Abstract

Philosophers have often used the image of the body to think the organisation of the polis. This representation has long been dominant as it makes it possible to envisage the organisation of a society with cohesion between its members strong enough to ensure its proper functioning and perpetuation over time. The positions defended by Claude Lefort are original as they show that it is impossible to envisage democracy, both as a political regime and as a form of social life, with reference to the image of the body. On the contrary, we must conceive of democracy as a regime of disincorporation and democratic society as a disincorporated society, against both the Ancien Regime monarchy and totalitarianism, which constitutes the reversal and perverse outcome of democratic logic. If the democratic revolution marks a significant break in political history, it’s in the sense that it forces us, according to Lefort, to rethink politics and propose other practices which are no longer dependent on representation in terms of body. From this point of view, a democratic society is intrinsically divided: the symbolic representation of power makes it possible to hold together the different components without them constituting a body.