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Imaginary Hierarchies: Theory and the Representation of Difference
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Preface
This essay is part of a larger project that I have chosen to call “Imagined Hierarchies,”
which is intended to be a contribution to the understanding of the ways in which “difference” has
been conceived in social, political, and philosophical thought, and of the relation between
structures of politics and society and conceptions of the “Other.” The complicated history of
these conceptions in the West already starts in pre-Platonic thought, well before Plato’s Socrates
criticizes Athens in the Apology.
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Hans Blumenberg, The Legitimacy of the Modern Age, translated by Robert M. Wallace
Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1983), p. 244, says: "Philosophy originates with the discovery of the hiatus between appearance and existence, perception and thought, and already in Heraclitus and Parmenides it divides men into those who unreflectingly submit to appearance and perception and those who penetrate to the authentic truth behind these, who do not even gain access to the truth by their own powers but rather require initiation as though into a mystery.” Arnaldo Momigliano, The Development of Greek Biography. Expanded Edition (Harvard, 1993 [1971]), p. 47, observes that “
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In particular, I am exploring the ways in which certain conceptions of “the good life” and
“the best polity” have (inevitably?) created universalized hierarchies of worth, often in the guise
of forms of inclusion of difference, but which have made the political and “philosophical”
integration of real existing “others’ lives” impossible, except in some form of “subjection,” even
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| | Authors: Goldman, Harvey. |
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1
Preface
This essay is part of a larger project that I have chosen to call “Imagined Hierarchies,”
which is intended to be a contribution to the understanding of the ways in which “difference” has
been conceived in social, political, and philosophical thought, and of the relation between
structures of politics and society and conceptions of the “Other.” The complicated history of
these conceptions in the West already starts in pre-Platonic thought, well before Plato’s Socrates
criticizes Athens in the Apology.
1
1
Hans Blumenberg, The Legitimacy of the Modern Age, translated by Robert M. Wallace
Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1983), p. 244, says: "Philosophy originates with the discovery of the
hiatus between appearance and existence, perception and thought, and already in Heraclitus and
Parmenides it divides men into those who unreflectingly submit to appearance and perception
and those who penetrate to the authentic truth behind these, who do not even gain access to the
truth by their own powers but rather require initiation as though into a mystery.” Arnaldo
Momigliano, The Development of Greek Biography. Expanded Edition (Harvard, 1993 [1971]),
p. 47, observes that “
”
In particular, I am exploring the ways in which certain conceptions of “the good life” and
“the best polity” have (inevitably?) created universalized hierarchies of worth, often in the guise
of forms of inclusion of difference, but which have made the political and “philosophical”
integration of real existing “others’ lives” impossible, except in some form of “subjection,” even
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