# Rancière reading Plato: Myth against sociology

Marion Kim-Chi Pollaert

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Marion Kim-Chi Pollaert. Rancière reading Plato: Myth against sociology. Philosophy and Social Criticism, In press, 10.1177/01914537241284524. hal-05449268

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Original Research Article

# Rancière reading Plato: Myth against sociology

Marion Kim-Chi Pollaert ID

CultureLab, Ifilnova, Portugal

Philosophy and Social Criticism
2024, Vol. 0(0) 1–21

© The Author(s) 2024

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DOI: 10.1177/01914537241284524

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## Abstract

This article examines how Rancière contrasts Plato's philosophy with sociology, specifically that of Bourdieu and Passeron. In *The Philosopher and His Poor*, Plato is among those who exclude the majority not only from political power but also from thought and discourse. However, Rancière uses the *Republic*'s founding myth of inequality to identify the arbitrary basis behind the circular reasoning that justifies thought's legitimate and illegitimate use based on alleged nature. Can Platonic myth constitute what Rancière terms a 'discursive act', which triggers political conflict, that is, the debate on equality as first presupposition? This study of Rancière's Platonic reference examines the conditions under which philosophical myth can challenge sociology. The emancipatory use of myth involves reconfiguring our concepts of science and society and any notion of nature while scholarly discourse is hinged on processes of social othering that align it with the repressive order of social hierarchy. The comparison between Plato and Bourdieu, as analyzed through Rancière's critique, reveals a fundamental divergence in their approach to societal structures. According to Rancière, all explanations tend to naturalize, whereas the only correct approach is to emphasize the total absence of any foundation for hierarchy. This problem has epistemological implications: how can we construct a discourse that does not reproduce the exceptionality of authorized speech? On this condition, one can catch a glimpse of the collective and temporal extent of Rancière's resolute commitment to equality. Taking seriously a definition of the social as a series of perceptual rearrangements allows us to question the anti-institutional limit of Rancière's thinking.

## Keywords

Rancière, Plato, Bourdieu myth, sociology, philosophy, othering, scientism, equality, inequality, politics

## Corresponding author:

Marion Kim-Chi Pollaert, CultureLab, Ifilnova, Portugal.

Email: marion.pollaert@gmail.com
Introduction

In *The Philosopher and His Poor*, Jacques Rancière examines how the making of a science of dominations excludes the dominated groups themselves from participating in the discourse of knowledge. He follows ‘the metamorphoses of the philosophical gesture that separates those who are dedicated to work from those who are dedicated to thought’, a lineage that includes Plato, Marx, Sartre and Bourdieu (Rancière 2007: viii).¹ This division impacts not only the political, social structure and productive relationships but also the symbolic framework, which strips oppressed groups of their identity and their capacity to question it. Nevertheless, even as Rancière underscores the ongoing connection between scholarly discourse and the repressive social hierarchy, he approaches Plato and a philosophical discourse involving myth on the one hand, and sociology with Bourdieu and Passeron on the other, in different ways.

Rancière’s reception of Platonic philosophy has not been thoroughly studied for its
own sake, despite its pivotal role to Rancière’s thought, both in regard to the link between
knowledge and power, and between politics and aesthetics (Badiou 2009, 38; Citton 2010,
29; Hallward 2009, 112; Rancière 2011a, 8; Rancière 2011b, 246). There is an over-
looked² ambiguity in the way Rancière references Plato: while presenting Plato as the
inaugural sociologist (Rancière 2007, 29; 2009, 64; see May, 2008, 42), Rancière
nonetheless pits Platonic myths against sociology,³ forcing us to scrutinize the conditions
necessary for a science to be emancipatory and to understand the interplay between
descriptive and normative knowledge. The aim of this article is to explore the reference to
Plato, primarily in *The Philosopher and His Poor* shedding light on the rest of his work,
and to examine under what conditions philosophy ceases to collaborate in the social,
political and intellectual enterprise of legitimating inequality, as sociology, according to
Rancière, inherently does. We shall see that the answer lies in a certain understanding of
the correlation between politics and nature. Rancière credits Plato with revealing the
arbitrary foundation of all inequality. Platonic philosophy is undoubtedly essentialist, but
the introduction of myth creates an opportunity to reconsider the relationship between
science and society. The confrontation of Rancière’s radical egalitarianism and his post-
foundationalist background (see below Hallward 2009, 115–116) very directly with the
question of foundation and arbitrariness through the Platonic myth will allow us to
question the anti-institutional limit of Rancière’s thought.

To unveil the reproduction and distinction mechanisms at the origin of social hier-
archies, Bourdieu's sociology, according to Rancière, frames science as the mere an-
tithesis of the ignorance of the 'underclass', implying that *cognitive* liberation alone
suffices. This leads Bourdieu's sociology to inadvertently endorse and normalize the
'symbolic order' stemming from the social order, rather than critically examine it. In this
regard, sociology appears to be a form of scientism (see Nordmann 2006, 94-98) or
theoreticism (Hallward 2009, 118) and to only perpetuate the 'dispossession' of those
whose relegation is structured by the social system.

More specifically, Rancière shows, by drawing on Plato’s work, that any science is
defined by establishing its counterpoint. The author uses Plato’s *Republic* not to affirm the
superiority of Plato over Bourdieu, but rather to investigate the Platonic connection
between philosophy and society. The purpose of this article is to investigate the societal and political consequences of scholarly discourse through an examination of Rancière's analysis of Plato's city organization and his critique of Bourdieu as an avatar of social science.

The comparison between Bourdieu's and Plato's interpretations clarifies that the *Republic* serves as a means of criticizing scientism. While Callipolis' structure aims to 'correlate the forms of political distribution with the unequal participation of souls in the power of thought and discourse', the resulting distribution is not naturalized, contrary to Bourdieu. Rancière refers to what is presented in the *Republic* as a 'political myth' (Rancière 2009, 77). The Platonic myth's discursive mode implies social groups' assignment to subaltern positions at the political, social and symbolic levels results from an arbitrary process. This arbitrariness, when acknowledged, connects with the concept of 'political conflict'. Rancière perceives 'political conflict' as the means for marginalized groups to attain emancipation by asserting equality unconditionally. The claim to equality is equivalent to 'a specific symbolization of otherness' (Rancière 2009, 179). Platonic myth would stand closer than sociology to 'political conflict', in that it spells out processes of social othering. This symbolization proceeds from the 'poetic' dimension of politics, which consists in 'reconfiguring the sensitive data'. Rancière emphasizes that political conflict revolves around the identification of authorized and unauthorized speakers, objects of knowledge and a common experience (Rancière 2009, 175). This represents a very specific use of the ancient text, transforming the Platonic myth into a more potent instrument for emancipation than sociological description.

First, it is important to clarify the critique presented in *The Philosopher and His Poor* of Bourdieu's sociology. Rancière makes a distinction between the distribution of social and political positions within the political community and the 'aesthetic' or symbolic aspects of these inequalities. Both the criticisms of Bourdieu's sociology as of Plato, studied in a second section, are twofold and align with this distinction. In the third section, this article will examine the epistemological divide between those with knowledge and those without, as presupposed by sociology, through the study of mythical discourse. Rancière's evolution concerning the possibilities of Platonic myth will show how, according to him, a reconfiguration of social reality functions.

## Genealogy of ‘the distribution of the sensible’ and Bourdieu’s critique

Rancière shares, to some extent, a well-known critique of Bourdieu⁴. His sociology, which primarily examines the reproduction of inequalities, faces difficulty in contemplating the prospect of change unless it arises as a result of external causes that aren't linked to the circular system composed of subjective habitus and objective structures of domination (Bourdieu and Eagleton 1992; Jenkins 1992, 49–51; 55–57; Nordmann 2006, 104–105; Sonderegger 2011, 250–252). Boltanski's pragmatic sociology can echo Rancière's critique, stressing the overhanging position of sociological discourse in relation to everyday life. This position replicates 'symbolic violence', which corresponds to Bourdieu's assumption of a lack of awareness on the part of the affected groups,
ultimately leading to a new kind of ‘alienation’ (Boltanski 2011, 19–26; Gautier 2011, 32–45). Rancière presents a highly provocative critique, contending that Bourdieu’s sociology serves to ‘naturalise’ the social order (Rancière 2007, vii). This reproach is explicitly negated by the conclusion of *The Inheritors*:

> ‘[...] sociological research has a duty to suspect and methodically expose the socially conditioned cultural inequality beneath apparent natural inequalities, since it can only fall back on “nature” when all other explanation fails’. (Bourdieu and Passeron 1964, 100; 1979, 155)

One could critique Rancière’s argument for seemingly disregarding the distinction between a prescriptive or descriptive purpose of sociological discourse (Nordmann 2006, 101).⁵ Bourdieu’s sociology seeks to *describe* actual inequalities, emphasizing the weight of social determinants, perceived as natural *without this expertise*. The key point of divergence between the two authors lies in the power of description. According to Bourdieu, ‘describing social differences and the educational inequalities which arise from them [...] is in itself a challenge to the principles on which the present system is based’ (Bourdieu and Passeron 1964, 108; 1979, 71), while Rancière suggests such a descriptive knowledge merely reinforces inequality.

Rancière also acknowledges that he criticizes Bourdieu and Passeron’s theses in *Reproduction in Education, Society and Culture* ‘at the level of generality that has made their fortune in political doxa, independently of their subsequent evolution’ (Rancière, 2004a, 97).⁶ This should prevent us from reading Rancière’s critique as a caricature of Bourdieu’s work: he is somehow consciously and openly using Bourdieu and Passeron as a template for the general approach to describing domination. I want to clarify that my purpose in this discussion is not to argue about the credibility of Rancière’s criticisms or the specific manner in which they are presented. Rancière’s critique centres not so much on the challenge, for Bourdieu’s sociology, of comprehending the potential for social transformation, but instead on how it actually renders it completely unattainable, or even prohibited. The present analysis seeks to examine the distinctive way in which this critique and Rancière’s implementation of Platonic myth establish a connection between knowledge and social reality.

To begin with, the sociological approach involves identifying the social hierarchy present in society. Therefore, the initial premise of the criticism is to assert that ‘sociology is a form of police knowledge’, that it belongs to the ‘police’ (discussed by Tarragoni 2016, 116–117). Rancière defines the term ‘police’ as follows in the *Disagreement*:

> ‘The set of procedures whereby the aggregation and consent of collectivities is achieved, the organization of powers, the distribution of places and roles, and the systems for legitimizing this distribution’ (Rancière 1995, 51; 1999, 28)

Indeed, it is undeniable that sociology, concerned with human interactions, deals fundamentally with the distribution⁷ of individual’s positions in society. Bourdieu, in particular, explores the mechanisms that legitimate inequalities. However, a sociologist
might argue that sociology is built upon descriptive knowledge, and that describing these effects of legitimation is distinct from endorsing them in law.

For Rancière, this, from the outset, is an erroneous starting point. 'Whoever starts from inequality is sure to find it at the end' (Rancière 2007, ix; see also Toscano 2011, 220). Another way to put it, as Badiou suggests, is that, according to Rancière, 'equality is declared and is never programmatic' (Badiou 2006, 143). Even in the pursuit of reducing inequalities, challenging their logic requires a presupposition of equality, rather than knowledge of their underlying causes. While examining the workers' archives in *The Nights of Labor*, Rancière came to the realization that 'understanding a situation can also be a means of participating in it. Emancipation's potential, on the other hand, stems from disregarding a specific form of necessity that would otherwise confine you to your designated place' (Rancière, 1989, 2009, 575).

Two other aspects would undermine the potential for emancipation in Bourdieu's sociology. First, it begins with the premise that an individual's socio-economic situation decides their aesthetic preferences, language and their complete sensory and perceptual world.⁸ Rancière believes that emancipation relies on the opposite: the disconnection between our social positions and our 'sensory and intellectual equipment'. As he puts it:

> 'The whole Bourdieusian theory of reproduction and distinction remains aligned with the classical sociological model which assumes that any status necessarily defines a certain type of presence in the world, and therefore a certain type of consciousness'. (Rancière 2009, 576)

The potential for emancipation within Bourdieu's sociology is undermined by social determinism, which is the second aspect of the issue. All sociological determinants remain beyond the reach of the individuals in question, and without the authoritative position of the sociologist, emancipation is inconceivable. Rancière (2005a: 171–174) quotes *La Reproduction* and *Les Héritiers* on examinations to show that Bourdieu and Passeron themselves have to introduce a mystification, that of 'equal opportunity' that was never really issued by the founders of the public school, in order to position the sociologist as demystifier. Bourdieu posits that domination is perpetuated through the lack of awareness among the oppressed, who are denied an understanding of the causes of their subordination.⁹ This lack of awareness constitutes one of the primary methods by which domination is sustained.

Rancière consistently examines political and social inequalities by including their 'aesthetic' dimension, which assigns dominated groups in the symbolic order to a lesser (or null) participation in thought and discourse (Rancière 2007, iv). The relegation of a dominated group to a subordinate social role also results in inferiority at the symbolic level, creating what Rancière calls 'the sensible universe “imposed” by a status' (Rancière 2007, vi). He uses quotation marks around 'imposed' because he deconstructs the naturalness of this status as well as the mechanism deducing from it a certain 'distribution of the sensible': 'The way in which inclusion and exclusion forms define the participation in a common life are first configured within the sensible experience of life' (Rancière 2002, 34). The legitimacy of domination acquires sensible evidence (Rancière, 2004a, 17).
This unequal participation in discourse and thought is further exacerbated by the epistemology of sociology, according to Rancière. Bourdieu contends that the mechanisms perpetuating these hierarchies elude the dominated groups. Even if we assume that sociology's purpose is the emancipation of the dominated groups, the initial postulation of inequality and the discrepancy between spontaneous social behaviours and scholarly discourse, which holds the exclusive authority over knowledge, ultimately reinforces this inequality (see Corcuff 2015, 199–200).

While in other works, notably *The Ignorant Schoolmaster*, Rancière more explicitly elaborates an alternative path, this is not the focus of *The Philosopher and His Poor* (see for instance Pelletier 2009, 142–145). His solution is to oppose a ‘disidentification’ of the dominated subjects themselves to a theory of the mechanisms of domination, which renders them essentially unchangeable. These are the individuals that sociology often portrays as ‘unknowing without recourse’ (Rancière 2007, xi). On the contrary, in the *Disagreement* he defines ‘subjectification’ as ‘the production, through a series of actions of a body and a capacity for enunciation not previously identifiable within a given field of experience, whose identification is thus part of the reconfiguration of the field of experience’ (Rancière, 1991, 2011, 35–36 [1995, 59], see also 91).

I won’t address the coherence of this alternative here, which is more explicitly explored in *The Nights of Labor* or *The Ignorant Schoolmaster*. Instead, I want to examine the specific role of the Platonic reference in Bourdieu’s critique. We have observed that this critique begins by highlighting how Bourdieu’s sociology duplicates the ‘police order’ of the city by taking social and political inequalities as its starting point. More importantly, social determinism leads to the derivation of a certain ‘status’ and a certain ‘sensory and intellectual equipment’ based on one’s social position, thus reinforcing social and symbolic inequalities. Bourdieu’s ‘scientism’ becomes its corollary. The very operation of the mechanisms that perpetuate social inequalities excludes the awareness of the dominated groups. Inequality is exacerbated by the gap between social actors and the scholar, the sociologist.

## Rancière reader of the Republic

This genealogy¹⁰ of the ‘distribution of the sensible’ pertains to the allocation of social statuses and ‘conditions’, as well as resulting perceptual relationships. This helps us understand Plato’s significance in *The Philosopher and his Poor*. In social sciences, the workers’ oppression primarily results from their lack of awareness regarding the conditions causing it. Paradoxically, this knowledge remains out of reach for the very individuals objectified in this oppression. By considering the *Republic* as foundational for the constitutive relationship between science and ignorance within the city, Rancière examines the process of shaping ‘an other’ and the resulting social and political construction of a subordinate identity. This lesser identity primarily applies to producers, but it also extends to any rivals of the philosopher within the city (Rancière 2009, 62).

We find the two elements identified in Bourdieu’s critique in Plato as well. The ideal city’s organization ‘in words’ can be compared to the ‘police’ dimension of sociological description. However, the ‘aesthetic’ effect of these inequalities differs. In contrast to
sociology, Plato justifies these inequalities in a mythical form. Let's start by examining specialization, or 'monotechnics', the first step in distinguishing between those who think from those who work. It is only in the second phase that the application of a 'noble lie' justifying inequalities in roles and abilities reveals the critical distinction between Plato and Bourdieu, according to Rancière.

First and foremost, the genesis of the city is founded on a few essential technical functions and the 'monotechnics', or 'impossibility of cumulation':

> 'One does more and better and more easily when each one does only one thing, according to their nature, at the proper time and with exemption from the rest'.

*(Resp. 2.370c, from Rancière's translation, 2007: 19)*¹¹

The shift from an ideal city to a 'fevered' luxurious city, which necessitates the warrior class and raises questions about their education, puts philosophy at the centre of the city.¹² Rancière's interest lies not in the governing role of the philosopher-rulers or the definition of justice, but instead in the social position of the ruling philosopher. Plato's 'philosophical gesture that separates those who are dedicated to work from those who are dedicated to thinking' (2007: VIII) leads to the establishment of the rulers' position at the top of the social and political hierarchy. Its converse is the formation of an identity for those who lack leisure or have to be 'at their business'. This reading of the *Republic* focuses on the principle of aligning temperaments with social and political roles, resulting in exclusive technical specialization, or 'monotechnics' (*Kamtekar, 2013*).

In this regard, Rancière asserts: 'One could argue, as a playful hypothesis at least, that Plato [...] has invented sociology against the proponents of democracy' (2009, 64).¹³ Rather than viewing Plato's contemporary democrats from a historical perspective, Rancière examines the political power of democracy, which does not restrict the principle of community to any specific quality (Rancière 1995, 27-30). This gives rise to the 'dissensus' characteristic of politics, since the multitude is never synonymous with the community in its entirety (see e.g. Labelle 2001, 87-95). In contrast, sociology, as demonstrated is closely aligned with 'police', as it assigns every individual to a designated place, equipped with a predetermined status and corresponding abilities. Thus, Plato's allocation of roles, conditions and distribution of a particular share in thought and knowledge enforces a 'suppression of politics'.¹⁴

Rancière breaks down the making of social hierarchies, specifically the formation of fixed identities like that of the warrior and the craftsman. A crucial shift takes place when efficiency and material needs give way to conforming to 'nature' and character traits. This divergence in nature justifies distinct social roles and abilities, encompassing perceptual and cognitive capacities.

> 'The egalitarian necessity that each one does "their own thing" has discreetly shifted into a hierarchy that can only be that of *natures*. [...] the functional distribution of aptitudes is also a distribution of gifts with unequal value'. (Rancière 2007, 31, to be related to Resp. 2.374c-d)
Plato's justification of these differences in 'natures' allows Rancière to examine how social inequalities gain legitimacy. In Book III of the *Republic*, the city rulers resort to a lie to justify the differences in nature that underlie political, social and symbolic inequalities. The diversity of social status within the city is based on a 'story [...] that does not need to be justified, but only to be told; not even to be believed, but only to be accepted' (Rancière 2007, 38); Rancière cites the *Republic* 3.415a, to support this argument.

> 'All of you who are in the city are brothers, we tell them in our story, but the god who fashioned you has mixed gold into the composition of those who are fit to rule and who are also the most valuable. He has mixed silver with that of the guardians, and iron and brass with that of the plowmen and other craftsmen'. (From Rancière's translation, 2007, 38)

Rancière acknowledges the possibility of reclassification (*Resp.* 3.415b-c), but emphasizes that the organization of the city seems to tend toward downgrading.¹⁵ What he takes from this passage is the legitimation, in the form of a myth, of an unequal social order and the conditions associated with it. According to him, this 'story' is related to imitation, although Plato condemns it in order to legitimate philosophy and promote it over poetry. The purpose of this foundational myth is to 'assign the honor or value that is appropriate by nature' (3.415c1-2: τὴν τῆ φύσει προσήκουσαν τιμὴν ἀποδόντες).

Just before entering into an examination of the 'noble lie', Rancière points out that Plato's legitimation through the argument of nature openly relies on arbitrary selection:

> 'Beyond the division of labor, the guardian is there to exemplify the difference in nature that makes the craftsman less valuable. This difference, however, is established by nothing other than the selection made by the guardian philosopher. In other words, it is the selection that defines nature. The difference in nature is neither the irrational concept that makes thinking impossible, nor the “ideology” that hides the history of social oppression. There is nothing hidden. Plato states it openly: Nature must be a matter of decree in order to become an object of education. This is the presupposition that the selector-breeder of souls adopts in order to begin his work of shaping natures. Nature is a *narrative* declared as such' (Rancière 2007, 37-38)

Plato's aim is not to question the selection of the guardians, which could ultimately question the inferiority of craftsmen. Rather, Rancière finds in the Platonic myth the potential to question the absolutizing of the gap between the ruled and the rulers. 'Police' conceives of society as a whole, composed of groups that perform specific functions and occupy certain positions: 'The essence of the police is the principle of saturation' (Rancière 2009, 187). Everyone is assigned a place, with no surplus, deficiency or excess. Conversely, politics embodies a fundamental 'miscalculation'. By elaborating the myth of the assignment of unequal positions, without concealing its arbitrary foundation, Plato is both the inventor of the concept of the police and the one who enables the potential for political conflict. This reading, by contrast, allows Rancière to point out that Bourdieu's sociology radicalizes inequality by naturalizing it. In order to prove this, it is first
necessary to examine the way in which Plato, according to Rancière, shapes the other and inferior identities that are subordinated in the city.

The examination of philosophy's self-legitimation reveals its reliance on the contrast with its 'others'. For example, 'all the anxiety aroused by the kinship between truth and lie [exhibited by the noble lie] is exorcised in the figure of the sophist' (Rancière 2007, 54). Moreover, the primary purpose of the noble lie is to prevent any resemblance between political competence and technical craftsmanship. Similarly, divine inspiration serves to distinguish poets from philosophers. Philosophy consistently defines itself by demarcating its boundaries from its counterparts and undermining their legitimacy – this is a process of othering.

Rancière demonstrates the correlation between political inequality and social inferiority, where the difference between leisure and its absence corresponds with a disparity in dignity. This involves what Rancière refers to as 'physical marking', which he rightfully cites as being within the aristocratic iconography echoed by Xenophon¹⁶ and Aristotle (Jockey 1998, 2004; Nightingale 2004, 119–127). The 'stigma inscribed on bodies' recognizes a physically worn body distorted by manual labour as a sign of unsuitability for roles marginalized groups are forbidden from. This is associated with Rancière's concept of the 'distribution of the sensible', which produces unequal perceptual realities that legitimate domination.

Although Plato does not fully embrace aristocratic ideology,¹⁷ the following passage from the *Republic* (6.495d-e) draws on the iconography of 'physical marks of an inferior nature':

> 'Some moguls, seeing the land open to them yet full of beautiful names and appearances, do as those people who run out from their chains by taking refuge in the temples: Quite happy to leave their profession, they throw themselves on the philosophy. And it is, as if by chance, the most skillful people in their little business. Because, in spite of its situation, philosophy keeps, in comparison with other professions, the most prestigious rank. Hence the covetousness of a lot of people who are not destined to it by nature, men whose bodies have been damaged by businesses and manual labor and whose souls have been broken and crushed by the working-class condition'. (From Rancière's translation, 2007, 55)

Baldness and short stature are physical markers of inferior status, creating a circular relationship whereby an inferior status is reinforced by the principle of unequal abilities. Plato contrasts this physical and moral portrayal of philosophy usurpers with the existence of 'natural philosophers', those who possess exceptional innate abilities that, however, can be corrupted by their relationships and occupations. This corruption jeopardizes philosophy's prestige by subjecting it to impostors who lack the requisite qualities. Plato employs physical markers and a prominent depreciation of the craftsman's position to demonstrate how philosophy can be used incorrectly in a historical city as opposed to an ideal one.

Rancière blurs the distinction between the historical city and the ideal city, primarily by focussing on how the argument of nature, expressed through physical symptoms, justifies inequality. Recognizing the philosopher-ruler's objective competence aligns them more
with a technician. 'Except to fall again in the democracy of the professions, [philosophy] must exacerbate the argument of nature, to give him the nature of prohibition marked on the bodies' (Rancière 2007, 56), to avoid any levelling of the philosophy and the manual activities.

Rancière strives to identify the proximity between the philosophers and their rivals, and to elucidate the argumentative methods used to differentiate and legitimate them. For instance, he notes that the exit from a servile state is staged, but positively this time, in the allegory of the Cave in Book VII (Rancière 2007, 65). Rancière emphasizes the philosopher's intimate ties with their adversaries such as sophists or poets, exposing the vulnerability of absolute differentiation. This emphasizes the reciprocal nature of the interrelationship between social inequality in the city and the 'distribution of the sensible'.

> 'It is now predominantly a matter of philosophical legitimacy that establishes the right to think, rather than jobs and social classes'. (Rancière 2007, 65)

Philosophy establishes its legitimacy through the use of a 'proof *a contrario*' artifice, positioning itself in opposition to its 'others': through the process of othering.

## Plato and Bourdieu: Myth versus naturalization

In analyzing Rancière's critiques of Bourdieu and Plato, a clear common thread emerges that defines 'the philosophical gesture that separates those who are dedicated to work from those who are dedicated to thought' (Rancière 2007, 59). However, Rancière also emphasizes a fundamental difference that sets them apart:

> 'While aiming to expose the philosophical naiveties related to free aesthetic judgment and the free choice of destinies, sociology, in contrast, naturalizes them, transforming the social body into a necessity. This is what the philosopher Plato had referred to as the “lie” necessary to establish, in law, an inferiority that persists due to its continual validation through empirical evidence'. (Rancière 2007, vii)

According to Rancière, Bourdieu 'naturalizes' the deception found in *Republic* 3.415a in his sociological framework. Rancière argues in the book's conclusion (Rancière 2007, 289-290), that the *Republic*'s Book III 'puts sociology in its place' by acknowledging 'the arbitrariness of the natural order that dictates each person's role'. In contrast, 'sociological demystification [...] refashions arbitrariness into necessity'.¹⁸ It is noteworthy that the notion of 'demystification' comes up again when highlighting the distinction between Plato and Bourdieu. Mystification, which stems from the subjugated groups' ignorance of how inequalities are perpetuated, is a core tenet of Bourdieu's epistemology. Plato, on the other hand, never advocates for the equality of producers and rulers; he even grounds the ruler's superiority in philosophical competence. However, Plato doesn't establish this inequality as a mechanism accessible solely to scientists or, at large, those who are learnt and knowledgeable. This difference leads Rancière to claim: 'The sociological “reversal”'
of Platonism is, in a sense, merely the verification, and even the radicalization of its prohibitions' (Plato, 2012).

In conclusion, I aim to move past critiquing the *Republic* and focus on how Rancière specifically uses the Platonic myth of natural inequalities. Rather than settling for the idea that Bourdieu merely 'radicalizes' Plato's 'distribution of the sensible' through naturalization, let's examine the difference from the opposite perspective. This shift in perspective prompts us to question the precise significance Rancière assigns to the 'arbitrariness' of social conditions, as explicitly portrayed in mythical form. First, it is noteworthy that this point echoes Rancière's clear stance on the relationship between the social order and nature:

> 'The foundation of politics is not in fact more a matter of convention than of nature: it is the lack of foundation, the sheer contingency of any social order. Politics exists simply because no social order is based on nature, no divine law regulates human society' (Ranciere 1999, 16; see Marchart 2011, 131 on Rancière's 'post-fundamental' perspective and Hallward 2009, 115-116)

How should it be interpreted in relation to the overtly arbitrary nature of the Platonic myth? Rancière characterizes the noble lie as a ‘story’ or a product of imitation, underscoring its mythical nature as Plato presents it (‘archaic Phoenician history’). Another Platonic myth, the critique of writing and the myth of Teuth in the *Phaedrus*, is a reference that Rancière frequently references. Unlike the myth found in the *Republic*, the *Phaedrus* myth can serve as a means of emancipation:

> 'The “dumb” written speech, according to Plato, is the speech that will roll anywhere, offering itself equally to those to whom it is appropriate to speak and to those to whom it is not appropriate. This availability of a words fabric unaccompanied by a legitimate speaker to a legitimate addressee ruins the logic that wants everyone to be in their place and to do what Plato calls “their own thing.” It upsets the relations between the order of speech and that of social occupations’. (Rancière 2009, 174; 506; 613)¹⁹

Examining the contrasting interpretations of these two myths – the invention of writing in the *Phaedrus* and the three metals in the *Republic* – can enhance our comprehension of the purpose and the use of the latter. Rancière never claims that the *Republic*'s myth of the metals ruins the logic of the places' distribution – on the contrary, it legitimates this allocation. In the *Phaedrus*, the situation is more ambiguous; the critique of writing ultimately provides the means to challenge the monopoly and authorized ownership of writing. By criticizing discourse that ‘rolls off’ on all sides, the myth points to an excess in the use of words that dismantles any restrictions on their legitimate use, revealing the ‘egalitarian powers of language’ (Rancière 2009, 176). The critique of writing seems to reveal the potential for everyone to use it. Rancière slightly reinterprets the myth; under the explicit criticism of writing and the dangers it conceals, Rancière identifies a subversive power that he interprets positively.
This doesn't apply to the myth of the three races, which lacks an egalitarian subtext and instead decrees inequality. Rather, the *Republic*'s myth serves to highlight a shift in the discursive framework. The transition from myth to scientific truth, which is beyond the reach of social actors, coincides with the process of 'radicalization' through naturalization that sociology enacts. While these two myths serve different purposes, the underlying method in Rancière's reinterpretation of the *Phaedrus*, involving a sort of two-way reading that may seem counterintuitive, can offer insights into the *Republic*. Implicitly, Rancière brings the 'story', the Platonic lie, closer to what he defines as a 'discursive act' in certain interviews. Let's start with the definition he gives of 'social':

> 'The "social" – a category supposed to explain the ideological and to challenge its claims – is in fact constituted by a series of discursive acts and of reconfiguration on the perceptive world'. (Rancière 2009, 182)

The social is made explicit in reconfigurations of the perceptive world, which closely aligns with the 'distribution of the sensible' and the absence, in Rancière's view, of any natural foundation to it. It is this definition of the social as configurations and re-configurations of perceptual worlds that should make us sensitive to the fact that Rancière is not content with simply contrasting the *social* with the exceptionality of genuinely *political* acts: he makes explicit the possibility of detecting in the social an incoherence with itself that thwarts hierarchies between fixed positions (Toscano 2011, 227). This redefinition of the social should allow us to reflect on the arbitrary quality of any social hierarchy: Does this absence of an essential foundation for any inequality or even social identity border on the absolutely ephemeral performance of any political affirmation of equality (see Quintana 2018, 2–3 for a typology of the various critiques of the anti-institutional dimension of Rancière's thought)? This anti-institutional dimension can be rephrased in terms of a 'conundrum of the discipline of emancipation' (Toscano 2011, 229). Perceptual distributions are set in motion through 'discursive acts' that reconfigure them. In the mythical form of a discursive act that Rancière calls a 'political myth', Plato manages to 'relate the forms of political distribution to the unequal participation of souls in the power of thought and discourse' (Rancière 2009, 77). The Platonic myth not only displays arbitrariness but also explicitly presents itself in this form. Rancière employs 'discursive acts' as a means to challenge the unequal allocation of fixed roles and conditions:

> 'In the *Nights of Labor*, I have removed workers' texts from the economic-socio-cultural chains that awaited them, in order to read philosophical myths in the Platonic manner [...] It was necessary to stage this philosophico-mythical event of the coming to light of the thought of those who were not "destined" to it' (Rancière 2009, 182)

The Platonic myths, for Rancière, exemplify what he terms a 'politics of writing' (Rancière 2009, 353).

The *Philosopher and his Poor* is all about the question of the articulation between the distribution of positions in the city and the allocation of specific capacities, whether
intellectual, perceptual or aesthetic. In this context, Plato establishes an ‘identification between the distribution of thought and the distribution of statuses’, primarily through the use of myth (Rancière 2009, 61–74).²⁰ It is thus not properly scientific or philosophical discourse that directly and simultaneously establishes social inequality through a unified ‘discursive act’:

> ‘Basically, the philosophical discourse puts itself out of itself in the very definition of its own: This *muthos* to which the *logos* must identify itself in order to outline the distributions [...]’. (Rancière 2009, 62)

Studying the circular relationship between the distribution of discourses, knowledge and social distribution, between words and bodies, Rancière acknowledges that he seeks ‘the places and discursive moments where these distributions become problematic’ (Rancière 2009, 77).

Philosophy, in Plato, in order to establish its own legitimacy, effectively shapes other, inferior and illegitimate identities, thus playing a role in social distribution. This is exactly what constitutes a ‘discursive moment’, necessitating that ‘the truth must be said on the mode of fiction’, here myth. This implies that ‘discursive acts’ can either contribute to creating or reinforcing the ‘police’ order, or conversely, question it radically. The discursive act induces a shift from the police’s logic of coincidence to the logic of non-coincidence implied by the equality of each with all. In the ‘post-foundationalist’ context of Rancière’s political ontology (Hallward 2009, 115–116), equality nevertheless functions as a *principle*, if not a foundation. Such a principle is precisely what is at work in the Phaedrus myth. The Platonic myth is significant because it creates a ‘discursive moment’ that hints at the potential for politics within the realm of the ‘police’ or regulated social order. This is a crucial contrast to sociology, which operates by naturalizing and radicalizing the inequality it seeks to explain. Unlike sociology, Plato doesn’t define the very act of exclusion as science, but rather presents it as a form of deception or ‘lie’ (see again Rancière 2009, 187: ‘The essence of the police is the principle of saturation’).

However, it’s important not to overstate the ability to extract the inherent political disagreement from the Platonic text. Rancière’s evolving positions across his works provide a deeper understanding of the significance of Platonic myths within his own perspective. He elucidates this evolution in the preface of *On the Shores of Politics*. This collection includes writings from 1986 to 1988 (Rancière 2009, 177–178) and, to some extent, a similar use of the Platonic reference like in *The Philosopher and His Poor*. Indeed, at that time, Rancière argued that Book VIII of the *Republic*, particularly in its portrayal of the democratic man’s ‘lifestyle’, held the key to the ‘power of the *demos*’ and the ‘principle of the multiple’. This was essential to ‘rejecting his assimilation into the unity of a collective entity that assigns ranks and identities’ (Rancière 2004b, 66–67).²¹ During this period, Rancière’s aim was already to challenge Bourdieu’s ideas. Rancière employed criticism of the Platonic democratic man to promote ‘a positive notion of the appearance and egalitarian artifice to the demystifying practices as the one of Bourdieu’s sociology, resuming the old explanatory schema presupposing that power operates by the
effect of misrecognition produced on those who are subjected to it' (Rancière 2009, 177–178).

However, it is crucial to provide some context to avoid overestimating the significance of the seemingly favourable treatment of the Platonic ‘democratic bazaar’. When Rancière criticizes certain theses of Lyotard, he reproaches him precisely for remaining locked up in the frame of Platonism and for reducing ‘the democratic *apeïron* to the sole turbulence of appetites’ (Rancière 2004b, 108). This detail highlights a crucial point: Whenever Plato is reinterpreted through Rancière’s perspective, it is always subordinated to unconditional equality’s claim. Once this fundamental objective is established, the chosen strategy may vary. This is what the preface written *after* the book explains. It emphasizes the need to ‘turn against itself the logic proper to political philosophy tradition’, or even to ‘redirect each of its thoughts’. Rancière ended up becoming unequivocal in his stance:

> ‘This logic cannot be turned around. And the detour must be broken’.

(Rancière 2004b, 15)

In *The Philosopher and his Poor*, it becomes apparent that Plato offers, unlike Bourdieu, a unique opportunity to ‘turn against itself the logic proper to the tradition of political philosophy’. This work, authored in 1983, predates the texts found in *On the Shores of Politics* (1986–1988). The latter collection, as stated by Rancière, delves deeper into ‘examining the duplicity at work in this realization/suppression of politics which is at the same time a suppression/realization of philosophy’ (Rancière 2009, 177). However, this sense of duplicity eventually fades away in the *Disagreement* (or the ‘Ten Theses on Politics’) period, spanning from 1994 to 1996, which acknowledges the impossibility of any internal critique to ‘sew together philosophy and politics’ (Rancière 2009, 62)²² and instead opts for the strategy of the ‘rupture’.

Rancière argues that his ‘primary concern was to dispel the simplistic dichotomy between the realm of appearances and that of reality’ (Rancière 2009, 178). When considering the role of philosophy within the city, the clear-cut divide between mere opinion (*doxa*) and true knowledge (*epistèmè*), which is prominent in the central books of Plato’s *Republic*, becomes to maintain as such. This division truly holds among the friends of philosophy (Glaucon and Adeimantus, with whom Socrates converses in books V to VII) and philosophers, whose educational background allows them to consider the changing realm of sensitive objects. By contrast, when philosophers are tasked with ruling the city, can they entirely forgo the manipulation of appearances?

In addressing the city’s ruling, Rancière is right to acknowledge the complexity of the dichotomy between appearances and reality. Yet, he is also correct in pushing the analysis further to demonstrate that the existence of one fundamentally relies on the other, constituting an inseparable relationship. The *Republic* indeed introduces an ‘othering’ process (distinguishing those who don’t think, those who work, those who have no leisure, etc.). The arbitrary origin of this process, presented through its mythical form, does not ‘naturalize’ it. According to Rancière, equality takes precedence; real
emancipation entails returning the social order to its ‘ultimate contingency’: ‘There is politics when the supposedly natural logic of the domination is crossed by the effect of this equality’, an effect it inherently presupposes (Rancière 1995, 37). In this regard, the Platonic text seems closer to the potential for generating political conflict centred on the concept of equality than what Rancière calls sociology.

Conclusion

‘Political conflict’, as conceptualized by Rancière, is essentially ‘conceived as a
specific symbolization of otherness’ (Rancière 2009, 179). Plato, through his use of myth,
presents the suppression of politics in a problematic form, thereby paving the way for the
potential vindication of this conflict. Both Plato and Bourdieu contribute to legitimating
the social order, referred to as ‘police’, and reinforce this legitimacy by excluding
marginalized groups from explanatory knowledge. However, one notable difference
between Plato and sociology is that he does not categorize this exclusion itself as a
scientific concept.²³ The class of guardians, representing those who possess knowledge, is
indeed defined in opposition to that of the producers, whose labour sustains the city.
However, the discourse that justifies this order, according to Plato, is not inherently
scientific but rather perceived as a lie.

In contrast, Bourdieu and Passeron's sociology relies on a central presupposition, namely, the 'illusion inherent to the spontaneous consciousness of social actors' (Rancière 2004b, 83). What the noble lie introduces, emphasizing its arbitrary nature, is effectively realized in Bourdieu's work. This explicit dimension of arbitrariness, which could set Plato apart from Bourdieu, aligns with the idea that the practical implementation of philosopher-rule does not fall within the realm of intelligible knowledge. While it may not be reasonable to completely exempt Plato from Rancière's criticism, Rancière's critique reveals an inherent quality in Plato's thinking. This quality 'challenges the simplistic dichotomy between the realm of appearances and the realm of reality', effectively subverting its own foundations. By restoring the origin of the real to its arbitrary nature, subverting its own logic, the Platonic text unveils beneath the 'social' the space for genuine political disagreement.

By examining the political potency of myth and the Platonic reference in Rancière, this
article concludes by taking a stance on the debate about Rancière's radical egalitarianism's
lack of ability to conceptualize any institutionalization of politics (see Quintana 2018
discussing Hallward 2009, May 2008, 2010a, 2010b, Žižek 2006; Deranty 2013). First,
the use of writing, as shown in the *Phaedrus*, brings about a model of radical equality,
since it can dispense with any identifiable author and circulates anarchically, while
opening up to a collective and temporal dimension. By insisting on the possibility of
politicizing social space, defined as a series of perceptual arrangements and configu-
rations, this perspective breaks with the logic of ephemeral and inevitably individual
performance.²⁴ Emancipation consists not so much in an ephemeral, individual per-
formance as in a model of attention to the effects, embedded in time, of the knowledge and
power effects that pervade the use of language. The ambiguity of any 'discursive act',
which can either reinforce the repressive social order, like the myth of the *Republic*, or
contest and reconfigure it, as seen in the *Phaedrus*, emphasizes that we cannot completely
oppose politics and police, or institutional and non-institutional domains in a rigid di-
chotomy (Quintana 2018, 16). The tight connection between material conditions, such as
social positions, and the distribution of the perceptible, has been a fundamental aspect of
both Bourdieu's and Plato's criticisms. The reconfiguration of these orders is what is at
stake, where using myth as a tool is more effective than sociological discourse. The main
advantage lies in the fact that myth is an artifact, and does not presuppose neither nature
nor scientific objectivity.

ORCID iD

Marion Kim-Chi Pollaert https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4541-4296

Notes

A first version of this article was presented at a conference held at the Université de Franche-Comté and a second at the Congrès de l'Association belge de science politique (Liège, Belgium). I am grateful to the organizers, to Arnaud Macé, Laurent Perreau, Martin Deleixhe and Clotilde Nouët, as well as to the anonymous reviewer, whose valuable suggestions have improved the current version. This work was supported by the Centro de Investigação em Ciências Sociais and Université de Nantes (as a Research associate).

1. When citing the French edition, the author's translation is usually given. This is of course also the case for texts not translated into English.

2. Secondary bibliography on Rancière has considered the ambiguity of Rancière's ongoing reference to classical antiquity and the ancients in general while he aims to challenge the foundations of political philosophy (see *Mecchia 2009*; *Méchoulan 2009*). *Badiou (2009, 49)* highlights that there exists a '*good Plato*' within Socratic ignorance, alongside constant rigorous critique. *Hallward (2006: 124)* mentions Rancière's ambiguous proximity to Plato (as opposed to Aristotle), but does not elaborate: 'Rancière's rejoinder is to return, in effect, more or less directly to a revalued version of the Platonic diagnosis. Mimesis and democracy regain their subversive force, but in an affirmative rather than derogatory mode'. However, none of these tangential views of my problem is based on a more exhaustive internal reading of Rancière's work. Furthermore, *The Philosopher and His Poor* has received limited attention in secondary literature, often being referenced for Rancière's opposition to Althusser, except for a few attempts to analyze Rancière's complex relationship to philosophy (*Thomson 2011, 201–202 or *Mecchia 2010*'). In addition, this article will also draw substantially on *Et tant pis pour les gens fatigués* (Rancière 2009), which has not yet been fully translated into English.

3. If there have been studies analyzing Rancière's critique of sociology, or more specifically Bourdieu (Nordmann 2006; Toscano 2011), they always emphasize the continuity with Plato and disregard the examination of contrasts.

4. See Panagia (2018, 20 and n. 4) about the translation of *partage* in 'distribution'.

5. For an exhaustive survey of Rancière's attacks on Bourdieu or sociology at large, see Toscano (2011, 233, n. 2): Of course the last chapter in *The Philosopher and His Poor*, but also 'L'éthique de la sociologie', in *Les scènes du peuple* (2003) and *Chroniques des temps consensuels* (Rancière 2005b, 51–2).
6. See Nordmann (2006, 93–106) for a broader analysis of how the lack of knowledge among dominated groups is a *consequence* rather than a *cause* of domination in Bourdieu’s theory of ‘intellectual and political dispossession’. Toscano questions the relevance of intermediate modalities between pure necessity and contingency (2011, 221) and spells out some of the risks of ‘antisociology’ (2011, 228, 230). Chambers (2013, 107) offers further clarification of how arguments against Bourdieu probably convey the critique against Althusser (see also Pelletier 2009, 138). However, it is worth noting that Nordmann correctly highlights Rancière’s non-compliance with the academic principle of ‘not asking an author any other questions than those he had asked himself’ (2006, 99, n. 27). See also Sonderegger (2011, 256) on the exaggeration of Rancière’s criticism of Bourdieu and, more broadly, on the possibility of finding complementarities in Rancière’s and Bourdieu’s conceptions of socio-political critique (see also Corcuff 2015, 200). On this ‘exaggeration’, Pelletier claims: ‘This is exactly Rancière’s point. He does not target the methodological validity of Bourdieu’s research – its “veracity” as it were – but rather its performative effect’ (2009, 141).

7. I leave aside the question of Bourdieu's later development, such as in his work *Pascalian Meditations* (Bourdieu 2003). It is noteworthy that Rancière relies on the *Reproduction* and the *Distinction* (Bourdieu and Passeron 1970; 1979) or nuances his own criticism (see Sonderegger 2011, 261).

8. Rancière also criticizes the use of opinion polls, citing *La Distinction* (Bourdieu 1979a, 602), in which ‘great music’ is defined by Strauss waltzes, thus introducing a confirmation bias (Rancière 2004a, 169, where ‘grande musique’ should rather be translated by ‘great music’ than ‘classical music’ to make it clear).

9. ‘To remain master in its field, the sociology of reproduction will assert as principle of the pedagogic apparatus a misrecognition that should not be the misrecognition of a hidden content [for instance, relations of production that are outside of sociology’s domain] but merely of itself’. (Rancière 2004a, 176). Necessity that ‘the habitus is perpetually produced and re-produced’ remains out of reach of social actors since, for instance, ‘pedagogic work produces the legitimacy of the product and, inseparably from this, legitimate need in producing the legitimate consumer’ (Boltanski, 1990, 177–178; Bourdieu, 1980, 1982, 1984 quoting (Bourdieu and Passeron 1970), 53, see also the quotations from *Leçon sur la leçon* and *Le Sens pratique*). This inaccessibility is sometimes made explicit by Bourdieu himself; Rancière quotes *Questions de sociologie* as follows: ‘The sociologist’s misfortune is that most of the time, the people who have the technical means to appropriate what he says have no wish to appropriate it, … whereas those who would have interest in appropriating it do not have the instruments for appropriation (theoretical culture, etc.)’ (Rancière 2004a, 180; Bourdieu 41).

10. For the reference to Foucault see Rancière 2009, 160–161, 218–219, 353, 501.

11. See also Rancière 2007, 30 quoting 374c-d.

12. *Resp.* 2.373e-374a. Cf. Rancière 2007, 32: ‘The warrior is the one who *could* do something else: Bite the friend’, this ambivalence requires the education of guardians.

13. See also Rancière 2007, 290: ‘Sociology emerges precisely in Plato as the rationalization of the hierarchy of souls in functional division of tasks’.

14. Rancière distinguishes ‘Platonic *archipolitics*, which tries to abolish the democratic space to institute a community of the One’ from Marxian *metapolitics* and Aristotelian *parapolitics* (2009, 178–181). ‘The impulse of philosophy has been to subtract the dissensual character of
politics, by suppression (Plato), pacification (Aristotle) or displacement (Aristotle)' (181), see Méchoulan 2009, 61; Mecchia 2009, 77–8; May 2008, 43–4.

15. Other interpreters insist instead on the first part of the myth (common kinship rather than difference in value), the possibility of reclassification and the exclusive criterion of aptitude against heredity. See Rowett 2016 on the different interpretations of this passage. Rowett insists on the subversive character of the 'social mobility', 'equality of opportunity' or even 'distribution of responsibilities according to ability' (2016, 85–86; 90) promoted by the myth. According to her, this ability is highlighted by the educational process symbolized by the myth (2016: 98). According to Macé 2018, the possibility that each birth contradicts heredity shows Plato's recognition that 'the virtues of a community and of the individuals who compose it are never entirely predetermined' (2018, 42). Macé recognizes the natural foundation of virtue to better insist on the fact that this nature is 'unpredictable', he recognizes the Platonic myth as having a more subversive meaning than Rancière. For a more complete study of the myth, see Schofield 2007.

16. Xenophon, *Economics* (IV, 2–3) insists, with regard to the *banausikai tekhnai*, on the physical alteration, the ruin of the body.

17. See Nightingale (2004, 122): 'Plato subverted this kind of discourse <against *banausoi*> by turning it against the aristocrats themselves', or further: 'Plato redefines *banausia* as a condition of the soul rather than a class category' (126).

18. The notion of mystification also echoes Rancière's analysis of the doubling of common sense that Bourdieu's sociology would produce, while giving itself the distinctive scientific task of bringing to light the 'hidden', as Bourdieu's *Questions de sociologie* seems to acknowledge (Bourdieu 2003, 56, 198; Rancière 2004a, 169–170): 'The truth everybody knows is a truth that hides the fact that it is concealed'.

19. There is a third type of references to Plato, cf. Rancière 2005a, 45–48; Rancière 2009, 169; *Laws*, 3.690a-c and what Rancière identifies in Aristotle's *Politics* as the original founding misconception of democracy in the *Disagreement*.

20. Rancière 2009, 64: 'What enters of common power in the word of the one whose social occupation is defined by the exercise of such or such *techné*? Plato's drastic answer consists in identifying the One of the community to the very principle of the hierarchical distribution of the bodies in the community to the unequal participation to the common power of the thought'.

21. What was then at stake was the opposition to the 'police' but also, specifically to the work, the xenophobic 'passion': Rancière opens two fronts at once.

22. With some nuances: For instance, the *Disagreement* speaks of a *reduction of* politics by the police rather than a suppression/realization of politics by philosophy.

23. See Badiou 2006, 138 on Plato's ambiguity on this subject, between egalitarianism in front of the idea and 'aristocracy of transmission'.

24. See for instance Hallward 2009, 123: 'Its [*sc.* equality's theatrocritic configuration] effects are unabashedly sporadic and intermittent. Ranciere himself emphasizes this point: Political sequences are by their very nature rare and ephemeral. Once the stage is struck, little or nothing remains'. Or on the individualism of such a conception, see 2006: 125: 'Ranciere is not interested, as a rule, in the domain of theatre or anywhere else, in the group dynamics of collective mobilization or empowerment: The model in each case is provided by the isolated process of intellectual self-emancipation'.
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