{"id":504,"date":"2012-08-26T17:52:55","date_gmt":"2012-08-26T15:52:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/filosofille.wordpress.com\/?p=504"},"modified":"2026-05-12T09:12:59","modified_gmt":"2026-05-12T08:12:59","slug":"qa-35-aug-2012-philosophy-for-emancipation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.further.co.za\/helen\/qa-35-aug-2012-philosophy-for-emancipation\/","title":{"rendered":"QA 35. Aug 2012. Philosophy for emancipation"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/a><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

It starts off very personally, very intimately. You\u2019re going about your business and then \u00ad\u2013 for some unknown reason \u2013 you can\u2019t carry on. Maybe there\u2019s a choice you don\u2019t know how to make. Maybe you\u2019ve reached a dead end or the limit of some chain you didn\u2019t even know you wore. You are thrown back on yourself. It\u2019s very close and uncomfortable, painful.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Simon Critchley (2007:1) writes that philosophy begins in \u201cdisappointment\u201d: \u201cthe indeterminate but palpable sense that something desired has not been fulfilled, that a fantastic effort has failed.\u201d Philosophy begins the moment your intelligence reaches out from within this situation to clarify, to identify and understand, to find a way through. What\u2019s happening?<\/em> What is the meaning of this?<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

Here, philosophy is not concerned with an absolute Truth but with the truth that will set you free. \u201cFreedom\u201d here is also not absolute but small and personal: the freedom to carry on.<\/wp-block><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In a paper for a conference on \u201cPhilosophy and the Moral Life\u201d, and in my work with individuals and groups, I\u2019m thinking about philosophy in this way, as a practice of emancipation<\/em>. To be emancipated is to take oneself in hand (literally: its Latin roots are \u201chand\u201d [manus<\/em>] and \u201ctake\u201d [capere<\/em>]).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The first condition of emancipation is a belief in oneself as significant, as a person of dignity. Your original desire and effort cannot simply be surrendered, and you are capable of understanding and finding your way. It matters that others believe in you, too \u2013 especially where you have been fettered by shame or oppression.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is a philosophical practice<\/em>. You will have to apply your intelligence and your wisdom to articulate what is happening and what it all means. You will have to make changes and choices for yourself and be held responsible. Before, you travelled blind. Now you open your eyes and see, even when it\u2019s hard and even when you might not like what you find. Freedom has a price.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In The Ignorant Schoolmaster: Five Lessons in Intellectual Emancipation<\/em>, Jacques Ranci\u00e8re (1991: 17) imagines a universal emancipation in similar terms: \u201cthat every common person might conceive of his human dignity, take the measure of his intellectual capacity and decide how to use it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He refutes the belief that some of us are more intelligent than others, calling this the foundation myth of all the hierarchy and inequality of our society. It would be better, he suggests, to presuppose an equality of intelligence. I think he\u2019s right, and I would go further to say that our basic capacities for sanity and goodness are equally equal. Differences in performance can then be chalked up to how we work (how we take ourselves in hand).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Emancipatory philosophy is also an ethical and dialogical practice. We need to speak together, both to expose the tyrants and to encourage and learn from each other. Because one person\u2019s emancipation is bound up with all the others\u2019. This bondage is a tie of the heart, and it draws us on together.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Critchley, Simon. 2007. Infinitely Demanding: Ethics of Commitment, Politics of Resistance<\/em>. London and New York: Verso<\/h6>\n\n\n\n
Ranci\u00e8re, Jacques. 1991. The Ignorant Schoolmaster: Five Lessons in Intellectual Emancipation<\/em>. Kristin Ross, trans. Stanford: Stanford University Press<\/h6>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It starts off very personally, very intimately. You\u2019re going about your business and then \u00ad\u2013 for some unknown reason \u2013 you can\u2019t carry on. Maybe there\u2019s a choice you don\u2019t know how to make. Maybe you\u2019ve reached a dead end…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,5],"tags":[97,98,99,100,101,102],"class_list":["post-504","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog","category-everyday-philosophy","tag-emancipation","tag-jacques-ranciere","tag-philosophical-counseling","tag-philosophical-practice","tag-simon-critchley","tag-the-ignorant-schoolmaster"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.further.co.za\/helen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/504","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.further.co.za\/helen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.further.co.za\/helen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.further.co.za\/helen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.further.co.za\/helen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=504"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.further.co.za\/helen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/504\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2349,"href":"https:\/\/www.further.co.za\/helen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/504\/revisions\/2349"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.further.co.za\/helen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=504"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.further.co.za\/helen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=504"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.further.co.za\/helen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=504"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}