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"Mein Anliegen ist die Wiederherstellung der politischen Philosophie" - so formuliert Claude Lefort 1983 das Projekt seines politischen Denkens. Es sind die Bedingungen der Freiheit, die Lefort weniger durch rationalistische Deduktion als vielmehr mittels phänomenologisch orientierter Rekonstruktion der demokratischen Gesellschaftsform freizulegen sucht. Dabei erweitert er den demokratietheoretischen Bereich um ein Denken des Symbolischen. Die Bedingungen der Freiheit und der Demokratie liegen in einem Zusammenwirken von wirklicher und symbolischer Ebene, von Sichtbarem und Unsichtbarem. Vor diesem Hintergrund wird seine Rekonstruktion der demokratischen Gesellschaftsform in fünf Schritten nachvollzogen. Zunächst zeigt sich die Unterscheidung zwischen politischer Philosophie und politischer Wissenschaft für das Verständnis des Lefortschen politischen Denkens als einer Rückkehr des Politischen als konstitutiv. Sodann entfaltet sich die spezifische Form der Demokratie anschaulich erst vor dem Profil alternativer Weisen der Formierung des Gesellschaftlichen. Aus diesem Grund wird über den Umweg der Monarchie und in Abgrenzung vom Totalitarismus die demokratische Gesellschaftsform in den Blick genommen. (ICA2)

An interview originally published in Anti-Myths, 1975, 14. C. Lefort's ideas center on the linking of Marxism & phenomenology as mutually necessary to each other. Trotskyist politics were most cogenial to this outlook. The concept of the proletarian experience was central to this viewpoint. The critique of the idea of revolutionary leadership originating in revolutionary organization grew out of a latent critique of the equation of the social with the organized. The rationalist fiction conceals the desire for community. The problem is to achieve a society which can leave room for heterogeneity. The concept of the self-institution of society begins by envisioning a totalizing Power which creates a single homogeneous society. The May 1968 (French student & labor) revolt was a challenge to authority in the sense of forcing it to come out into the open, from behind the rationality of organization which concealed it. C. Castoriadis's critique ("An Interview with Cornelius Castoriadis," Telos, 1975, 23, spring, 131-155) of Marx & Marxism is entirely justified, though his concept of the self-institution of the social is very close to Marxism; it is legitimate as a desanctification of Marx. W. H. Stoddard

This article examines Claude Lefort's writings in order to think about the 'social', understood as separate from the political, and in its separation, as a strictly modern 'phenomenon'. Prior to the modern democratic revolution, the collective order was presented through the representation of power, itself identified with both law and knowledge, and referred to a transcendent source. At a first moment, the modern democratic revolution, under the sign of the general will, renders power immanent. At a second moment, it separates power from law and, above all, knowledge, such that three domains emerge, each with its own logic, its own notion of representation, its own divisions. The 'social', in a sense, arises between these two moments. At one level, it appears as an event in, and in consequence an object of, knowledge, once knowledge need no longer be, primarily, a knowledge of power or law, that is the enunciation of the principles by which the latter establish the order, coherence and sense of the world. At another level the 'social' emerges as a response to the difficulties presented by a strictly political representation of societal order–difficulties in no small part due to the revolutionaries' inability to countenance the separation between the three domains. In this regard the 'social' appears as a presupposition that serves to stabilize an inherently conflictual political order. It is, however, an 'empty' presupposition, without determinate content, and therefore also a source of uncertainty. While this emptiness proves a stimulus for the construction of new savoirs, it also accounts for the fragility of all discourses that would speak in its name (social science, social theory, sociology). The article concludes with a few words about the 'death of the social'.

This article examines Claude Lefort's writings in order to think about the 'social', understood as separate from the political, & in its separation, as a strictly modern 'phenomenon'. Prior to the modern democratic revolution, the collective order was presented through the representation of power, itself identified with both law & knowledge, & referred to a transcendent source. At a first moment, the modern democratic revolution, under the sign of the general will, renders power immanent. At a second moment, it separates power from law &, above all, knowledge, such that three domains emerge, each with its own logic, its own notion of representation, its own divisions. The 'social', in a sense, arises between these two moments. At one level, it appears as an event in, & in consequence an object of, knowledge, once knowledge need no longer be, primarily, a knowledge of power or law, that is the enunciation of the principles by which the latter establish the order, coherence & sense of the world. At another level the 'social' emerges as a response to the difficulties presented by a strictly political representation of societal order -- difficulties in no small part due to the revolutionaries' inability to countenance the separation between the three domains. In this regard the 'social' appears as a presupposition that serves to stabilize an inherently conflictual political order. It is, however, an 'empty' presupposition, without determinate content, & therefore also a source of uncertainty. While this emptiness proves a stimulus for the construction of new savoirs, it also accounts for the fragility of all discourses that would speak in its name (social science, social theory, sociology). The article concludes with a few words about the 'death of the social'. References. [Reprinted by permission of Sage Publications and Thesis Eleven Co-op Ltd, copyright 2006.]

In diesem Beitrag werden Chantal Mouffes jüngste Interventionen für den Linkspopulismus zum Anlass für eine theoretische Reflexion über das Spannungsverhältnis zwischen Populismus und radikaler Demokratie genommen. Im Lichte der radikalen Demokratietheorien Claude Leforts, Jacques Rancières, Ernesto Laclaus und Chantal Mouffes, der Populismustheorie Laclaus sowie der einschlägigen Rezeption wird argumentiert, dass der Populismus sowohl konstitutives Moment als auch Grenze eines radikalen Demokratieverständnisses bildet, was sich insbesondere in der Akzentverschiebung von Autonomie zu Repräsentation bei Laclau verdichtet und als Organisationsfrage bei Mouffe hervortritt. Damit öffnet sich nicht zuletzt eine empirische Forschungsperspektive zur Untersuchung des Verhältnisses von Populismus und radikaler Demokratie, die zum Schluss exemplarisch aufgegriffen und anhand einer Unterscheidung zwischen 'Bewegungsparteien' und 'Volksparteien neuen Typs' veranschaulicht wird.

Der Beitrag setzt sich mit Claude Leforts Sicht auf Einheit und Teilung in der Gesellschaft auseinander. Obwohl die Schriften Claude Leforts nur schwer unter einem einheitlichen Titel zusammengefasst werden können, ist hinreichend klar, dass sie alle in der fundamentalen Einsicht verwurzelt sind, dass keine menschliche Gesellschaft eins mit sich selbst ist; dass vielmehr jede Gesellschaft ursprünglich geteilt ist. Um zu verstehen, was es mit dieser "ursprünglichen Teilung" auf sich hat, ist es wichtig, sie von Anfang an von verschiedenen Arten von "Teilung" zu unterscheiden, die in der Gesellschaft festgestellt werden können. Im Anschluss an Unterscheidungen, die Lefort selbst vornimmt, kann man wohl mindestens drei Typen sozialer Teilung auszeichnen: Ein erster und eher offensichtlicher Typ ist die horizontale Geteiltheit der Gesellschaft, d.h. die Heterogenität und Pluralität der Meinungen und Interessen, die in modernen Gesellschaften häufig festgestellt und diskutiert wird. Lefort bezeichnet diese als die "interne Teilung". Die zweite Teilung, die er erwähnt, ist die Teilung innerhalb des politischen Raums. Wie die Gesellschaft selbst, so ist auch der politische Raum die Bühne einer (ebenfalls horizontalen) Vielzahl konfligierender Interessen und Meinungen, die mehr oder weniger offen dargestellt werden. Die Originalität an Leforts Ansatz besteht nun in seinem Fokus auf eine dritte Art von Teilung, nämlich auf die vertikale Teilung zwischen den beiden Sphären - die Teilung zwischen dem politischen und dem sozialen Raum. Die Teilung zwischen der Gesellschaft und ihren politischen Akteuren ist für Lefort nicht primär funktioneller Art, sondern eng verbunden mit dem Verständnis, das die Gesellschaft von sich selbst hat. Der Beitrag widmet sich Leforts Diskussion der "ursprünglichen Teilung" in seinen Kommentaren zu ethnologischen Thesen - genauer: in den Texten, in denen er sich mit dem französischen Ethnologen Pierre Clastres auseinandersetzt. (ICA2)

How can a reader from 1993 attend to a text from the 1310s? This question haunts the text Claude Lefort devotes to Dante's Monarchia. It is certainly a question of returning to the content of Dante's essay, but also of nourishing contemporary reflection: reading a text also means yielding to inquiries that do not always belong to it, and testing, by this deformation and transformation, its fruitfulness for today. Can one thus oppose to the government of the One something that would be more like a community of ones? Can one hear in Dante the sketch of a thought of the common? ; Judith Revel, 'Lefort/Dante: Reading, Misreading, Transforming', in Claude Lefort, Dante's Modernity: An Introduction to the 'Monarchia'. With an Essay by Judith Revel , ed. by Christiane Frey, Manuele Gragnolati, Christoph F. E. Holzhey, and Arnd Wedemeyer, trans. by Jennifer Rushworth, Cultural Inquiry, 16 (Berlin: ICI Berlin Press, 2020), pp. 87–108

Claude Lefort siyaset felsefesini siyaset biliminin, Marksizmin ve Yeni Filozofların ( Les Nouveaux Philosophes) düşüncelerine karşı dirilteceğini söyler. Leforta göre, bu üç düşüncenin siyasallığı (le politique) yeterince tahlil edememiş olması, onun 'çağımızın en büyük siyasal olayı olarak adlandırdığı totalitarizmi gözden kaçırmalarına neden olmuştur. Lefort, totalitarizmin tarihin belli bir döneminde yaşanmış ve bitmiş bir olgu olmadığını söyler. Demokrasi, iktidarın yerinin boş olması (le lieu vide du pouvoir) özelliği yüzünden, totalitarizmin yeniden gerçekleşmesi hakikatine açık olan bir rejimdir. Bu yüzden, Leforta göre ancak demokrasinin mutlak olumsuzlaması olan totalitarizm çözümlenirse demokrasi ve kazanımlarına ulaşabilir, totaliter ayartmaya kar- şı durabiliriz. Bu makalede Lefortun modern demokrasinin iki karakteristi- ği olarak gördüğü bölünme (la division ) ve bununla ilişkili olarak ihtilaf (le conflit) ile 'kesinlik işaretlerinin çözülmesi (la dissolution des repères de la certitude) düşünürün çeşitli okumalarındaki uğrak noktalarıyla beraber ele alınacaktır. Ayrıca 'siyasallığın işaretleri peşindeki bu düşünürün siyaset felsefesi üzerinden siyaset bilimi, Marksizm ve Yeni Filozoflara getirdiği eleştirileri yine bu iki karakteristiği açıklamaya çalışırken ele almaya çalışacağız. ; Claude Lefort mentions that he will raise political philosophy against the thoughts of the political science, Marxism and the New Philosophers (Les Nouveaux Philosophes). According to Lefort, these three thoughts being the political (le politique) and having not been analyzed sufficiently led them miss out totalitarianism which he calls as 'the major political fact of our time'. Lefort tells that totalitarianism is not a phenomenon having been experienced and finished in certain period of time. Due to the empty place of power (le lieu vide du pouvoir) feature of democracy, it is a regime open to the truth of totalitarianism materializing again. Therefore, according to Lefort, only if totalitarianism, the absolute negation of democracy, is resolved, it will be possible to reach democracy and its' acquisitions and we can stand against totalitarian temptation. In this article, the division (la division) and associated with the conflict (le conflit) and 'the dissolution of the markers of certainty' (la dissolution des repères de la certitude) that Lefort sees as the two characteristics of modern democracy will be discussed along with the sources in thinkers' various readings. Furthermore, along with the explanation of these two characteristics, we will try to address the criticism of the political science, Marxism and New Philosophers, the thinker who is after the 'the signs of the political' brought.

La politique n'était pas pour Lefort un objet d'étude mais une expérience vécue, comme en témoignaient ses conversations, ses lectures, ses indignations. En saluant sa mémoire, avant de revenir plus longuement sur sa pensée, nous republions ici « Le XX e siècle : la croyance et l'incroyance », un texte qu'il avait donné à Esprit après une conférence qui, prononcée dans une Europe centrale qui renouait avec la démocratie, revenait magistralement sur son analyse de la croyance politique au cours du siècle.