File(s) not publicly available
"Bare life" and politics and in Agamben's reading of Aristotle
Giorgio Agamben's critique of Western politics in Homo Sacer and three related books has been highly influential in the humanities and social sciences. The critical social theory set out in these works depends essentially on his reading of Aristotle's Politics. His diagnosis of what ails Western politics and his suggested remedy advert to a “biopolitical paradigm,” at the center of which stand a notion of “bare life” and a purported opposition between bios and zoe. Agamben claims that this distinction is found in Aristotle's text, in ancient Greek, and in a tradition of political theory and political society stemming from fourth-century Athens to the present. However, a close reading of Aristotle refutes this assertion. There is no such distinction. I show that he bases this view on claims about Aristotle by Arendt and Foucault, which are also unfounded.
History
Publication status
- Published
Journal
Review of PoliticsISSN
0034-6705Publisher
Cambridge University PressExternal DOI
Issue
1Volume
72Page range
97-126Pages
30.0Department affiliated with
- Philosophy Publications
Full text available
- No
Peer reviewed?
- Yes
Legacy Posted Date
2012-02-06Usage metrics
Categories
No categories selectedKeywords
Licence
Exports
RefWorks
BibTeX
Ref. manager
Endnote
DataCite
NLM
DC