Jacques Rancière is Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at the University of Paris-St. Denis.

‘A probing and scintillating new book on the meaning, rationality and politics of literary fiction. Rancière illuminates the surprising connection between the logic of tragedy, in which ignorance leads to misfortune, and explanation in the modern social sciences. He interrogates how that paradigm slowly unwinds into the democratizing tumult of modernism. An invaluable addition to our understanding of a topic Rancière has made his own: the aesthetic conditions of political reason.’J.M. Bernstein, The New School for Social Research

• AcknowledgementsIntroduction Doors and Windows Behind the Windows The Eyes of the Poor What Voyeurs See Window with a Street View The Threshold of Science The Commodity’s SecretCausality’s Adventures The Shores of the Real The Unimaginable Paper Landscapes The Edge of the All and the Nothing The Random Occurrence Two Stories of Poor People The Mute’s SpeechThe Measureless Moment

Jacques Rancière is Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at the University of Paris-St. Denis.

‘A probing and scintillating new book on the meaning, rationality and politics of literary fiction. Rancière illuminates the surprising connection between the logic of tragedy, in which ignorance leads to misfortune, and explanation in the modern social sciences. He interrogates how that paradigm slowly unwinds into the democratizing tumult of modernism. An invaluable addition to our understanding of a topic Rancière has made his own: the aesthetic conditions of political reason.’J.M. Bernstein, The New School for Social Research

• AcknowledgementsIntroduction Doors and Windows Behind the Windows The Eyes of the Poor What Voyeurs See Window with a Street View The Threshold of Science The Commodity’s SecretCausality’s Adventures The Shores of the Real The Unimaginable Paper Landscapes The Edge of the All and the Nothing The Random Occurrence Two Stories of Poor People The Mute’s SpeechThe Measureless Moment