Giorgio Agamben

Italian philosopher (b. 1942), author of the Homo Sacer series (Homo Sacer, 1995; State of Exception, 2003; The Kingdom and the Glory, 2007; The Use of Bodies, 2014), The Coming Community (1990), The Open: Man and Animal (2002), What Is an Apparatus? (2006), and many other works. Studied with Heidegger at Le Thor seminars (1966, 1968). The principal polemical foil of BS-I Session 12, where Derrida mounts a sustained critique of Homo Sacer's bios / zōē distinction as untenable in Aristotle's own text. Derrida treats Agamben as the proximate contemporary representative of the biopolitics thesis that BS-I displaces toward zoopolitics (Derrida's preferred term, BS-I S13 pp. 348–349). The seminar engages Agamben across two distinct sites: (1) S3 pp. 92–96, where Derrida criticizes Agamben for forgetting Plautus and Rousseau in the "Ban and the Wolf" pages of Homo Sacer; (2) S12 pp. 315–333, where Derrida dismantles the bios/zōē periodization thesis. The page records Agamben here primarily through BS-I's critical lens; substantial counterpressure to Agamben's positions is recorded.

Key Points

  • Homo Sacer (1995): the bios/zōē distinction and the modernity thesis. Agamben's thesis: classical political philosophy (Aristotle) maintained a strict distinction between bios (qualified life, the political life of citizens) and zōē (bare life, mere biological existence). Modernity is "newly" the era in which zōē is introduced into the polis — the coincidence of bios and zōē in the modern biopolitical state is what is distinctive. Derrida's critique: the distinction does not hold in Aristotle's own text. BS-I S12 pp. 315–333.
  • Aristotle's own counterexamples. Aristotle in Metaphysics Λ uses zōē for God's zōē aristē kai aidios — "the most excellent and eternal zōē." This is qualified life, not "bare" life. Aristotle's Politics uses zōon politikon — a zōon with politics — without distinguishing the zōē-substrate from the political-supplement. The bios/zōē distinction is what Agamben needs but Aristotle does not provide. BS-I S12 pp. 315–322.
  • Agamben's incoherent rescue via "essential attribute vs. specific difference." Agamben proposes that zōon politikon makes politics an essential attribute of man, not a specific difference (man is zōon + politikon essentially, not man = political species of zōon). Derrida shows this distinction is logically incoherent in the Aristotelian framework — and Aristotle himself uses zōon politikon in both modes interchangeably. BS-I S12 pp. 322–323.
  • Agamben's self-contradicting periodization. Agamben simultaneously claims biopolitics is the decisive modern event AND that "biopolitics is at least as old as the sovereign exception." The two claims cannot both hold. Derrida: Agamben "wants to be twice first" — first to announce a novelty, first to recall it as immemorial. BS-I S12 pp. 325, 330.
  • The "Ban and the Wolf" pages forget Plautus and Rousseau. Homo Sacer's reading of the wargus / werewolf as the figure of the ban perpetuates the misattribution of homo homini lupus to Hobbes; ignores Plautus's Asinaria (the actual origin); ignores Rousseau's three Confessions werewolf-passages. BS-I S3 pp. 92–96.
  • Agamben's compulsive priority-claims. Derrida flags Agamben's repeated rhetorical pattern: "Hegel was the first to truly understand X"; "Pindar the first great thinker of Y"; "Karl Löwith the first to read Z"; "Lévinas the first to underline W." Derrida: "Agamben... wants to be twice first." BS-I S12 p. 330; the priority-pattern is dismissed as rhetorical-symptomatic.
  • Foucault never refers to Heidegger — Derrida flags this as a serious omission in History of Sexuality vol. 1 and elsewhere. Agamben does engage Heidegger but inherits Foucault's framework without resolving the Foucault-Heidegger silence. BS-I S12 pp. 324, 330–331.
  • The Open: Man and Animal (2002) — adjacent but not BS-I-target. Agamben's 2002 book on the human/animal threshold (engaging Heidegger's weltarm / weltbildend / weltlos triad) is not directly engaged by BS-I (which focuses on Homo Sacer). The Open and BS-I are contemporaneous; their relation would be a future research thread.

Role on the Wiki

Agamben appears on the wiki only through BS-I, and primarily through Derrida's polemical engagement. The page records Agamben's positions as represented by Derrida, with substantial Counterpressure from BS-I's critique. Future direct engagement with Agamben's primary texts (esp. Homo Sacer, The Open, State of Exception) would balance the page.

The wiki's sovereignty concept page records Derrida's preferred term zoopolitics (as against Agamben's biopolitics) and the seminar's anti-Agamben argument (arg #20: the bios/zōē distinction is untenable in Aristotle's own text).

Sources

  • derrida-2001-bete-souverain-i — Sessions 3 (criticized for forgetting Plautus and Rousseau in Homo Sacer's "Ban and the Wolf"), 12 (sustained polemic against the bios/zōē distinction). The most extended single-target polemic of BS-I.

Connections

  • is the principal polemical foil of derrida-2001-bete-souverain-i in Session 12
  • is criticized by derrida-2001-bete-souverain-i for: (i) untenable bios/zōē distinction; (ii) incoherent "essential attribute vs. specific difference" rescue; (iii) self-contradicting periodization; (iv) compulsive priority-claims; (v) forgetting Plautus and Rousseau on the wolf
  • engages carl-schmitt — Agamben's State of Exception (2003) explicitly extends Schmittian decisionism; BS-I does not engage State of Exception directly
  • inherits michel-foucault — the biopower / biopolitics framework Derrida targets as untenable; Agamben without resolving Foucault's silence on Heidegger
  • appears in sovereignty as the position Derrida's zoopolitics displaces
  • appears in wolf-and-werewolf — Homo Sacer's wolf-pages criticized
  • is engaged by plautus (via Derrida's correction of Agamben's Hobbes-attribution)
  • is engaged by jean-jacques-rousseau (via Derrida's recovery of the Confessions werewolf passages Agamben forgets)

Critique / Limitations

  • The wiki's representation of Agamben is heavily mediated by Derrida's polemical engagement. Direct engagement with Agamben's primary texts would be necessary for a balanced picture.
  • BS-I S12 reads Homo Sacer (1995) but not subsequent volumes (State of Exception 2003, The Kingdom and the Glory 2007, The Use of Bodies 2014). Agamben's later self-revisions are not on the wiki.
  • The Open: Man and Animal (2002) is contemporaneous with BS-I and addresses many of the same questions (Heidegger's weltarm triad, the human/animal threshold) but is not engaged directly by Derrida in BS-I.
  • Agamben's reception in contemporary critical theory (e.g., the Homo Sacer-reception in critical animal studies, biopolitical scholarship since 2000) is not on the wiki.

Open Questions

  • The Agamben-rebuttal: Agamben could reply that the coincidence of bios and zōē is what is modern, not the prior existence of either category. Derrida's reading of the bios/zōē distinction as untenable in Aristotle does not necessarily destroy the modernity-as-coincidence thesis. Open.
  • The relation between BS-I and The Open (Agamben 2002): both texts engage Heidegger's weltarm / weltbildend / weltlos triad; both are contemporaneous (2001–2002); the conversation between them is not on the wiki. Open.
  • The Agamben-Schmitt relation: Agamben's State of Exception (2003) extends Schmittian decisionism but BS-I does not engage State of Exception directly. Open.
  • The Agamben-Foucault relation: Agamben inherits Foucault's biopolitics framework without resolving Foucault's silence on Heidegger. Open.