The Use of Bodies (Meridian: Crossing Aesthetics) - Softcover

Agamben, Giorgio

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0804798400 ISBN 13: 9780804798402

Publisher: Stanford University Press, 2016

Synopsis

Giorgio Agamben's Homo Sacer was one of the seminal works of political philosophy in recent decades. It was also the beginning of a series of interconnected investigations of staggering ambition and scope, investigating the deepest foundations of Western politics and thought.

The Use of Bodies represents the ninth and final volume in this twenty-year undertaking, breaking considerable new ground while clarifying the stakes and implications of the project as a whole. It comprises three major sections. The first uses Aristotle's discussion of slavery as a starting point for radically rethinking notions of selfhood; the second calls for a complete reworking of Western ontology; and the third explores the enigmatic concept of "form-of-life," which is in many ways the motivating force behind the entire Homo Sacer project. Interwoven between these major sections are shorter reflections on individual thinkers (Debord, Foucault, and Heidegger), while the epilogue pushes toward a new approach to political life that breaks with the destructive deadlocks of Western thought. The Use of Bodies represents a true masterwork by one of our greatest living philosophers.

About this title

About the Author

Giorgio Agamben is a contemporary Italian philosopher and political theorist whose works have been translated into numerous languages. His most recent title with Stanford University Press is Stasis (2015).

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

The Use of Bodies

Homo Sacer IV, 2

By Giorgio Agamben, Werner Hamacher, Adam Kotsko

STANFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS

Copyright © 2014 Neri Pozza Editore, Vicenza
All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-0-8047-9840-2

Contents

Translator's Note, 
Prefatory Note, 
Prologue, 
I. THE USE OF BODIES, 
1. The Human Being without Work, 
2. Chresis, 
3. Use and Care, 
4. The Use of the World, 
5. Use-of-Oneself, 
6. Habitual Use, 
7. The Animate Instrument and Technology, 
8. The Inappropriable, 
Intermezzo I, 
II. AN ARCHEOLOGY OF ONTOLOGY, 
1. Ontological Apparatus, 
2. Theory of Hypostases, 
3. Toward a Modal Ontology, 
Intermezzo II, 
III. FORM-OF-LIFE, 
1. Life Divided, 
2. A Life Inseparable from Its Form, 
3. Living Contemplation, 
4. Life Is a Form Generated by Living, 
5. Toward an Ontology of Style, 
6. Exile of One Alone with One Alone, 
7. "That's How We Do It", 
8. Work and Inoperativity, 
9. The Myth of Er, 
Epilogue: Toward a Theory of Destituent Potential, 
Bibliography, 

CHAPTER 1

The Human Being without Work

1.1. The expression "the use of the body" (he tou somatos chresis) is found at the beginning of Aristotle's Politics (1254b 18), at the point where it is a question of defining the nature of the slave. Aristotle has just affirmed that the city is composed of families or households (oikiai) and that the family, in its perfect form, is composed of slaves and free people (ek doulon kai eleutheron — the slaves are mentioned before the free; 1253b 3–5). Three types of relations define the family: the despotic (despotikè) relation between the master (despotes) and the slaves, the matrimonial (gamikè) relation between the husband and wife, and the parental (technopoietikè) relation between the father and the children (7–11). That the master/slave relation is in some way, if not the most important, at least the most evident is suggested — aside from its being named first — by the fact that Aristotle specifies that the latter two relations are "nameless," lacking a proper name (which seems to imply that the adjectives gamikè and technopoietikè are only improper denominations devised by Aristotle, while everyone knows what a "despotic" relation is).

In any case, the analysis of the first relation, which immediately follows, in some way constitutes the introductory threshold of the treatise, almost as if only a correct preliminary understanding of the despotic relation would allow access to the properly political dimension. Aristotle begins by defining the slave as a being that, "while being human, is by its nature of another and not of itself," asking himself immediately after "if a similar being exists by nature or if, by contrast, slavery is always contrary to nature" (1254a 15–18).

The answer proceeds by means of a justification of the command ("to command and be commanded are not only necessary parts of things but also expedient"; 21–22), which in living beings are distinguished into despotic commands (archè despotikè) and political commands (archè politikè), exemplified respectively in the command of the soul over the body and that of the intelligence over the appetite. And just as in the preceding paragraph he had affirmed in general the necessity and natural (physei) character of command not only among animate beings but also in inanimate things (in Greek, the music

Edition details

• Publisher: Stanford University Press
• Publication date: 2016
• ISBN 10: 0804798400
• ISBN 13: 9780804798402
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 320