Dualizmy a pojęcie tego, co polityczne. Teoretyczne rozważania o politycznym znaczeniu myślenia binarnego

Abstract

The article discusses the relationship between different kinds of thinking based on binary oppositions in the context of the political. The main assumption of the article is based on the claim that the notion of the political requires a reworking of different kinds of dualisms. The verification of the initial assumption has been carried out in two – opposing – directions. On the one hand, there are sphere dualisms of the public–private type, which in practice support the political/ non-political opposition. Such divisions turn out to be a source of erasure of important political problems of collective life. On the other hand, no conceptualisation of the political, understood as a fundamental political relationship, can do without dualistic assumptions. Different conceptions approach this issue differently. For example, the biopolitical theory of M. Hardt and A. Negri promotes the abolition of dualisms, but ultimately the dichotomous logic in it returns, although as a manifestation of inconsistency. The concept of the political that seems most realistic appears in the agonistic theory of Ch. Mouffe and E. Laclau, in which the political is immanently associated with fundamental antagonisms based on the us–them relationship.