The Notion of Life in the Work of Agamben

Summary

Abstract: In his article “The Notion of Life in the Work of Agamben” Carlo Salzani analyzes the notion of “nudity” Giorgio Agamben's understanding of Western culture. Beginning with a reading ofthe essay “Nudity,” in which Agamben proposes an archaeological investigation of the theological apparatus of the concept, Salzani analyzes the pivotal trope in Agamben's Homo Sacer project, “bare” or “naked life,” that is, the nudity of life in the grip of sovereign power. Nudity and the nudity of life are construed as a “limit-concept” in a double movement of simultaneous positing and negation or in a positing that grants at the same time the inappropriability of its object. Salzani highlights how much this “liminality” owes to a tradition that borders the aesthetics and ranges from Kant's “sublime” to Heidegger's Ereignis via Benjamin's “expressionless-ness.” In Agamben's thought this risks to resemble a “mystical intuition,” as he argues in his first book, The Man Without Content, about Kant's aesthetic judgment.

Introduction

The work of philosopher Giorgio Agamben has gained a central place in politico-philosophical debates since the publication of his 1995 book Homo Sacer. Agamben elaborates on and defines Western culture with a particular understanding and construction of the meaning of life based on the methodological approach of “archaeology” he borrows from Michel Foucault.