A thinker of impurity, Rancière is most often read as proposing an alternative to the ontology of the political. Against the many attempts to restore a pure sense of politics and of its public space, Rancière maintains the place of politics in a common appearance that is identical to reality. Though typically seen as having broken with the Marxist tradition, I argue here that it is possible to find in his fragmentary style something like a negative dialectic. While politics is what his works address, it is also how it is addressed. Politics, and its assertion of an apparently impossible equality, must be lived out by critique and not merely described. In doing just this, Rancière offers a renewed take on the western-Marxist tradition’s politics of aesthetics. Indeed, I maintain that Rancière, far from breaking with Marxism full stop, instead effects a reversal, a reversal of education into politics.

Este trabalho surge da inquietação frente aos diálogos entre educação estética e design, observados por anos em experiências profissionais dentro de educativos de museus e centros culturais da cidade de São Paulo. Decorrente da vontade de analisar mais detidamente estes diálogos, a finalidade deste trabalho é de estuda-los por meio de uma análise histórica do design, com a qual o caso do educativo do sistema britânico de ensino, South Kensington, guarda importantes interlocuções, mesmo que em chave crítica de análise. A partir desta crítica, ampliam-se os estudos em direção à filosofia, permitindo a investigação destes diálogos sob a lente do conceito de \"emancipação\", de Jacques Rancière e, simultaneamente, sob as perspectivas teóricas de Bruno Latour, especificamente aquelas voltadas ao design. É do reexame da ideia de design e de educação estética que esta pesquisa parte para uma reflexão sobre como o modus operandi do primeiro, articulador por essência, impulsiona o segundo no sentido de possibilitar regimes emancipatórios, a partir da ideia de estética enquanto configuração de paisagens sensíveis de determinados sujeitos. Tendo em vista essa atualização das duas disciplinas, este trabalho pretende analisar a potência de trabalha-los sob uma perspectiva transdisciplinar, segundo a hipótese de que, para permitir a emancipação, faz-se necessário considerar tanto regimes constituídos por ímpetos de elaboração quanto os constituídos por paixões e afetos. / This work arose from the restlessness felt when facing the dialogues between aesthetic education and design, observed for years in professional experiences within museums and cultural centers educational programs in São Paulo. From the will to analyze more closely these dialogues derived the purpose of this work, to study them through a historical analysis of design, in which the case of the British educational system, South Kensington, holds important connections, even in a critical way. From this point, the studies extend toward philosophy, allowing us to investigate these dialogues under Jacques Rancière\'s concept of \"emancipation\" and, simultaneously, under Bruno Latour\'s theoretical perspectives, specifically those focused on design. It is from the reexamination of the ideas of design and aesthetic education that this research proposes a reflection about how design\'s modus operandi, an articulator by essence, boosts the aesthetic education in order to incorporate emancipatory schemes based on the definition of aesthetics as the sensitive landscape of certain individuals. Considering this update of both disciplines, this work aims to analyze the power of approaching them from a transdisciplinary perspective, according to the hypothesis that, to allow emancipation, it is necessary to consider both schemes, those consisting of the impetus of elaboration as those consisting of passions and affections.

O intuito desse trabalho é pensar a concepção de escrita em Jacques Rancière a partir da hipótese de que ela pode ser compreendida como algo além do gesto de traçar palavras no papel seguindo as regras de uma gramática, podendo, antes, ser pensada a partir da ideia de partilha do sensível; ideia que expressa um sentido duplo de divisão e de comum, de algo que é partilhado ao mesmo tempo que dividido, expressando o sentido de um modo de viver juntos que é dissensual. A escrita reuniria o pensamento de uma estética da política e de uma política da estética, dando a ver o aspecto político inerente a toda discussão estética tanto quanto o aspecto estético inerente a todo debate político. Essa relação entre estética e política implica em pensarmos como essa concepção de escrita em Rancière embaralha as bordas que desenham seu próprio significado e, ainda, as bordas que desenham as divisões entre os campos de saberes, entre ficção e realidade, entre artes e ciências humanas. Desse modo, esse trabalho passará pelo pensamento do entrelaçamento entre as diversas artes e a filosofia com o intuito de dar a ver como configuram um espaço comum de pensamento no qual se expressa um aspecto político dos modos de visibilidade das coisas, da ordenação dos elementos de uma narrativa e das maneiras de distribuição de lugares e funções. A escrita em Rancière, assim, será pensada a partir do encontro de uma miríade de modos de ver e habitar o mundo que configuram uma comunidade de pensamento. Esta, por sua vez, deve ser pensada no interior daquilo que o autor denomina como regime estético das artes, a saber, um regime de identificação das artes compreendido a partir da mudança no modo de pensamento que teria tomado forma na literatura do século XIX, a partir do que teria deixado de fazer sentido a preponderância da razão sobre o sensível, da forma sobre a matéria. Esse novo modo de pensamento teria reconfigurado nossos modos de vida, tornando possível a afirmação de que as coisas banais da vida não se separam do pensamento e que ambos relacionar-se-iam pela capacidade de expressão do sensível. O sensível, nesse regime estético, não está à serviço da razão no interior de uma ordenação causal da narrativa que se empenha por naturalizar os espaços e os tempos, mas, antes, é autônomo; o que implica pensar que as experiências estéticas e políticas podem afetar ou ser afetadas por qualquer um. Nesse sentido, a ideia de comunidade de pensamento surge como figura importante do pensamento dessa escrita que é algo além do jogo com as palavras e que será pensada como a operação de uma partilha do sensível. Pretendese, assim, construir uma concepção de escrita em Rancière a partir do diálogo entre o cinema, a literatura e a filosofia. A escrita, assim, deve surgir como conceito que perpassa as diversas divisões dos campos, traçando uma teia comum de pensamento, sempre a se mover e a se refazer, a redesenhar suas bordas e limites. / The purpose of this work is to think Jacques Rancière\'s conception of writing starting from the hypothesis that it can be understood as something other than the gesture of tracing words on paper following the rules of a grammar. Instead, it may be thought out of the idea of distribution of the sensible; an idea that expresses a double sense: one of division and other of common, of something that is shared while being divided, expressing the sense of a way of living together that is dissensual. Writing would bring together the thought of an aesthetic of politics and of a politics of aesthetics, showing the political aspect inherent to any aesthetic discussion as much as the aesthetic aspect inherent to any political debate. This relation between aesthetics and politics implies in thinking how this conception of writing in Rancière shuffles the edges that draw their own meaning and also the edges that draw the divisions between the fields of knowledge, between fiction and reality, between arts and the human sciences. In this way, this work will go through the intertwining between the various arts and philosophy in order to show how they form a common space of thought which express a political aspect of the modes of visibility of things, of the ordenation of the elements of a narrative and of the ways of distributing places and functions. The writing in Rancière, thus, will be thought from the meeting of a myriad of ways of seeing and inhabiting the world that form a community of thought. This, in turn, must be thought within what the author calls the aesthetic regime of the arts, namely, a regime of identification of the arts understood as the changes in the mode of thought that would have taken shape in the literature of the nineteenth century, from what would have ceased to make sense the preponderance of reason over the sensible, of form over matter. This new way of thinking would have reconfigured our ways of life, making possible the assertion that the banal things of life do not separate from thought and that both would relate to each other because of the capacity of expression of the sensible. The sensitive, in this aesthetic regime, is not at the service of reason within a causal order of the narrative that strives to naturalize spaces and times, but rather is autonomous; which implies that aesthetic and political experiences can affect or be affected by anyone. In this sense, the idea of community of thought emerges as an important figure in the thinking of this writing that is something beyond the play with words and which will be thought of as the operation of a distribution of the sensible. It is intended, therefore, to construct a conception of writing in Rancière from the dialogue between cinema, literature and philosophy. Writing, then, must emerge as a concept that runs through the various divisions of the fields, tracing a common web of thought, always moving and redoing itself, redrawing its edges and boundaries.

Este trabalho surge da inquietação frente aos diálogos entre educação estética e design, observados por anos em experiências profissionais dentro de educativos de museus e centros culturais da cidade de São Paulo. Decorrente da vontade de analisar mais detidamente estes diálogos, a finalidade deste trabalho é de estuda-los por meio de uma análise histórica do design, com a qual o caso do educativo do sistema britânico de ensino, South Kensington, guarda importantes interlocuções, mesmo que em chave crítica de análise. A partir desta crítica, ampliam-se os estudos em direção à filosofia, permitindo a investigação destes diálogos sob a lente do conceito de \"emancipação\", de Jacques Rancière e, simultaneamente, sob as perspectivas teóricas de Bruno Latour, especificamente aquelas voltadas ao design. É do reexame da ideia de design e de educação estética que esta pesquisa parte para uma reflexão sobre como o modus operandi do primeiro, articulador por essência, impulsiona o segundo no sentido de possibilitar regimes emancipatórios, a partir da ideia de estética enquanto configuração de paisagens sensíveis de determinados sujeitos. Tendo em vista essa atualização das duas disciplinas, este trabalho pretende analisar a potência de trabalha-los sob uma perspectiva transdisciplinar, segundo a hipótese de que, para permitir a emancipação, faz-se necessário considerar tanto regimes constituídos por ímpetos de elaboração quanto os constituídos por paixões e afetos. / This work arose from the restlessness felt when facing the dialogues between aesthetic education and design, observed for years in professional experiences within museums and cultural centers educational programs in São Paulo. From the will to analyze more closely these dialogues derived the purpose of this work, to study them through a historical analysis of design, in which the case of the British educational system, South Kensington, holds important connections, even in a critical way. From this point, the studies extend toward philosophy, allowing us to investigate these dialogues under Jacques Rancière\'s concept of \"emancipation\" and, simultaneously, under Bruno Latour\'s theoretical perspectives, specifically those focused on design. It is from the reexamination of the ideas of design and aesthetic education that this research proposes a reflection about how design\'s modus operandi, an articulator by essence, boosts the aesthetic education in order to incorporate emancipatory schemes based on the definition of aesthetics as the sensitive landscape of certain individuals. Considering this update of both disciplines, this work aims to analyze the power of approaching them from a transdisciplinary perspective, according to the hypothesis that, to allow emancipation, it is necessary to consider both schemes, those consisting of the impetus of elaboration as those consisting of passions and affections.

The aim of this essay is to investigate the reconfiguration and, to some extent, the total deconstruction of the aesthetic field, such as we have know it since Baumgarten, that is promoted by Conceptual art. It is our intention to show the philosophical importance and the theoretical implications of the questions raised by this artistic movement, which somehow instigated the tumultuous debate directed to overwhelm much of the art world from the late 1960's onward. We believe that the very core of Conceptual art is philosophical and in this respect our programme is to investigate how Conceptual art not only challenges the viewer with traditional aesthetic concepts, but also with the very means used by philosophy to analyse art. This essay aims therefore to be an analysis of the philosophy of Conceptual art, which we put in relation to the aesthetic investigations of three philosophers - TheodorWiesengrundAdorno, Umberto Eco and Jacques Rancière. The ambition is to shed theoretical light on an artistic movement certainly scantly considered within the philosophical domain, while it indicates itself as the contingent successor to philosophy.

Cette thèse de maîtrise porte sur les pensées politiques de Jacques Rancière et d’Hannah Arendt. Elle a pour point de départ la critique formulée par Rancière à l’endroit d’Arendt. Dans un premier temps, nous allons explorer les diverses accusations formulées par Rancière à l’endroit de la penseuse et, dans un deuxième temps, il sera question de répondre à ces accusations en soulignant les importantes affinités qui existent entre leurs conceptions du conflit et de la théâtralité en politique. Nous constaterons en outre que le projet arendtien visant à réhabiliter la dignité de la politique ne se nourrit pas principalement de ses lectures d’Aristote, contrairement à ce que suggère Rancière, mais bien de ses lectures de Machiavel. C’est précisément à partir du machiavélisme que nous allons proposer un rapprochement entre Arendt et Rancière et ainsi, aller au-delà de leur mésentente.

Com o intuito de pensar sobre a peculiaridade dos impasses relativos à formação dos mais novos no contexto de uma sociedade de consumidores, recorremos ao que Hannah Arendt e Jacques Rancière propuseram acerca da relação entre arte e política. De acordo com Arendt, um dos desafios impostos à tarefa dos mais velhos de introduzir os recém-chegados ao mundo numa sociedade de consumidores diz respeito ao modo como temos nos relacionado com a herança cultural que o passado nos legou. Isso porque destruímos os objetos culturais que ajudam a constituir um mundo comum na medida em que os transformamos em meios de entretenimento, passíveis de serem consumidos. Se partimos da reflexão sobre o fenômeno da arte como uma das formas privilegiadas de compreender o que é esse mundo comum ao qual os adultos devem introduzir as crianças é porque, segundo Arendt, as obras de arte são os objetos culturais máximos que devem ser salvos da ruína da destruição ou do esquecimento. Rancière, por sua vez, afirma que a arte e a política podem contribuir para que possamos reconfigurar as coisas comuns, mesmo no contexto da sociedade homogênea e consensual da qual fazemos parte. Elas podem romper com a distribuição dos espaços, das competências e incompetências de acordo com o lugar que ocupamos na sociedade, contribuindo para forjarmos contra o consenso outras formas de senso comum. Podemos pensar, então, sobre um sentido formativo da arte a partir da possibilidade de reconfigurarmos outras formas de convívio que ligam sujeitos ou grupos em torno de uma outra comunidade de palavras e coisas, formas e significados. Rancière não parece acreditar, nesse sentido, apenas na destruição do que há em comum entre os homens numa sociedade marcada pela lógica do consumo. Ele afirma que a transição dos objetos e produtos do mundo da arte para a esfera da utilidade e da mercadoria pode romper com o curso uniforme do tempo, alterando o estatuto dos objetos e a relação entre os signos e as formas de arte, de modo que possamos nos apropriar ativamente do mundo comum. Nesse contexto, acreditamos que a escola pode se configurar como um recorte no tempo e no espaço da produção e do consumo, em que podemos oferecer aos recém-chegados a possibilidade de pertencerem ao comum do mundo. Talvez numa época em que as coisas mais corriqueiras podem adentrar a esfera da arte, propondo outras formas de experiência sensível, a educação tenha, mesmo num contexto de crise, a possibilidade aberta e sempre renovada de convidar os mais novos a adentrar a imensa floresta de coisas e signos que constituem o mundo comum. / In order to analyze the peculiarity of the dispute over the education of the newcomers in a consumer society, we call upon what Hannah Arendt and Jacques Rancière proposed about the relationship between art and politics. In line with Arendt, one of the challenges faced by the adults when introducing newcomers to the world in a consumer society refers to the way we deal with the cultural heritage that has been transmitted to us from the past. We destroy the cultural objects that help provide a common world as we transform them into consumable media entertainment. We begin by considering the art as a privileged way of understanding this common world in which adults introduce children because, according to Arendt, the art works are cultural objects par excellence that must be protected from ruin of destruction or oblivion. Rancière, in turn, says that art and politics support the reconfiguration of common things, even in the context of homogeneous and consensual society to which we belong. They can break with the use of spaces, the competence and incompetence with respect to our place in society, contributing to forge consensus against different forms of common sense. We can think about an educational sense of art out of the possibility of configuration of different forms of living together that bind men and groups around a different community of words and things, forms and meanings. Rancière does not seem to believe only in the destruction of what is common among men in a society ruled by the logic of consumption. He says that the transition of the objects and products from the art world to the sphere of utility and commodity may break the uniform course of time, changing the status of objects and the relationship between signs and art forms, so we can actively appropriate the common world. In this context, we believe that school can be configured as a cutout in time and space of production and consumption, in which we can offer newcomers the opportunity to belong to the common world. Perhaps in a time when the most ordinary things can enter the sphere of art, proposing other forms of sensitive experience, education has even in times of crisis the open and constantly renewed possibility to invite the young to enter the vast forest of things and signs that constitute the common world.

Com o intuito de pensar sobre a peculiaridade dos impasses relativos à formação dos mais novos no contexto de uma sociedade de consumidores, recorremos ao que Hannah Arendt e Jacques Rancière propuseram acerca da relação entre arte e política. De acordo com Arendt, um dos desafios impostos à tarefa dos mais velhos de introduzir os recém-chegados ao mundo numa sociedade de consumidores diz respeito ao modo como temos nos relacionado com a herança cultural que o passado nos legou. Isso porque destruímos os objetos culturais que ajudam a constituir um mundo comum na medida em que os transformamos em meios de entretenimento, passíveis de serem consumidos. Se partimos da reflexão sobre o fenômeno da arte como uma das formas privilegiadas de compreender o que é esse mundo comum ao qual os adultos devem introduzir as crianças é porque, segundo Arendt, as obras de arte são os objetos culturais máximos que devem ser salvos da ruína da destruição ou do esquecimento. Rancière, por sua vez, afirma que a arte e a política podem contribuir para que possamos reconfigurar as coisas comuns, mesmo no contexto da sociedade homogênea e consensual da qual fazemos parte. Elas podem romper com a distribuição dos espaços, das competências e incompetências de acordo com o lugar que ocupamos na sociedade, contribuindo para forjarmos contra o consenso outras formas de senso comum. Podemos pensar, então, sobre um sentido formativo da arte a partir da possibilidade de reconfigurarmos outras formas de convívio que ligam sujeitos ou grupos em torno de uma outra comunidade de palavras e coisas, formas e significados. Rancière não parece acreditar, nesse sentido, apenas na destruição do que há em comum entre os homens numa sociedade marcada pela lógica do consumo. Ele afirma que a transição dos objetos e produtos do mundo da arte para a esfera da utilidade e da mercadoria pode romper com o curso uniforme do tempo, alterando o estatuto dos objetos e a relação entre os signos e as formas de arte, de modo que possamos nos apropriar ativamente do mundo comum. Nesse contexto, acreditamos que a escola pode se configurar como um recorte no tempo e no espaço da produção e do consumo, em que podemos oferecer aos recém-chegados a possibilidade de pertencerem ao comum do mundo. Talvez numa época em que as coisas mais corriqueiras podem adentrar a esfera da arte, propondo outras formas de experiência sensível, a educação tenha, mesmo num contexto de crise, a possibilidade aberta e sempre renovada de convidar os mais novos a adentrar a imensa floresta de coisas e signos que constituem o mundo comum. / In order to analyze the peculiarity of the dispute over the education of the newcomers in a consumer society, we call upon what Hannah Arendt and Jacques Rancière proposed about the relationship between art and politics. In line with Arendt, one of the challenges faced by the adults when introducing newcomers to the world in a consumer society refers to the way we deal with the cultural heritage that has been transmitted to us from the past. We destroy the cultural objects that help provide a common world as we transform them into consumable media entertainment. We begin by considering the art as a privileged way of understanding this common world in which adults introduce children because, according to Arendt, the art works are cultural objects par excellence that must be protected from ruin of destruction or oblivion. Rancière, in turn, says that art and politics support the reconfiguration of common things, even in the context of homogeneous and consensual society to which we belong. They can break with the use of spaces, the competence and incompetence with respect to our place in society, contributing to forge consensus against different forms of common sense. We can think about an educational sense of art out of the possibility of configuration of different forms of living together that bind men and groups around a different community of words and things, forms and meanings. Rancière does not seem to believe only in the destruction of what is common among men in a society ruled by the logic of consumption. He says that the transition of the objects and products from the art world to the sphere of utility and commodity may break the uniform course of time, changing the status of objects and the relationship between signs and art forms, so we can actively appropriate the common world. In this context, we believe that school can be configured as a cutout in time and space of production and consumption, in which we can offer newcomers the opportunity to belong to the common world. Perhaps in a time when the most ordinary things can enter the sphere of art, proposing other forms of sensitive experience, education has even in times of crisis the open and constantly renewed possibility to invite the young to enter the vast forest of things and signs that constitute the common world.

This paper grapples with the differences between genuine and ordinary democracy within the political thought of Jacques Rancière, Sheldon Wolin, and Hannah Arendt. Each discusses the problems of ordinary democracy and offer solutions in terms of what I call genuine democracy. Ordinary democracy is the established norm of liberal democracy celebrated as the stable and a desired “end” of political action. It is what happens when politics as usual becomes the norm and shuts the people from the halls of power. Genuine politics exist within the structure ordinary democracy and seeks to achieve the continuous re-establishment of democratic processes while in the process speeding up and disrupting “politics as usual”.

This dissertation engages a very general question: what matters politically? This question is characterized as a point of heresy, as a site through which different political stances differentiate themselves from one another and account for their differences. Building on the concept of aesthetics of politics developed by Jacques Rancière, I seek to free up this concept’s critical and analytical potential by arguing that different aesthetics of politics act as prerequisites to divergent determinations of political importance. More precisely, I argue that significant formulations of how variations in distributions of political importance occur tend to presuppose particular accounts of the relationships between perception and interpretation, sensibility and understanding, or how we sense and how we make sense. While the concept of aesthetics is tied to particular histories of what has been called Western Modernity, I argue that Western political thought has been characterized by a deep concern for questions of perception since its allegedly inaugural texts in Classical Greece, and that the so-called postmodern condition continues to put into play aesthetic terms of political engagement. To test this hypothesis positing that we always already think of politics aesthetically, I map five influential aesthetics of politics: aesthetics of prevalence, aesthetics of emancipation, aesthetics of temperament, aesthetics of friction, and aesthetics of endurance. Each one is already manifold. To make sense of these multiplicities, each aesthetics of politics is studied through a fourfold engagement with the politics of one of the senses of the age-old fivefold of sight, taste, hearing, touch, and smell. The politics of each sense are engaged along a politological, an artistico-political, a polemological and a hauntological folds. I am thereby able to show the intricacies of how the problem of political importance has been and is being dealt with. / Graduate / 0615 / simonlab@uvic.ca