics and politics, it is important for Ranciere that we do not simply conflate these fields or expect that what makes sense in one area is the same for the other. Not everything is political, and it is important that we maintain distinctions so that we can see from different contexts and perspectives and thus be able to attain critical vantage points (just the sorts of vantage points Plato did not want his citizens having in the Republic, which is why he notoriously wants to ban many arts).

Perhaps Rancière’s most central concept is what he dubs “the principle of equality”. Yves Citton gives a very nice account of how Rancière develops the principle in his major work The Ignorant Schoolmaster.  Here Rancière “re-writes” the ideas of the early 19^th century teacher and educational philosopher, Joseph Jacotot. Jacotot developed a pedagogy which would downplay the need for the instructor to be an authority in terms of knowledge, undercutting the presumption of superior intelligence. The educational experiments of Jacotot inspire what Rancière calls the “principle of equality”. In short, equality is a principle which must be taken as a starting assumption. It cannot be proven. But when we begin with an assumption of inequality, we only assure that inequalities persist. We expect inequality of intelligence and ability, so schools and institutions are designed to reproduce and classify continued generations along lines of inequality.

Plato defined people as unequal in ability by their natures. This is what would justify their being divided into castes and having their roles defined for them by a superior intelligence (the philosopher king). Such means of distributing places and roles fit into what Rancière calls “distributions of the sensible” (partage du sensible, which gets examined by Davide Panagia in chapter 7).  The partage is the order of things which we share in, but which also divides places. It constitutes how things come to make sense to us and how we understand our own respective places in society. These distributions are not based on absolute foundations (as Plato would have had it in his theory of the forms), but on opinions, value judgments. This leads to what Rancière calls the “aesthetics” or the “poetics” of knowledge (explored by Phillip Watts in chapter 8). That which is given priority is a matter of opinion (Plato prefers a certain type of knowledge). These founding values are at the root of structuring our divisions and hierarchies (somewhat like ideology, or the values that propel ideologies). But, the key thing is that once we understand these values as arbitrary and contingent, we can contest them. When we presume ourselves to be equal by asserting our dissenting opinions, dis-identifying with our roles, and offering up competing “distributions of the sensible,” politics has emerged.

          As Chambers mentioned above, the practice of “redefinition” which Rancière employs is also vital to his understanding of politics as dissensus. Indeed, efforts to claim or recast how certain concepts are understood in society is a major focus of what Rancière considers democratic politics: when groups do not simply accept their place, or accept how things are defined for them. When a group contests the dominant assumptions about what words like “equality”, “democracy” or “citizen” refer to.  These become territories where demands for inclusion, recognition, rights, and active participation in the affairs of the state are both symbolized and directly waged.

          Rancière work arises out of and is always concerned with practical and contemporary debates. His biggest ideas may seem very simple at heart and even naïve at times, this is willful. The key concepts of his work are intended to open avenues for critique and for reimagining possibilities in those areas of debate in politics, education, literature and the arts. This book provides a great opportunity to become acquainted with these concepts and how they connect across such a diverse corpus.

© 2011 Michael Larson

Michael Larson, M.A. Instructor at Point Park University, Pittsburgh, PA. Primary interests: Continental philosophy, Foucault, Deconstruction, Social and Political thought, Modern and Contemporary art.