Ancient Democracy as a Philosophical Problem in Foucault, Castoriadis and Rancière

Abstract

This article focuses on the motives why, basically in the early 1980s, Foucault, Castoriadis and Rancière dealt with, and wrote, about Ancient democracy. To elucidate the reasons, this article firstly links the authors with one tradition of the French Hellenism, namely the School of Paris. Secondly, it considers the specific biographical trajectory of each one of them and, finally, the challenge provoked by the crisis of Marxism. This work finishes explaining why we can learn from our three authors analyzing the context of production of their ideas.

Keywords

• Democracia ateniense
• filosofía francesa contemporánea
• Cornelius Castoriadis
• Michel Foucault
• Jacques Rancière.