Potentialities: Collected Essays in Philosophy

306 Pages·2000·5.39 MB·English

by  Giorgio Agamben

• • • • "
Edited and Translated
Wi[h an Introduction
By Daniel Heller-Roazen
Stanford
University
Press
y.
h
p
o
s
o
hil
P 4
s in pg= Stanford
y p
a &
cted Ess 99. p 4. 001223 California
alities : Colle sity Press, 19 uc/Doc?id=2 1999
hor). Potenti nford Univer b/dominican
Aut Sta m/li
o ( A: co
Giorgi A, US brary.
Agamben, Stanford, C http://site.e
POTENTIALITI ES
Collected Essays in Philosophy
Giorgio Agamben
y.
h
p
o
s
o
hil
P 5
n =
s i pg
y p
a &
cted Ess 99. p 5. 001223
alities : Colle sity Press, 19 uc/Doc?id=2
hor). Potenti nford Univer b/dominican
Aut Sta m/li
o ( A: co
Giorgi A, US brary.
Agamben, Stanford, C http://site.e
Stanford University Press
Stanford, California
© '999 by tbe Board ofT rustees of tbe
Leland Stanford Junior Universiry
Printed in the United States of America
or dara appear at rhe end of the book
y.
h
p
o
s
o
hil
P 6
n =
s i pg
y p
a &
cted Ess 99. p 6. 001223
alities : Colle sity Press, 19 uc/Doc?id=2
hor). Potenti nford Univer b/dominican
Aut Sta m/li
o ( A: co
Giorgi A, US brary.
Agamben, Stanford, C http://site.e
Contents
Editor's Note
Editor's Imroduction: "To Read What
Was Never Written"
PART I: LANGUAGE
§ I The Thing Itself
§ 2 The Idea of Language 39
§ J Language and History: Linguistic and
Historical Categories in Benjamin's Thought
§ 4 Philosophy and Linguistics
§ 5 Kommerell, or On Gesture 77
PART II: HISTORY
hy. § 6 Aby Warburg and the Nameless Science
p
o
s
o
hil § 7 Tradition of the Immemorial
P 7
n =
ys i ppg § 8 "Se: Hegel's Absolute and
a &
alities : Collected Ess sity Press, 1999. p 7. uc/Doc?id=2001223 § 9 WHHaeaipldtpeegirn gBeesersn's ja aEnmdre iiHngn iasinst odr itchael DReedmeomnpict:i on 1,),68
hor). Potenti nford Univer b/dominican
Aut Sta m/li
o ( A: co
Giorgi A, US brary.
Agamben, Stanford, C http://site.e
§oo The Messiah and the Sovereign:
The Problem of Law in Walter Benjamin 160
PART III: POTENTIALITY
§n On Potentiality 177
§12 The Passion of Facticiry 185
§ 13 Pllrdes: The Writing of Potentiality 205
§14 Absolme Immanence 220
PART IV: CONTINGENCY
§ '5 Bartleby, or On Conringency 243
Notes
275
Index ofN ames 303
y.
h
p
o
s
o
hil
P 8
n =
s i pg
y p
a &
cted Ess 99. p 8. 001223
alities : Colle sity Press, 19 uc/Doc?id=2
hor). Potenti nford Univer b/dominican
Aut Sta m/li
o ( A: co
Giorgi A, US brary.
Agamben, Stanford, C http://site.e
'
Editors Note
English passages cited from French, German, Greek, Italian, or Larin
editions identifled in the text or nOtes arc my own translations. Passages
cited from published English translations identified in the nOtes are the
work of those translators unless otherwise indicated. I have on occasion
silently modified the quotations from these published translations.
"The Thing Itself" was published in Di-segno: Lag iustizia net discorso
(Milan: Jaca, 1984), ed. Gianfranco Dalmasso, pp. 1-12. "The Idea of
Language" appeared in aut-aut 201 (1984), pp. 67-74. "Language and
History: Linguistic Categories and Historical Categories in Benjamin's
Thought" was first published in Wlttlfer Benjamin: Tempo storia linguag­
gio, cd. Lucio Bclloi and Lorcnzina Loui (Roma: Riuniti, 1983), pp.
65-82. "Philosophy and Linguistics" appeared in Annuaire philosophique
(Paris: Seuil, 1990), pp. 97-II6. "Kommerell, or On Gesture" was writ­
ten as an introduction to Max Kommcrell, 11p oeta e liindicibile: Saggi di
letteratum tedesco, cd. Giorgio Agamben and trans. Gino Giomctti (Gen­
ova: Marietti, 1991), pp. vii-xv. "Aby Warburg and the Nameless Science"
first appeared in Prospettive Settanta, July-September 1975, pp. 3-18; it was
y. reprinted, with the "Postilla" published here, in aut-aut 199-200 (1984),
h
p
so pp. 51-66. "Tradition of the Immemorial" first appeared in !l ce11tnuro
o
hil 13-14 (1985), pp. 3-12. "·Se: Hegel'::.: Ab::.:olute and Heidegger'::.: Ereignis"
P 9
s in pg= was published in aut-aut 187-88 (1982), pp. 39-58. "Walter Benjamin and
y p
cted Essa 99. p 9. 001223& tinh ea Dtlte-mauotnI8ic9: -H90ap (p19in8e2s)s, apnpd. 1H43is-t1o6r3ic. al" RTehdee Mmepstsioianh" awnads fi(hrest S pouvbelriesihgend:
alities : Colle sity Press, 19 uc/Doc?id=2 THheeb rPerwo bUlenmiv oefrs Litayw o ifn J Werualstaelre mBe, nijna mJuinly" w19a9s2 g iavnedn wasa as lpeuctbulriseh aetd t hine
hor). Potenti nford Univer b/dominican IX
Aut Sta m/li
o ( A: co
Giorgi A, US brary.
Agamben, Stanford, C http://site.e
Editor's Note
x
Anima e paura: Studi in onore di Michele Ranchetti (Maceram: Quodlibet,
1998), pp. II-22. "On Potentiality" was held as a lecture in Lisbon, 1986,
in [he context of conference organized by [he College international de
philosophie; it appears in this volume for the first time. "The Passion of
Facricity" was published in Heidegger: Questions ouvertes, Cahiers du
C/PH (Paris: Osiris, 1988), pp. 63-84. "Pardes: The Writing of Pmen­
rialiry" appeared in Revue philosophique 2 (1990), pp. '31-45. "Absolute
Immanence" was published in aut-llut276 (1996), pp. 39-57. "Bartlcby,
or On Contingency" first appeared in Giorgio Agambcn and Gilles
Deleuze. Bartleby: Lafo rmula della crellzione (Macerata: Quodlibet, 1993),
Pp·47-92.
D. H.-R.
y.
h
p
o
s
o
Phil 10
n =
s i pg
y p
cted Essa 99. p 10. 001223&
alities : Colle sity Press, 19 uc/Doc?id=2
hor). Potenti nford Univer b/dominican
Aut Sta m/li
o ( A: co
Giorgi A, US brary.
Agamben, Stanford, C http://site.e
Editor's Inttoduction
"To Read What was Never Written"
Among the notcs and sketches for Walter Benjamin's last work, the
"Theses on the Philosophy of Hisrory," we find the following statement:
"Hisroricai method is philological method, a method that has as its foun­
dation the book of life. 'To rcad what was never wrirrcn,' is what Hof­
mannsthal calls it. The reader referred to here is the true historian.'"
Giorgio Agamben is perhaps rhe only contemporary thinker have as­
(0
sumed as a philosophical problem the msk that Benjamin, in these words,
sets for historical and philological "method." What does it mean to con­
from histOry as a reader, "to read what was never written"? And what is it
that "was never written" in rhe "book ofl ife"? The question concerns rhe
event that Benjamin throughout his works calls "redemption." The essays
collected in this volume can be said ro elaborate a philosophy oflanguage
and hisrory adequate ro (he concept of this event. A single maner, truly
something like the "thing itself" of which Agamben writes in his essay on
PlatO'S Seventh Letter, animates the works gathered together here.
Whether the subject is AristOtle or Spinoza, Heidegger or Benjamin, what
y.
ph is at issuc is always a messianic momcnt of thinking, in which the prac­
o
s
n Philo =13 toifc et roafd tithieo n" hainstdO rtihaen "e xapnedr itehnec pe roafc ltaicneg oufa gthee, c"apnhnilOotl obgei srto,"ld t haep eaxrtp. eIrti eisn icne
s i pg
y p this moment that the past is saved, nOt in being returned to what once
cted Essa 99. p 13. 001223& enxeivsteerd w baust: ,i inn sbteeiandg, preraedci,s einly tihne b weionrgd st roafn sHfoorfmmeadn innsttoh asol,m aes twhihnagt twhaast
alities : Colle sity Press, 19 uc/Doc?id=2 never Wfl(ten.
hor). Potenti nford Univer b/dominican [
Aut Sta m/li
o ( A: co
Giorgi A, US brary.
Agamben, Stanford, C http://site.e
Editors Introduction
2
Bur what is it that, in [he course of hisrory, never was? What is it that,
in the text of tradition, remains in some way present yet forever unwrit­
ten? Agamben's essay "Tradition of rhe Immemorial" (Chapter in this
7
volume) helps address [he question. "Every reflection on nadition," we
read at the beginning of that essay, "must begin with the assertion that
before nansmitting anything else, human beings must first of all transmi t
language themselves. Every specific tradition, every determinate cuI­
(0
mral patrimony, presupposes rhe transmission of that alone through
which something like a tradition is possible." The statement concerns lin­
guistic signification and historical transmission alike, since rhe presuppo­
sition at issue is common to both. The fact of the transmission of lan­
guage or, more simply, that there language. is what every communication
is
must have always presupposed, for without it there would be neither
transmission nor signification; and it is this fact, Agamben argues, that
cannot be communicated in the form of a particular statement or series
of statements. Actual utterances, after all, are possible only where speech
has already begun, and the very affirmation of the existence of language­
"there is language"-only renders explicit what is, in effect, implied by
the fact of its own utterance.
That language must already have taken place for linguistic acts to be
performed is not a fact without relation to forms of actual communica­
tion. The presuppositional structure of language is dearly registered first
of all in the classical form of linguistic signification, the predicative as­
sertion. According to Aristotle's canonical definition of the statement as a
"saying something about something" (legein ti kata tinos),2 what is said in
the proposition is necessarily divided into a first "something" and a sec­
ond "something," and the proposition appears as a meaningful S£atemenr
only on condition that the first "something," the subject, already be
given. The distinction between the predicate and its subject thus has the
form of a presupposition, and it is precisely this presupposition that ren­
y. ders predication possible. Were a thing nor already manifest in language,
h
p
o it could not be qualified in any way through the form of attribution; were
s
o
Phil 14 the identity of a first "something" not presupposed in the form of an ab­
s in pg= solutely simple and indefinable subject, or hypokeimenon, the predication
y p
cted Essa 99. p 14. 001223& pofli sah seedc.o "nTdo "sspoemaket ohifn ag b" e(ilnegge,"in A kgaatm' hbypeno ktehiumse wnoriut)e sc oinu l"dT rnaodti tbieo na cocfo rmhe­
alities : Colle sity Press, 19 uc/Doc?id=2 lIimghmt,e min otrhiea lv,"e r"yh uacmt ainn lwanhgicuha gite bsuripnpgos siet st aon ldig dhits.t"a nces what it brings to
hor). Potenti nford Univer b/dominican
Aut Sta m/li
o ( A: co
Giorgi A, US brary.
Agamben, Stanford, C http://site.e