Chapters in this book

1. Frontmatter i
2. Contents v
3. Acknowledgements viii
4. Introduction: The Antinomies of Politics 1
5. 1. Towards Democracy’s Anarchic Condition
6. Democracy as Critique 19
7. Plato Discovers the Political: Rancière’s Reading of the Allegory of the Ship 22
8. Philosophy’s Sovereignty over Politics: Abensour’s Reading of the Allegory of the Cave 29
9. The Polemics of the Polis: The Greek Invention of Politics 33
10. Democracy’s Anarchic Condition: A New Political Ontology 38
11. Making Politics Thinkable 39
12. 2. Dissolution of the Archê
13. In the Name of Democracy: The Kratos of the Demos 45
14. On the Universality of the Problem of the Archê 48
15. The Nature of Rule: An Interpretation of Plato’s Laws 50
16. Commandment and Commencement: The Strange Logic of the Archê Principle 54
17. In Summary: Archic Government 59
18. Enter Democracy: What Does It Mean to be against the Archê? 60
19. Understanding Democracy’s ‘Anarchic Title’ 61
20. Democracy as ‘Political’ or ‘Anarchic’ Government 66
21. Anarchy: The Infinite Opening 70
22. 3. To Think Democracy Otherwise: Claude Lefort and Savage Democracy
23. On the Status of Political Philosophy 77
24. Pierre Clastres and the Logic of Being-Against 81
25. The Essence of Democracy: A Question of Interpretation 84
26. Democratic Revolution: Tocqueville and Lefort 90
27. The ‘Principle of Anarchy’ and the Emancipatory Act of Politics 96
28. Permanent Contestation: Savage Democracy and Human Rights 99
29. Thinking Democracy Savage: A Philosophical Exercise 103
30. 4. Democratisation of the Sensible: Democracy against the Police
31. On the Many Forms of Being-Against 114
32. Politics and the Police: A Radical Dichotomy 117
33. Foucault, the Police and Governmentality 119
34. The Government of the Sensible and the Symbolic Constitution of Society: Rancière’s Concept of the Police 124
35. ‘Logical Revolt’: Towards a Theory of the Political Subject 130
36. On Political Names 136
37. The ‘History’ or ‘Tradition’ of Emancipation 140
38. 5. The Politics of Emancipation: Democracy against the State
39. Social Domination and Political Emancipation: An Introduction to Abensour’s General Approach to Democracy 149
40. From the Frankfurt School to Lefort and Machiavelli: Abensour’s Critical Political Philosophy 152
41. Utopia and Democracy 156
42. Against the State: Clastres contra Hobbes 160
43. Marx’s ‘Machiavellian Moment’: Hegel, Sovereignty and Political Alienation 164
44. ‘True’ Democracy and the Reduction of the State 172
45. Insurgent Democracy 179
46. In Summary: Rancière’s Democracy against the Police and Abensour’s Democracy against the State 183
47. Conclusion: ‘Hic et nunc’ – the Use of Philosophy and the Critique of the Present 194
48. Bibliography 207
49. Index 219