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The Political Ontology of Giorgio Agamben: Bare Life and the Governmental Machine

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The Political Ontology of Giorgio Agamben: Bare Life and the Governmental Machine THE POLITICAL ONTOLOGY OF GIORGIO AGAMBEN: BARE LIFE AND THE GOVERNMENTAL MACHINE A dissertation presented by GERMAN EDUARDO PRIMERA VILLAMIZAR In partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of PhD. In Political Philosophy Supervised by Mark Devenney Daniel Steuer UNIVERSITY OF BRIGHTON SCHOOL OF HUMANITIES February 2016 Declaration I declare that the research contained in this thesis, unless otherwise formally indicated within the text, is the original work of the author. The thesis has not been previously submitted to this or any other university for a degree, and does not incorporate any material already submitted for a degree. _______________________________________________ German Eduardo Primera Villamizar February 1st 2016 i ‘My face is my outside: a point of indifference with respect to all of my properties, with respect to what is properly one’s own and what is common, to what is internal and what is external. In the face, I exist with all of my properties (my being brown, tall, pale, proud, emotional...); but this happens without any of these properties essentially identifying me or belonging to me. The face is the threshold of de- propriation and of de-identification of all manners and of all qualities – a threshold in which only the latter become purely communicable. And only where I find a face do I encounter an exteriority and does an outside happen to me. Be only your face. Go to the threshold. Do not remain the subjects of your properties or faculties, do not stay beneath them: rather, go with them, in them, beyond them.’ Agamben, ‘The Face’ in Means Without End [To Carole Blomme and the wonderful friends I have made in Brighton] ii CONTENTS PAGE Acknowledgments………………………………………...………………………………………………..v Abstract………………………………………………………………………………………………………….vi Chapter 1 .................................................................................................................................... 1 Introduction: The Work of Giorgio Agamben ................................................................ 1 Chapter 2 .................................................................................................................................... 9 Paradigms, Signatures, and Philosophical Archaeology ............................................ 9 Capturing the General Motivation of the Method: On Agamben’s Reading of Derrida ................................................................................................................................. 10 The Idea of the Archē: The Moment of Arising ....................................................... 16 On Paradigms: Between Singularity and Exemplarity ........................................ 23 On Signatures .................................................................................................................... 29 Philosophical Archaeology ............................................................................................ 38 Chapter 3 ................................................................................................................................. 41 The Common, the Proper, and the Zone of Indistinction: On the Linguistic- Metaphysical Machine in Agamben’s Thought ........................................................... 41 On the Isolation of the Improper: A Critique of Signification ............................ 43 The Common and the Proper: How do Signatures Work? .................................. 53 Chapter 4 ................................................................................................................................. 61 The Paradox of Sovereignty: Bare life and its Paradigms ....................................... 61 The Paradox of Sovereignty: Between Benjamin and Schmitt .......................... 62 Bare Life and its Paradigms: On the Figure of Homo Sacer ................................ 74 Chapter 5 ................................................................................................................................. 86 The Signature of Secularisation: Economic Theology, Government and Bare Life ............................................................................................................................................. 86 An Archaeology of Economic Theology: Oikonomia and the Fracture Between God’s Being and His Action ......................................................................... 89 The Providential Machine: On the Collateral Effect as an Act of Government ................................................................................................................................................ 97 An Archaeology of Glory and the Production of Bare Life ................................ 101 The Production of Bare Life and the Governmental Machine ......................... 105 Chapter 6 ............................................................................................................................... 112 iii Neoliberalism, Governmentality, and Sovereignty: The Lessons of The Kingdom and the Glory ...................................................................................................... 112 Agamben and Foucault: Two Genealogies of Governmentality ...................... 115 Neoliberalism: Rearticulating Sovereignty and Governance .......................... 127 Chapter 7 ............................................................................................................................... 134 Life, Biopolitics, and Inoperativity ............................................................................... 134 Foucault’s Notion of Life and the Enigma of Biopolitics .................................... 135 The Signature of Life and the Biopolitical Machine ............................................ 144 The Politics of Inoperativity: Use and Destituent Power .................................. 155 Conclusions ........................................................................................................................... 165 Bibliography……………………………………………………………………………………………….170 iv ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Firstly I would like to thank my supervisors Mark Devenney and Daniel Steuer who, throughout my three years of study, have provided an insightful theoretical guidance, support and inspiration. Their commitment to my research was beyond expectations. I would also like to thank my colleagues and friends from the Critical Studies Research Group who have created an intellectually stimulating environment. I have received constructive criticism in the conferences and work-in- progress seminars organised by the CSRG where I presented my work. Also I must thank Lars Cornelissen, Afxentis Afxentiou and Tim Huzar for the critical and constructive feedback they have given me, as well as for their generous editing and proofreading. I am grateful to Mark Able and Tom Hickey for providing me with a thoughtful critique of some of these chapters. I would also like to express my appreciation for The Centre for Applied Philosophy, Politics and Ethics for organising series of lectures, conferences and reading groups that made my time in Brighton a truly gratifying intellectual experience, thanks Bob Brecher! Finally I have to thank the School of Humanities and the Doctoral College for the Arts and Humanities for their financial support to my PhD. v Abstract This thesis develops an account of Agamben’s philosophical archaeology through an analysis of the notions of signatures, paradigms and the archē, and through an examination of Agamben’s critique of both Western metaphysics and deconstruction. It claims that Agamben’s philosophical archaeology and his analysis of the differentiating logic of Western metaphysics constitute the necessary framework from which the Homo Sacer project should be examined. In this sense this project rearticulates Agamben’s works on signification, language and ontology with his archaeology of power. Indeed, my thesis reconstructs Agamben’s critique of metaphysis in order to bring together the two parts of the Homo Sacer project through an analysis of the production of bare life: the archaeology of the signature of Sovereignty and the archaeology of governmentality. It argues that throughout the work of Agamben there is no rupture in terms of his treatment of power but rather that there are different emphases that are combined in his analysis of the governmental machine. Finally, this thesis uses the theoretical and methodological frameworks that it develops to address the relation between biopolitics, the governmental machine, Agamben’s account of ontology, and bare life. To conclude, this thesis offers an examination of Agamben’s notion of resistance, that is, the politics of inoperativity through an analysis of the central categories that constitute his attempt at rendering inoperative the signatures of Life and Power: Destituent Power, form-of-life, and Use. Key Words: Giorgio Agamben, Political Ontology, Biopolitics, Sovereignty, Governmentality, Bare life vi Chapter 1 Introduction: The Work of Giorgio Agamben [T]he genuine philosophical element in every work, whether it be a work of art, science or thought, is its capacity to be developed, which Ludwig Feuerbach defined as Entwicklungsfähigkigkeit. It is precisely when one follows such a principle that the difference between what belongs to the author of a work and what is attributable to the interpreter becomes as essential as it is difficult to grasp. I have therefore preferred to take the risk of attributing to the texts of others what began its
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