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Western Philosophy
Contemporary philosophy
Name
Giorgio Agamben
Birth 1942
School/tradition Aesthetics
Main interests Aesthetics · Political philosophy
Notable ideas Homo sacer
"State of exception"
"Whatever singularity"
Influenced by Foucault, Walter Benjamin, Jacques Derrida, Heidegger, Arendt, Nietzsche, Aby Warburg, Carl Schmitt

Giorgio Agamben (born 1942) is an Italian philosopher who teaches at the Università IUAV di Venezia. See also [[Analytic philosophy]] and [[Continental philosophy]] Contemporary philosophy is the period in the history of philosophy that began at the end of the nineteenth Year 1942 ( MCMXLII) was a Common year starting on Thursday (the link will display the full 1942 calendar of the Gregorian calendar. Aesthetics or esthetics ( also spelled æsthetics) is commonly known as the study of sensory or sensori-emotional values sometimes called Aesthetics or esthetics ( also spelled æsthetics) is commonly known as the study of sensory or sensori-emotional values sometimes called Political philosophy is the study of questions about the City, Government, Politics, Liberty, Justice, Property, Rights Homo sacer (Latin for "the sacred man" is an obscure figure of Roman law: a Person who is banned, may be killed by anybody but may Michel Foucault ( (15 October 1926 – 25 June 1984 was a French philosopher, Historian, Intellectual, Critic and Sociologist. Walter Bendix Schönflies Benjamin ( July 15, 1892 &ndash September 27, 1940) was a German - Jewish Marxist Martin Heidegger ( September 26, 1889 &ndash May 26, 1976) (ˈmaɐ̯tiːn ˈhaɪ̯dɛgɐ was an influential German philosopher Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (October 15 1844 August 25 1900 ( was a nineteenth-century German philosopher and classical philologist Abraham Moritz Warburg, known as Aby Warburg, ( Hamburg, June 13, 1866 – Hamburg October 26, 1929) was an Carl Schmitt ( July 11 1888 April 7 1985) was a German Jurist, Political theorist, and professor of Law Year 1942 ( MCMXLII) was a Common year starting on Thursday (the link will display the full 1942 calendar of the Gregorian calendar. Italy (Italia officially the Italian Republic, (Repubblica Italiana is located on the Italian Peninsula in Southern Europe, and on the two largest Philosophy is the study of general problems concerning matters such as existence knowledge truth beauty justice validity mind and language The University Iuav of Venice ( Italian: Università Iuav di Venezia, IUAV) is a university located in Venice, Italy. He also teaches at the Collège International de Philosophie in Paris and previously taught at the University of Macerata in Italy. The Collège international de philosophie (Ciph located in Paris ' 5th arrondissement, is a tertiary education institute placed under the trusteeship of the French Paris (ˈpærɨs in English; in French) is the Capital of France and the country's largest city The University of Macerata (Università degli Studi di Macerata is a university located in Macerata, Italy. He also has held visiting appointments at several American universities and at Heinrich Heine University, Düsseldorf. The Heinrich Heine University of Düsseldorf (Heinrich-Heine-Universität Düsseldorf is a University in Düsseldorf, Germany. Düsseldorf (ˈdʏsəldɔɐf is the capital city of the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia. Agamben's best known work includes his investigations of the concepts of state of exception and homo sacer. A state of emergency is a governmental declaration that may suspend certain normal functions of government alert citizens to alter their normal behaviors or order government agencies Homo sacer (Latin for "the sacred man" is an obscure figure of Roman law: a Person who is banned, may be killed by anybody but may [1]

Agamben received the Prix Européen de l'Essai Charles Veillon in 2006.

Contents

Biography

Agamben was educated at the University of Rome, where he wrote a thesis on the political thought of Simone Weil. Sapienza University of Rome ( Italian Sapienza Università di Roma) is a coeducational autonomous state university in Rome, Italy Simone Weil (simɔn vɛj February 3, 1909 in Paris, France &ndash August 24, 1943 in Ashford Kent, Agamben participated in Martin Heidegger's Le Thor seminars (on Heraclitus and Hegel) in 1966 and 1968. Martin Heidegger ( September 26, 1889 &ndash May 26, 1976) (ˈmaɐ̯tiːn ˈhaɪ̯dɛgɐ was an influential German philosopher Heraclitus of Ephesus ( Ancient Greek: &mdash grc-Latn ''Hērákleitos ho Ephésios'' English Heraclitus the Ephesian) (ca In the 1970s he worked primarily on linguistics, philology, poetics, and medievalist topics, where he began to elaborate his primary concerns, though without as yet inflecting them in a specifically political direction. In 1974–1975 he was a fellow at the Warburg Institute, where he wrote Stanzas (1979). The Warburg Institute is a research institution associated with the University of London.

Close to Elsa Morante, on whom he has written, Pier Paolo Pasolini (in whose The Gospel According to St. Matthew he played the part of Philip), Italo Calvino, Ingeborg Bachmann, Pierre Klossowski, Jean-Luc Nancy, Jacques Derrida, and Jean-François Lyotard, his strongest influences include Walter Benjamin, whose complete works he edited in Italian translation, and the German jurist Carl Schmitt, whom he frequently cites. Elsa Morante ( August 18, 1912 - 25 November, 1985) was an Italian Novelist, perhaps best known for her Novel Pier Paolo Pasolini ( March 5, 1922 – November 2, 1975) was an Italian Poet, Intellectual, Film director Saint Philip was one of the Twelve Apostles of Jesus. Later Christian traditions describe Philip as the apostle who proselytized in Italo Calvino ( October 15, 1923 &ndash September 19, 1985) (ˈiːtalo kalˈviːno was an Italian journalist and writer of short Ingeborg Bachmann ( June 25, 1926 - October 17, 1973) was an Austrian Poet and Author Pierre Klossowski ( August 9, 1905 — August 12, 2001) was a French writer translator and artist Jean-Luc Nancy (born July 26, 1940) is a French philosopher. Nancy's first book published in 1973 was Le titre de la lettre Jean-François Lyotard (ʒɑ̃ fʀɑ̃swa ljɔˈtaʀ August 10 1924 April 21 1998) was a French philosopher and literary Walter Bendix Schönflies Benjamin ( July 15, 1892 &ndash September 27, 1940) was a German - Jewish Marxist Carl Schmitt ( July 11 1888 April 7 1985) was a German Jurist, Political theorist, and professor of Law Agamben's political thought draws on Michel Foucault and on Italian neo-Marxist thought. Michel Foucault ( (15 October 1926 – 25 June 1984 was a French philosopher, Historian, Intellectual, Critic and Sociologist. While sometimes cryptic in his published writings, in interviews he represents himself as a public thinker interested in language and social conflicts on a global scale.

Work

In The Coming Community (1993), Giorgio Agamben writes:

If human beings were or had to be this or that substance, this or that destiny, no ethical experience would be possible. Substance theory, or substance attribute theory, is an ontological theory about objecthood, positing that a substance is distinct from its . . This does not mean, however, that humans are not, and do not have to be, something, that they are simply consigned to nothingness and therefore can freely decide whether to be or not to be, to adopt or not to adopt this or that destiny (nihilism and decisionism coincide at this point). There is in effect something that humans are and have to be, but this is not an essence nor properly a thing: It is the simple fact of one's own existence as possibility or potentiality. . .

– [2]

This potentiality of life would become one of Agamben's main threads, throughout his critical conception of an homo sacer, reduced to "bare life", and thus deprived of any rights. Henceforth, Agamben intends to think a kind of "subjectivity without subject": humans are "an effect", "but this is not an essence nor properly a thing", but the "simple fact of one's own existence as possibility or potentiality". Subjectivity refers to a subject's perspective particularly feelings beliefs and desires This "coming community" opposes itself to sovereignty, which reduces through the state of exception qualified life (bios) to bare life (zoe). Sovereignty is the exclusive Right to control a Government, a country, a people or oneself

“In United States criminal law, people accused of committing crimes cannot be compelled to incriminate themselves verbally, but can be compelled to incriminate themselves physically. The United States of America —commonly referred to as the ” In the state of exception this becomes an even greater heightened state. This addresses the distinction Agamben makes when turning to the theories of Hannah Arendt and her followers on zoe, bare life, and bios, referring to actions in the “form of life,” and notably the bios politicos: “the life of great actions and noble words. ” One who has been accused of committing a crime, within the legal system, loses the ability to use one’s voice and represent oneself, the individual has not only been removed of their citizenship, but also any form of agency over their own life. “Agamben identifies the state of exception with the power of decision over life. ” Within the state of exception the distinction between zoe and bios is made by those in power. For example, Agamben would argue that Guantánamo Bay operates within the state of exception in the United States following 9-11, under the power of the United States government. Guantánamo Bay ( Spanish Bahía de Guantánamo) is a bay located in Guantánamo Province at the south-eastern end of Cuba

Agamben mentions that basic human rights were revoked from Taliban individuals, captured in Afghanistan in 2001, who were then held within Guantánamo Bay. Human rights refers to the "basic Rights and freedoms to which all humans are entitled In reaction to the removal of their basic human rights, detainees of Guantánamo Bay prison went on hunger strikes. Within a state of exception, when a prisoner has been removed of their rights and placed within a state of being mere zoe, bare life, then what actions of dissent do the individuals have besides that of their own body? Here, one can see why such measures as hunger strikes can occur in such places as prisons. Within the framework of a system that has removed the individual of power, and their individual basic human freedoms, the hunger strike can be seen as a weapon or form of resistance. “The body is a model that can stand for any bounded system. Its boundaries can represent any boundaries which are threatened or precarious. ” Within a state of exception the boundaries of power are precarious and threaten to destabilize not only the law, but one’s humanity, as well as their choice of life or death. Forms of resistance to the extended use of power within the state of exception as suggested in Guantánamo Bay prison also operate outside of the law. In the case of the hunger strike, the prisoners were threatened and endured force feeding not allowing them to die. During the hunger strikes at Guantánamo Bay prison, accusations and founded claims of forced feedings began to surface in the autumn of 2005. A hunger strike is a method of Non-violent resistance or pressure in which participants fast as an act of political Protest, or to provoke feelings of In February of 2006, The New York Times reported that prisoners were being force fed in Guantánamo Bay prison and in March of 2006, more than 250 medical experts, as reported by the BBC [1], voiced their opinions of the forced feedings stating that this was a breach of the government’s power and was against the rights of the prisoners.

The Coming Community (1993)

In The Coming Community, published in Italian in 1990 and English translation by Michael Hardt in 1993, Agamben describes the social and political manifestation of his philosophical thought. Michael Hardt (born 1960 is an American literary theorist and political philosopher based at Duke University. The beauty and brevity of the text is augmented by the book layout, filled with design, white space and random dots. Employing diverse short essays he describes the nature of “whatever singularity” as that which has an “inessential commonality, a solidarity that in no way concerns an essence”. It is important to note his understanding of “whatever” not as being indifference but based on the Latin translation of “being such that it always matters”

He starts off by describing “The Lovable”

Love is never directed toward this or that property of the loved one (being blond, being small, being tender, being lame), but neither does it neglect the properties in favour of an insipid generality (universal love): The lover want the loved one with all of its predicates, its being such as it is.

– [3]

Following the same trend, Agamben employs, amongst others, the following to describe the “watershed of whatever”:

Other themes addressed in The Coming Community include the commodification of the body, evil, and the messianic.

Unlike other continental philosophers he does not reject the age-old dichotomies of subject – object, potentiality - actuality etc outright, but rather turns them inside-out, pointing out the zone where they become indistinguishable.

{{quotation|Matter that does not remain beneath form, but surrounds it with a halo|[5]|

The political task of humanity, he argues, is to expose the innate potential in this zone of indistinguishability. And although criticised as dreaming the impossible by certain authors [6], he nonetheless shows a concrete example of whatever singularity acting politically:

Whatever singularity, which wants to appropriate belonging itself, its own being-in-language, and thus rejects all identity and every condition of belonging, is the principle enemy of the State. Wherever these singularities peacefully demonstrate their being in common there will be Tiananmen, and, sooner or later, the tanks will appear

– [7]


Homo Sacer: Sovereign Power and Bare Life (1998)

Main article: Homo Sacer

In his main work "Homo Sacer: Sovereign Power and Bare Life" (1998), Giorgio Agamben analyzes an obscure figure of Roman law that poses some fundamental questions to the nature of law and power in general. Homo sacer (Latin for "the sacred man" is an obscure figure of Roman law: a Person who is banned, may be killed by anybody but may Roman law is the legal system of Ancient Rome. As used in the West the term commonly refers to legal developments prior to the Roman/Byzantine state's adopting Law is a system of rules enforced through a set of Institutions used as an instrument to underpin civil obedience politics economics and society Power is a measure of a person's ability to control the environment around them including the behavior of other people Under the Roman Empire, a man who committed a certain kind of crime was banned from society and all of his rights as a citizen were revoked. He thus became a "homo sacer" (sacred man). Homo sacer (Latin for "the sacred man" is an obscure figure of Roman law: a Person who is banned, may be killed by anybody but may In consequence, he could be killed by anybody -- while his life on the other hand was deemed "sacred", so he could not be sacrificed in a ritual ceremony.

Roman law no longer applied to someone deemed a Homo sacer, although they would remain "under the spell" of law. Agamben defines it as "human life. . . included in the juridical order solely in the form of its exclusion (that is, of its capacity to be killed)". Homo sacer was therefore excluded from law itself, while being included at the same time. This figure is the exact mirror image of the sovereign (Basileus) -- a king, emperor, or president -- who stands, on the one hand, within law (so he can be condemned, e. Sovereignty is the exclusive Right to control a Government, a country, a people or oneself "Basilissa" redirects here For the saint of this name see Julian and Basilissa. An emperor (from the Latin " Imperator " is a (male Monarch, usually the sovereign ruler of an Empire or another type of President is a Title leaders of Organizations companies, Trade unions universities, and countries. g. , for treason, as a natural person) and outside of the law (since as a body politic he has power to suspend law for an indefinite time). Body politic or body corporate and politic means a State or one of its subordinate Civil authorities, such as a Province, Prefecture

Indeed, Giorgio Agamben draws on Carl Schmitt's definition of the Sovereign as the one who has the power to decide the state of exception (or justitium), where law is indefinitely "suspended" without being abrogated. Justitium is a Concept of Roman law, equivalent to the declaration of the State of emergency. But if Schmitt's aim is to include the necessity of state of emergency under the rule of law, Agamben on the contrary demonstrates that all life can't be subsumed by law. As in Homo sacer, the state of emergency is the inclusion of life and necessity in the juridical order solely in the form of its exclusion.

Since its origins, Agamben notes, law has had the power of defining what "bare life" (zoe, as opposed to bios: qualified life) is by making this exclusive operation, while at the same time gaining power over it by making it the subject of political control. The power of law to actively separate "political" beings (citizens) from "bare life" (bodies) has carried on from Antiquity to Modernity -- from, literally, Aristotle to Auschwitz. "Ancient" redirects here For other uses see Ancient_(disambiguation. Modernity is a term that refers to the Modern era. It is distinct from Modernism, and in different contexts refers to cultural and intellectual movements of the Aristotle (Greek Aristotélēs) (384 BC – 322 BC was a Greek philosopher a student of Plato and teacher of Alexander the Great. "Auschwitz" redirects here For the town see Oświęcim Auschwitz-Birkenau () was the largest of Nazi Germany Aristotle, as Agamben notes, constitutes political life via a simultaneous inclusion and exclusion of "bare life": as Aristotle says, man is an animal born to life (zen), but existing with regard to the good life (eu zen) which can be achieved through politics. Life is a state that distinguishes Organisms from non-living objects such as non-life and dead organisms being manifested by growth through Metabolism Eudaimonia ( Greek:) is a classical Greek word commonly translated as ' Happiness ' Bare life, in this ancient conception of politics, is that which must be transformed, via the State, into the "good life"; that is, bare life is that which is supposedly excluded from the higher aims of the state, yet is included precisely so that it may be transformed into this "good life". Sovereignty, then, is conceived from ancient times as a state of exception. According to Agamben, biopower, which takes the bare lives of the citizens into its political calculations, may be more marked in the modern state, but has essentially existed since the beginnings of sovereignty in the West, since this structure of ex-ception is essential to the core concept of sovereignty. Biopower was a term originally coined by French Philosopher Michel Foucault to refer to the practice of modern states and their regulation of their subjects [8]

Agamben would continue to expand the theory of the state of exception first introduced in "Homo Sacer: Sovereign Power and Bare Life", ultimately leading "State of Exception" in 2005. During 2003, he delivered a lecture describing the eclipse that politics has undergone. Instead of leaving a space between law and life, the space where human action is possible, the space that used to constitute politics, he argues that politics has “contaminated itself with law” in the state of exception. Because “only human action is able to cut the relationship between violence and law”, it becomes increasingly difficult within the state of exception for humanity to act against the State[9]

State of Exception (2005)

In this book, Agamben traces the concept of state of exception used by Carl Schmitt to Roman justitium and auctoritas. Carl Schmitt ( July 11 1888 April 7 1985) was a German Jurist, Political theorist, and professor of Law Justitium is a Concept of Roman law, equivalent to the declaration of the State of emergency. Auctoritas is a Latin word and is the origin of English " Authority " This leads him to a response to Carl Schmitt's definition of sovereignty as the power to proclaim state emergency.

Giorgio Agamben’s text State of Exception investigates the increase of power structures governments employ in supposed times of crisis. Within these times of crisis, Agamben refers to increased extension of power as states of exception, where questions of citizenship and individual rights can be diminished, superseded and rejected in the process of claiming this extension of power by a government. Agamben explores the effect of the state of exception on the individual by looking at the ideas of bios and zoe. In Computing, the BIOS (ˈbaɪoʊs

The state of exception invests one person or government, with the power and voice of authority over others extended well beyond where the law has existed in the past. “In every case, the state of exception marks a threshold at which logic and praxis blur with each other and a pure violence without logos claims to realize an enunciation without any real reference" (Agamben, pg 40). Agamben refers a continued state of exception to the Nazi state of Germany under Hitler’s rule. “The entire Third Reich can be considered a state of exception that lasted twelve years. In this sense, modern totalitarianism can be defined as the establishment, by means of the state of exception, of a legal civil war that allows for the physical elimination not only of political adversaries but of entire categories of citizens who for some reason cannot be integrated into the political system" (Agamben, pg 2). However simplistic and obvious it is to mention, one must acknowledge the state of exception is a dangerous and violent place of operation.

The political power over others acquired through the state of exception, places one government - or one form or branch of government - as all powerful, operating outside of the laws. During such times of extension of power, certain forms of knowledge shall be privileged and accepted as true and certain voices shall be heard as valued, while of course, many others are not. This oppressive distinction holds great importance in relation to the production of knowledge. The process of both acquiring knowledge, and suppressing certain knowledge, is a violent act within a time of crisis.

Agamben’s State of Exception investigates how the suspension of laws within a state of emergency or crisis can become a prolonged state of being. More specifically, Agamben addresses how this prolonged state of exception operates to remove individuals of their citizenship. When speaking about the military order issued by President George W. Bush on November 13, 2001, Agamben writes, “What is new about President Bush’s order is that it radically erases any legal status of the individual, thus producing a legally unnamable and unclassifiable being. Events 1002 - English king Ethelred orders the killing of all Danes in England, known today as the St Year 2001 ( MMI) was a Common year starting on Monday according to the Gregorian calendar. Not only do the Taliban captured in Afghanistan not enjoy the status of POW’s as defined by the Geneva Convention, they do not even have the status of people charged with a crime according to American laws" (Agamben, pg 3). The Geneva Conventions consist of four Treaties formulated in Geneva, Switzerland, that set the standards for International law for humanitarian Many of the individuals captured in Afghanistan were taken to be held at Guantánamo Bay without trial. The Guantanamo Bay Detention Camp is a controversial United States Detention center operated by Joint Task Force Guantanamo since 2002 in Guantanamo These individuals were termed as “enemy combatants. The term enemy combatant has historically referred to members of the armed forces of the state with which another state is at war ” Until July 7, 2006, these individuals had been treated outside of the Geneva Conventions by the United States administration. Events 1456 - A retrial verdict acquits Joan of Arc of heresy 25 years after her death Year 2006 ( MMVI) was a Common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar.

Auctoritas, "charisma" and Führertum doctrine

Agamben shows that auctoritas and potestas are clearly distinct - although they form together a binary system". Potestas is a Latin word meaning power or faculty It is an important concept in Roman Law. [10] He quotes Mommsen, who explains that auctoritas is "less than an order and more than an advice". Christian Matthias Theodor Mommsen ( 30 November 1817 &ndash 1 November 1903) was a German classical scholar, In militaries a general order is a published directive originated by a commander and binding upon all personnel under his command the purpose of which is to enforce a Policy [11]

While potestas derives from social function, auctoritas "immediately derives from the patres personal condition". As such, it is akin to Max Weber's concept of charisma. Maximilian Carl Emil Weber (maks 'veːbɐ (21 April 1864 &ndash 14 June 1920 was a German political economist and sociologist who was considered The Sociologist Max Weber defined charismatic authority as "resting on devotion to the exceptional sanctity heroism or exemplary character of an individual person This is why the tradition ordered, at the king's death, the creation of the sovereign’s wax-double in the funus imaginarium, as did Ernst Kantorowicz demonstrate in The King's Two Bodies (1957). Ernst Hartwig Kantorowicz ( May 3 1895 - September 9 1963) was a German-Jewish historian of medieval political and intellectual history known Hence, it is necessary to distinguish two bodies of the sovereign in order to assure the continuity of dignitas (term used by Kantorowicz, here a synonym of auctoritas). Moreover, in the person detaining auctoritas -- the sovereign -- public life and private life have become inseparable. Public is of or pertaining to the people relating to or affecting a nation state or community opposed to private; as the public treasury a road or lake Privacy is the ability of an individual or group to seclude themselves or information about themselves and thereby reveal themselves selectively Augustus, the first Roman emperor who claimed auctoritas as the basis of princeps status in a famous passage of Res Gestae, had opened up his house to public eyes. Augustus ( Latin: IMPERATOR·CAESAR·DIVI·FILIVS·AVGVSTVS September 23 63 BC – August 19 AD 14) born Gaius Octavius Thurinus, was The Latin word Princeps (plural principes) means exactly 'a prime'

The concept of auctoritas played a key-role in fascism and Nazism, in particular concerning Carl Schmitt's theories, argues Agamben:

To understand modern phenomenons such as the fascist Duce or the Nazi Führer, it is important not to forget their continuity with the principle of auctoritas principis {Agamben refers here to Augustus's Res Gestae}. Fascism is a totalitarian nationalist and corporatist ideology Nazism, which was a short name for National Socialism (Nationalsozialismus refers primarily to the Ideology and practices of the National Socialist German Carl Schmitt ( July 11 1888 April 7 1985) was a German Jurist, Political theorist, and professor of Law Duce is an Italian word meaning Leader or the second derived from Latin word dux of the same meaning of which Duke is a derivation {. . . } Neither does the Duce nor the Führer represent constitutionally defined public charges - even though Mussolini and Hitler endorsed respectively the charge of head of government and Reich's chancellor, just as Augustus endorsed the imperium consulare or the potestas tribunicia. The Duce’s or the Führer’s qualities are immediately related to the physical person and belong to the biopolitical tradition of auctoritas and not to the juridical tradition of potestas

– [12]

Thus, Agamben opposes Foucault's concept of "biopolitics" to right (law), as he defines the state of exception, in Homo sacer, as the inclusion of life by right under the figure of ex-ception, which is simultaneously inclusion and exclusion. The term " biopolitics " or " biopolitical " can refer to several different yet compatible concepts A right is a legal or moral Entitlement or Permission. Rights are of vital importance in theories of Justice and deontological ethics Following Walter Benjamin's lead, he explains that our task would be to radically differentiate "pure violence" from right, instead of tying them together, as did Carl Schmitt.

Agamben concludes his chapter on "Auctoritas and potestas" writing:

It is significative that modern specialists were so enclined to admit that auctoritas was inherent to the living person of the pater or the princeps. What was evidently an ideology or a fictio aiming to be the groundwork of auctoritas ' preeminence or, at least, specific rank compared to potestas thus became a figure of right's {law - "droit"} immanence to life. An ideology is a set of beliefs aims and Ideas especially in politics Immanence, derived from the Latin in manere "to remain within" refers to philosophical and metaphysical theories of the divine as existing and acting within the mind (. . . ) Although it is evident that there can't be an eternal human type that would incarnate itself each time in Augustus, Napoleon, Hitler, but only more or less comparable ("semblables") mechanisms {"dispositif", a term often used by Foucault} - the state of exception, justitium, the auctoritas principis, the Führertum -, put in use in more or less different circumstances, in the 1930s - overall, but not only - in Germany, the power that Weber had defined as "charismatic" is related to the concept of auctoritas and elaborated in a Führertum doctrine as the original and personal power of a leader. The 1930s were described as an abrupt shift to more radical and conservative lifestyles as countries were struggling to find a solution to the Great Depression. The, German for "leader principle" prescribes a system with a hierarchy of leaders that resembles a military structure In 1933, in a short article intending to define the fundamental concepts of national-socialism, Schmitt defines the Führung principle by the "root identity between the leader and his entourage" {"identité de souche entre le chef et son entourage"} (we shall note the use of weberian concepts). Year 1933 ( MCMXXXIII) was a Common year starting on Sunday (link will display full calendar of the Gregorian calendar.

– [13]

Agamben’s thoughts on the state of emergency leads him to declare that the difference between dictatorship and democracy is thin indeed, as rule by decree became more and more common, starting from World War I and the reorganization of constitutional balance. Rule by decree is a style of governance allowing quick unchallenged creation of law by a single person or group and is used primarily by Dictators and Absolute monarchs World War I (abbreviated WWI; also known as the First World War, the Great War, and the War to End All Agamben often reminds that Hitler never abrogated the Weimar Constitution: he suspended it for the whole duration of the 3rd Reich with the Reichstag Fire Decree, issued on February 28, 1933. Hi and welcome to Wikipedia! Please understand that this article is frequently vandalized and vandalism is reverted immediately For a detailed discussion of the English translation of Reich, see Reich. Nazi Germany and the Third Reich are the common English names for Germany under the regime of Adolf Hitler and the National Socialist German Workers The Reichstag Fire Decree (Reichstagsbrandverordnung is the common name of the Order of the Reich President for the Protection of People and State issued by German president Events 202 BC - coronation ceremony of Liu Bang as Emperor Gaozu of Han takes place initiating four centuries of the Han Dynasty 's rule Year 1933 ( MCMXXXIII) was a Common year starting on Sunday (link will display full calendar of the Gregorian calendar. Indefinite suspension of law is what characterizes the state of exception. Thus, Agamben connects Greek political philosophy through to the concentration camps of 20th century fascism, and even further, to detainment camps in the likes of Guantanamo Bay or immigration detention centers, such as Bari, Italy, where asylum seekers have been imprisoned in football stadiums. Internment is the imprisonment or confinement of people commonly in large groups without trial The Guantanamo Bay Detention Camp is a controversial United States Detention center operated by Joint Task Force Guantanamo since 2002 in Guantanamo Bari ( Barium in Latin, Bàrion or Vàrion in Greek, Bare in Neapolitan Italy (Italia officially the Italian Republic, (Repubblica Italiana is located on the Italian Peninsula in Southern Europe, and on the two largest In these kinds of camps, entire zones of exception are being formed: the state of exception becomes a status under which certain categories of people live, a capture of life by right. Sovereign law makes it possible to create entire areas in which the application of the law itself is held suspended, which is the basis of Bush administration's definition of an "enemy combatant". George Walker Bush ( born July 6 1946 is the forty-third and current President of the United States. An unlawful combatant or unprivileged combatant/belligerent is a Civilian who directly engages in armed conflict under the International Humanitarian Law

Interregnum, justitium and nomos empsuchos (the sovereign as "living law")

In the chapter preceding "Auctoritas and potestas", Agamben advances an explanation of the transformation of justitium, a technical term referring to the state of exception, declared to cope with tumultus state (rebellion, uprising, riots. . . ), at the end of the Roman Republic, into a term simply referring to the mourning of the sovereign's death during interregnum periods:

The correspondence between justitutium and mourning here shows its true signification. The Roman Republic was the phase of the ancient Roman civilization characterized by a Republican form of government a period which began with the overthrow of the An interregnum (plural interregna or interregnums) is a period of discontinuity of a government organization or social order If the sovereign is a living nomos, if then anomie and nomos coïncide in his person without any left-over, then anarchy (which, at his death, when the link attaching him to law his broken, threatens to unleash itself in the city) must be ritualized and controlled, by the transformation of the state of exception into public mourning and of mourning into justitium (. Anomie, in contemporary English language is a sociological term that signifies in individuals an erosion diminution or absence of personal norms standards or values . . ) Before acquiring the modern form of a decision on emergency {Schmitt's definition}, the relationship between sovereignty and state of exception presents itself under the form of an identity between the sovereign and anomie. As living law, the sovereign is deeply anomos. Here also the state of exception is the life -- more secret and true -- of the law.

– [14]

The first formulation of the thesis according to which "the sovereign is a living law" found its first formulation on the treatise "On law and justice" by pseudo-Archytas, conserved by Stobaeus with Diotogene's treatise on sovereignty. Archytas (Ἀρχύτας 428 BC – 347 BC was an Ancient Greek Philosopher, Mathematician, Astronomer, Statesman, and strategist Joannes Stobaeus ( Greek: Στοβαῖος so called from his native place Stobi in North Macedonia (Roman province, was the compiler of a valuable series It is the first attempt to conceive a form of sovereignty completely enfranchised from laws, being itself the source of legitimacy. This theory must be radically distinguished from natural rights theory or Antigone's appeal to the "eternal and unwritten laws" to which even monarchs must abide, as it is a theory of sovereignty (in fact, it is quite the reverse of Antigone's rebellion). This article is about the daughter of Oedipus For the daughter of Eurytion see Antigone (daughter of Eurytion.

Pseudo-Archytas distinguished the sovereign (basileus), who is the law, from the magistrate (archōn), who limits himself to observing the law. "Basilissa" redirects here For the saint of this name see Julian and Basilissa. A magistrate is a judicial officer In Common law systems a magistrate usually has limited authority to administer and enforce the Law. Archon (Gr ἄρχων pl ἄρχοντες is a Greek word that means "ruler" frequently used as the title of a specific public office "Identification between law and sovereign has as consequence, writes Agamben, the scission of law into a "living" law (nomos empsuchos), hierarchically superior, and a written law (gramma), which is subordinate to the first one". He then quotes A. Delatte's Essais sur la politique pythagoricienne (Paris, 1922), himself quoting the pseudo-Archytas:

"I say that all communities are composed of an archōn (the magistrate who commands), a commanded one, and, as tierce party, laws. Among those ones, the living one is the sovereign (ho men empsuchos ho basileus), and the inanimate one is the letter (gramma). Law is the first element, the king is legal, the magistrate accorded to law, the commanded free and all of the city happy; but, in case of corruption ("dévoiement"), the sovereign is a tyrant, the magistrate is not accorded to law and the community is unhappy. In modern usage a tyrant is a single ruler holding absolute power over a State or within an Organization. "

Criticism of US response to "9-11"

Giorgio Agamben is particularly critical of the United States' response to September 11, 2001, and its instrumentalization as a permanent condition that legitimizes a "state of exception" as the dominant paradigm for governing in contemporary politics. For the 2005 book see State of Exception (2005. A state of exception is a concept in the legal theory of Carl Schmitt, similar He warns against a "generalization of the state of exception" through laws like the USA PATRIOT Act, which means a permanent installment of martial law and emergency powers. The USA PATRIOT Act, commonly known as the Patriot Act, is a controversial Act of Congress that U Martial law is the system of rules that takes effect when the military takes control of the normal administration of justice A state of emergency is a governmental declaration that may suspend certain normal functions of government alert citizens to alter their normal behaviors or order government agencies In January 2004, he refused to give a lecture in the United States because under the US-VISIT he would have been required to give up his biometric information, which he believed stripped him to a state of "bare life" (zoe) and was akin to the tattooing that the Nazis did during World War II. US-VISIT (United States Visitor and Immigrant Status Indicator Technology is a U Biometrics ( ancient Greek: bios life metron measure refers to two very different fields of study and application A tattoo is a permanent marking made by inserting ink into the layers of Skin to change the pigment for decorative or other reasons Nazism, which was a short name for National Socialism (Nationalsozialismus refers primarily to the Ideology and practices of the National Socialist German [15][16]


However, Agamben's criticisms target a broader scope than the US "war on terror". The War on Terrorism (also known as the War on Terror) is the common term for the military political and legal, and ideological conflict and specifically for U As he points out in State of Exception (2005), rule by decree has become common since World War I in all modern states, and has been since then generalized and abused. Rule by decree is a style of governance allowing quick unchallenged creation of law by a single person or group and is used primarily by Dictators and Absolute monarchs Agamben points out a general tendency of modernity, recalling for example that when Francis Galton and Alphonse Bertillon invented "judicial photography" for "anthropometric identification", the procedure was reserved to criminals; to the contrary, today's society is tending toward a generalization of this procedure to all citizens, placing the population under permanent suspicion and surveillance: "The political body thus has became a criminal body". Sir Francis Galton FRS ( 16 February 1822 &ndash 17 January 1911) half-cousin of Charles Darwin, was an Alphonse Bertillon ( April 23, 1853 &mdash February 13, 1914) was a French law enforcement officer and Biometrics researcher Anthropometry ( Greek άνθρωπος man and μέτρον measure literally meaning "measurement of humans" in Physical anthropology, refers to the In the sociological field, crime is the breach of a rule or Law for which some governing authority or force may ultimately prescribe a Punishment In Biology a population is the collection of inter-breeding organisms of a particular Species; in Sociology Surveillance is the monitoring of Behavior. Systems surveillance is the process of monitoring the behavior of people objects or processes within systems for conformity And Agamben notes that the Jews deportation in France and other occupied countries was made possible by the photos taken from identity cards. The Holocaust (from the Greek el ''ὁλόκαυστον'' (el-Latn holókauston holos, "completely" and kaustos, "burnt" also known as Vichy France, or the Vichy regime are the common terms used to describe the government of France from July 1940 to August 1944 An identity document, also called a piece of identification ( ID) is a document used to verify aspects of a person's Identity. [17] Furthermore, Agamben's political criticisms open up in a larger philosophical critique of the concept of sovereignty itself, which he explains is intrinsically related to the state of exception. The term critique derives from the Greek term kritik, meaning "disgusting judgment" usually of the value of something

Endnotes and references

  1. ^ Generally speaking, "state of exception" includes German Notstand, English state of emergency and others martial law. Martial law is the system of rules that takes effect when the military takes control of the normal administration of justice Agamben prefers using this term as it underlines the structure of ex-ception, which is simultaneously of inclusion and exclusion. "Ex-ception" can be opposed to the concept of "example" as developed by Kant. Immanuel Kant (ɪmanuəl kant 22 April 1724 12 February 1804 was an 18th-century German Philosopher from the Prussian city of Königsberg
  2. ^ The Coming Community (1993), section 11.
  3. ^ The Coming Community (1993), page 2.
  4. ^ The Coming Community (1993)
  5. ^ The Coming Community (1993)
  6. ^ IJBS
  7. ^ The Coming Community (1993), page 86.
  8. ^ Of course, this understanding of "biopower" is distinct from Foucault's use of the term.
  9. ^ Video clip of Agamben's lecture: On the State of Exception, Saas-Fee, Switzerland (2003) is available here or a smaller file here
  10. ^ Giorgio Agamben, State of Exception (2005)
  11. ^ Theodor Mommsen, Römisches Staatsrecht ("Roman Constitutional Law", volume III) (Graz, 1969)
  12. ^ Agamben, State of Exception (ibid. Christian Matthias Theodor Mommsen ( 30 November 1817 &ndash 1 November 1903) was a German classical scholar, ), chapter 6 "Auctoritas and potestas", §7.
  13. ^ Agamben, ibid. , chapter 6, §8.
  14. ^ Agamben, ibid. , chapter 5, §3.
  15. ^ (French)"Non au tatouage biopolitique "No to Bio-Political Tattooing"", Le Monde, 2004 January 10. Le Monde (The World is a  
  16. ^ [http://www.truthout.org/cgi-bin/artman/exec/view.cgi/4/3249|"No to Bio-Political Tattooing" By Giorgio Agamben, Le Monde, Saturday 10 January 2004
  17. ^ (French)"Non à la biométrie ("No to Biometrics")", Le Monde, 2005 December 5. Le Monde (The World is a Events 49 BC - Julius Caesar crosses the Rubicon, signaling the start of civil war. "MMIV" redirects here For the Modest Mouse album see " Baron von Bullshit Rides Again " Le Monde (The World is a   (also available here)

Bibliography

Only English translations are listed here; there are translations of most writings to German, French, Portuguese, and Spanish. There also is an updated list of publications including translations to other languages and links to texts here and a more complete bibliography here.

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