Potentiality, sovereignty and bare life. a critical reading of giorgio agamben

Abstract

This article presents a critical account of Agamben’s understanding of the logic of sovereignty and of the notion bare life, particularly Agamben’s approach to the paradox of sovereignty and its relation to Aristotle’s metaphysical category of potentiality. With regards to bare life, it brings together an analysis of the figure of the homo sacer with an account of Agamben’s use of paradigms as methodological tools. The first part of the paper argues that Agamben ontologises sovereignty by dramatising the paradox of its structure as im-potentiality. The second part claims that even though an account of Agamben’s methodology serves to respond to the different critiques that his notion of bare life has raised, Agamben’s notions of sovereignty and of bare life ultimately rely on Schmitt’s decisionism.