Archive of Philosophy

In the third and final installment of this interview series, Jacques Rancière reflects on May 1968 and neoliberalism in order to contextualise his work criticising the Althusserian distinction between science and ideology, as well as to shed light on how his own philosophy developed in relation to those of Althusser, Bourdieu, and Foucault.

If the celebrated existentialist philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre is remembered today it is likely to be for his novels and fiction, or for his post-war classic Being and Nothingness. Less often discussed is his groundbreaking work of Marxist philosophy, Critique of Dialectical Reason, and the philosophy of praxis he develops in it. But, as Lorenzo Buti argues, it is in this work that his true political power lies.

The time of emancipation, in Rancière’s imagination, is not a progression towards truth and justice. It is rather, Katharina Clausius argues, a common ground whose gridlines sprout delicate tendrils that extend out, coil around, germinate new shoots that spiral out beyond its boundaries.

Oliver Davis on neoliberalism's appropriation of the Marxist narrative of historical necessity. 

Introducing the Verso roundtable on Modern Times, Jussi Palmusaari reflects on the underlying spatial logic of Rancière's conception of modernity and problematizes his notion of time as montage. If  time is not a line stretching from the past to the future, chaining causes and effects, how can it form the horizon for strategical political action?

Alain Badiou on the disorientation of the world.

This text, written by Jacques Ranciere more than 20 years ago, seems particularly relevant in the run-up to a presidential election that is already saturated with racist ideas, nonstop polemics and the obsessions of a far right that is guaranteed media coverage whether benevolent or pseudo-indignant.

In the aftermath of May 68, the question of the school was omnipresent in French philosophy. In this interview Etienne Balibar discusses the different critiques of the school in post-68 French thought and the challenges involved in developing a Marxist theory of the 'school apparatus'. 

Placing The Destruction of Reason among the classics of Marxism, Enzo Traverso posits the discussion of Lukács’ most controversial book on the right track.