Public opinion: a space or a scene? – a debate between Habermas and Rancière on this educational and political notion

Authors

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.1590/2965-1557.036.e202428950

Keywords:

Espace public. Scène publique. Médiatisation. Habermas. Rancière.

Abstract

This article discusses the differences between “public space” and “public scene” in the debate between Jürgen Habermas and Jacques Rancière to characterize politics. Is public opinion always part of a political rationality where a subject sets his opinion to the test of others, to convince them? Is the maintenance of this public space a question of explanation? To reflect about this question, we will seek to see how this public space has been characterized by both authors. With the first we will see historically this characterization, and what was the role of mediatization. With the second, we will try to see to what extent this public space is only a space of scenes, of a political scene; and what is its meaning. One wonders in what sense the German philosopher, nowadays, in the era of new media, would he revisit his analyzes of 1962? Would he rather stretch this public space to the point of making it possible to distinguish an “a-critical” public space (a space for comments and other interactions) from a critical public space? In this case, what would be left of this conceptual “coup”? There are already enough elements to consider that a space, even if it is “public”, either of one hundred and forty signs on Twitter, or a few paragraphs for comments on Facebook, does not necessarily guarantee an improvement of democracy, a proximity of general interests. Perhaps the definition of this space as a space of scenes, as Rancière says, can better help us to think that a commentary always creates “a multiplication of people”. It is in the confrontation between these two analytical perspectives that we seek to develop this article.

Downloads

Download data is not yet available.

Author Biography

Vinicius Bertoncini Vicenzi, Universidade Federal de Pelotas

Doutor em Filosofia pela Universidade do Porto, Portugal. 

References

BERDOULAY, V.; COSTA GOMES, P. C.; LOLIVE, J. L'espace public ou l'incontournable spatialité de la politique. L'espace public à l'épreuve. Régressions et émergences, Presses de la MSHA, Bordeaux, pp. 9-27, 2004.

CHAMBERS, S. A. The lessons of Rancière. New York: Oxford University Press, 2013.

DERANTY, J. P. ; ROSS, A. Jacques Rancière and the contemporary scene : the philosophy of radical equality. New York : Continuum International Publishing Group, 2012.

FEOLA, M. Excess Words, Surplus Names: Rancière and Habermas on Speech, Agency, and Equality. Journal of French and Francophone Philosophy, [S.l.], v. 27, n. 2, pp. 32-53, 2019.

FLATSCHER, M. Of citizens and plebeians: Postnational political figures in Jürgen Habermas and Jacques Rancière. Eur Law J. 25, pp. 502– 507, 2019.

FRASER, N. Repenser la sphère publique : une contribution à la critique de la démocratie telle qu’elle existe réellement, Hermès, 31, pp. 125-156, 2001.

HABER, S. Pour historiciser L’Espace public de Habermas, L’espace public au Moyen Âge. Débats autour de Jürgen Habermas. Presses Universitaires de France, 2011, pp. 25-41, 2011.

HABERMAS, J. Le discours philosophique de la modernité, Paris: Gallimard, 1988.

____________ L’espace public, Paris: Éditions Payot, 1993.

MAYER, S. Interpreting the Situation of Political Disagreement: Rancière and Habermas. Journal of French and Francophone Philosophy 27 (2), pp. 8-31, 2019.

PAILLIART, I. L’Espace public et l’emprise de la communication, Grenoble : Éd. littéraires et linguistiques de l’Université de Grenoble, 1995.

RANCIÈRE, J. A noite dos proletários. Arquivos do sonho operário. Lisboa: Antígona, 2012a.

____________ La mésentente, Paris: Galilée, 1995.

____________ La méthode de l’égalité. Entretien avec Laurent Jeanpierre et Dork Zabunyan, Paris: Bayard éditions, 2012b.

SALGUEIRO MARQUES, A. Relações entre comunicação, estética e política: tensões entre as abordagens de Habermas e Rancière. Compolítica, 1(2), pp. 109-130, 2011.

VAN DAMME, S. Farewell Habermas? Deux décennies d’études sur l’espace public, Les Dossiers du Grihl [En ligne], Les dossiers de Stéphane Van Damme, Historiographie et méthodologie, mis en ligne le 28 juin 2007, consulté le 17 septembre 2021. URL : http://journals.openedition.org/dossiersgrihl/682

Published

2024-01-18

How to Cite

Vicenzi, V. B. (2024). Public opinion: a space or a scene? – a debate between Habermas and Rancière on this educational and political notion . Revista De Filosofia Aurora, 36, e202428950. https://doi.org/10.1590/2965-1557.036.e202428950

Issue

Section

Continuous Flow