The Philosopher and His Poor
The Philosopher and His Poor by Jacques Rancière, published by Duke University Press on April 23, 2004, is a thought-provoking exploration of the relationship between philosophy and the poor. This first edition, comprising 247 pages, delves into the historical presence of the poor in philosophical discourse, examining figures from Plato to Karl Marx and Jean-Paul Sartre. Rancière poses critical questions about why philosophers have consistently engaged with the poor and how this engagement shapes philosophical thought itself.
In this work, Rancière conducts close readings of significant texts in Western philosophy, highlighting the roles that the poor have played both as subjects of analysis and as illustrative figures within philosophical arguments. The book presents a left critique of Pierre Bourdieu, offering insights that are largely unfamiliar to English-speaking audiences. Through its innovative interpretations, The Philosopher and His Poor invites readers to reconsider the implications of philosophical thought on social and political ideologies, particularly in the context of communism, socialism, and the history of political theory.
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What has philosophy to do with the poor? If, as has often been supposed, the poor have no time for philosophy, then why have philosophers always made time for them? Why is the history of philosophy—from Plato to Karl Marx to Jean-Paul Sartre to Pierre Bourdieu—the history of so many figures of the poor: plebes, men of iron, the demos, artisans, common people, proletarians, the masses? Why have philosophers made the shoemaker, in particular, a remarkably ubiquitous presence in this history? Does philosophy itself depend on this thinking about the poor? If so, can it ever refrain from thinking for them?
Jacques Rancière’s The Philosopher and His Poor meditates on these questions in close readings of major texts of Western thought in which the poor have played a leading role—sometimes as the objects of philosophical analysis, sometimes as illustrations of philosophical argument. Published in France in 1983 and made available here for the first time in English, this consummate study assesses the consequences for Marx, Sartre, and Bourdieu of Plato’s admonition that workers should do “nothing else” than their own work. It offers innovative readings of these thinkers’ struggles to elaborate a philosophy of the poor. Presenting a left critique of Bourdieu, the terms of which are largely unknown to an English-language readership, The Philosopher and His Poor remains remarkably timely twenty years after its initial publication.
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