The end of Hierarchies and a New Reading of Equality in Jacques Rancière

This study, which focuses on the questioning of hierarchies by Jacques Ranciere and his idea of radical equality, addresses this problem in three contexts: politics, art, and pedagogy. Before attempting a hierarchical questioning, in the introduction, the impact of contemporary French philosophers on contemporary philosophy is evaluated and Ranciere's critical position at this point is presented concerning his philosophical style. In this context, in the first part, the position at which Ranciere sees himself for the current political relationships has been presented. In the part on questioning the hierarchies, which is one of the two main parts, Ranciere's discussion with Althusser, Plato, and Marx is included in the questioning of political hierarchies. In the questioning of artistic hierarchies, regimes of art led by Plato (ethical regime of images) and Aristotle (representative regime) were questioned and the aesthetic regime of art as a revolutionary break in art has been included. Pedagogy has been assessed as the last context of hierarchical questioning. Here, the relationship between the schoolmaster's knowledge-based authority and a stupefying pedagogical system has been highlighted and as a contrast, the figure of "Ignorant Schoolmaster", which is the opportunity of a pedagogy based on equality, has been assessed. In the last part of the study, the construction of equality in these fields (pedagogy, arts, and politics) by Ranciere, who criticized hierarchies so sharply, has been discussed. In this context, the sharing/distribution of the sensible and the concepts of conflict for which these three fields have common references in Ranciere have been focused. In the conclusion, Ranciere's justification of these radical critiques of hierarchies and an assessment of the possibility of equality with the same radicality have been given.