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"Bare life" and politics and in Agamben's reading of Aristotle

journal contribution
posted on 2023-06-08, 00:18 authored by Gordon FinlaysonGordon Finlayson
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 Politics

ISSN

0034-6705

Publisher

Cambridge University Press

Issue

1

Volume

72

Page range

97-126

Pages

30.0

Department affiliated with

  • Philosophy Publications

Full text available

  • No

Peer reviewed?

  • Yes

Legacy Posted Date

2012-02-06

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