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person1970s-present

Giorgio Agamben

Disciplines:
political philosophy
jurisprudence/philosophy of law
philosophy/continental philosophy

Summary

Italian philosopher who developed the concepts of bare life, homo sacer, and the state of exception, arguing that sovereignty operates by reducing subjects to killable bare life stripped of political rights.

Core Contribution

Homo Sacer: sovereign power operates by including subjects through their potential exclusion — bare life is the original political element, not the citizen's rights. The state of exception (Ausnahmezustand) is not the exception but the rule of modern politics. The camp (concentration camp) is the nomos of modernity.

Key Spikes & Highlights

  • Claimed during COVID-19 that the pandemic was an invented pretext for establishing a permanent state of exception — a position that alienated many former admirers.
  • Reads Benjamin's angel of history and Schmitt's sovereign through each other — the messianic interruption of history and the sovereign decision on the exception are mirror images.

Notable Works & Achievements

Homo Sacer: Sovereign Power and Bare Life

State of Exception

The Open

Remnants of Auschwitz

Historical Influences

Martin Heidegger Carl Schmitt Michel Foucault Walter Benjamin

Intellectual Lineage

Heideggerian OntologySchmittian Political TheologyFoucaultian Biopolitics

Contemporaries & Peers

Jacques Derrida Jean-Luc NancyAntonio Negri

Minds Influenced

Judith Butler Roberto EspositoSlavoj Žižek

Intellectual Posterity

Bare LifeState of Exception Homo SacerBiopolitics

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Giorgio Agamben

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