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'''Giorgio [[Agamben]]''' ([[born ]] [[1942]]) is an [[Italy|Italian]] [[philosopher]] who teaches at the [[University ]] of [[Verona]]. He also holds a professorship at the [[European Graduate School]], teaches at the [[:fr:Collège international de philosophie|Collège International de Philosophie]] in [[Paris]] and at the [[University of Macerata]] in Italy, and has held visiting appointments at several American universities. He became famous for his investigations on the [[concept]]s of [[state of emergency|state of exception]] and ''[[Homo sacer]]''.

Agamben was educated at the [[University of Rome]], where he wrote a [[thesis ]] on the [[political ]] [[thought ]] of [[Simone Weil]]. Agamben participated in [[Martin Heidegger]]'s Le Thor [[seminars ]] (on [[Heraclitus]] and [[Hegel]]) in 1966 and [[1968]]. In the seventies he worked primarily on [[linguistics]], philology, poetics, and medievalist topics, where he began to elaborate his primary concerns, though without as yet inflecting [[them ]] in a specifically political direction. In 1974-1975 he was a fellow at the [[Warburg Institute]], where he wrote ''Stanzas'' (1979).

Close to [[Elsa Morante]], on whom he has written, [[Pier Paolo Pasolini]], in whose ''[[The Gospel According to St. Matthew]]'' he played the part of Philip, [[Italo Calvino]], [[Ingeborg Bachmann]], [[Pierre Klossowski]], [[Jean-Luc Nancy]], [[Jacques Derrida]], and [[Jean-François Lyotard]], his strongest influences include [[Walter Benjamin]], whose [[complete ]] works he edited in Italian [[translation]]. Agamben's [[philosophy ]] draws from [[Michel Foucault]] as well as from Italian neo-[[marxist ]] thought. He frequently cites [[Carl Schmitt]] and Walter [[Benjamin]]. While sometimes [[being ]] cryptic in his writings, in interviews he makes himself clear as a public thinker in Foucauldian [[tradition ]] who is interested in [[social ]] conflicts on a [[global ]] scale.

Giorgio Agamben is particularly critical of the [[United States]]' response to [[September 11, 2001 attacks|September 11, 2001]], and its instrumentalization as a permanent condition that legitimizes a [[state of exception]] as the dominant paradigm for governing in contemporary [[politics]]. He warns against a "generalization of the [[state ]] of exception" through laws like the [[USA PATRIOT Act]], which means a permanent installment of [[martial law]] and [[emergency powers]]. In January 2004, he refused to give a lecture in the United States because under the [[US-VISIT]] he would have been required to give up his [[biometric]] information, which he believed stripped him to a state of "[[bare life]]" (''zoe'') and was akin to the [[tattooing]] that the [[Nazis]] did during [[World ]] War II.

However, Agamben's criticisms target a broader scope than the US "[[war on terror]]". As he points out in ''State of Exception'' (2005), [[rule by decree]] has became common since World War I in all modern states, and has been since then generalized and abused. Agamben points out a general tendency of modernity, recalling for example that when [[Francis Galton]] and [[Alphonse Bertillon]] invented "judicial [[photography]]" for "[[anthropometric]] [[identification]]", the procedure was reserved to [[criminals]]; to the contrary, today's [[society ]] is tending toward a generalization of this procedure to all citizens, placing the [[population]] under permanent suspicion and [[surveillance]]: "The political [[body ]] thus has became a criminal body". And Agamben to remind that the [[Jews deportation]] in [[France]] and [[other ]] occupied countries was made possible by the photos taken from [[identity cards]] {{ref|Lemonde_2005}}. Furthermore, Agamben's political criticisms open up in a larger [[philosophical ]] ''[[critique]]'' of the concept of sovereignty itself, which he explains is intrinsically related to the state of exception.

In ''The Coming [[Community]]'' (1993), Giorgio Agamben writes:

:''If [[human ]] beings were or had to be this or that [[substance theory|substance]], this or that destiny, no [[ethical ]] [[experience ]] would be possible... This does not mean, however, that human are not, and do not have to be, something, that they are simply consigned to nothingness and therefore can freely decide whether to be or not to be, to adopt or not to adopt this or that destiny ([[nihilism ]] and decisionism coincide at this point). There is an effect something that [[humans ]] are and have to be, but this is not an [[essence ]] nor properly a [[thing]]: ''It is the simple fact of one's own [[existence ]] as possibility or potentiality...'' {{ref|Com}}

This potentiality of life would become one of Agamben's main threads, throughout his critical conception of an ''homo sacer'', reduced to "bare life", and thus deprived of any rights. Henceforth, Agamben intents to [[think ]] a kind of "[[subjectivity]] without [[subject]]": humans are "an effect", "but this is not an essence nor properly a thing", but the "simple fact of one's own existence as possibility or potentiality". This "coming community" opposes itself to [[sovereignty]], which reduces through the state of exception qualified life (''bios'') to bare life (''zoe'').

In his main [[work ]] ''"Homo Sacer: Sovereign [[Power ]] and Bare Life"'' (1998), Giorgio Agamben analyzes an obscure [[figure ]] of [[Roman law]] that poses some fundamental questions to the [[nature ]] of [[law]] and [[power (sociology)|power]] in general. Under the Roman [[Empire]], a man who committed a certain kind of crime was banned from society and all of his rights as a [[citizenship|citizen]] were revoked. He thus became a ''"[[homo sacer]]"'' (sacred man). In consequence, he could be killed by anybody -- while his life on the other hand was deemed "sacred", so he could not be sacrificed in a [[ritual ]] ceremony.

To a ''Homo sacer'', Roman law no longer applied, although he was still "under the spell" of law. Agamben defines it as "human life...included in the juridical order solely in the [[form ]] of its [[exclusion ]] (that is, of its capacity to be killed)". ''Homo sacer'' was therefore ''excluded'' from law itself, while being ''included'' at the same [[time]]. This figure is the exact [[mirror ]] [[image ]] of the [[sovereignity|sovereign]] (''[[Basileus]]'') - a [[monarch|king]], [[emperor]], or [[president]] -- who stands, on the one hand, ''within'' law (so he can be condemned, e.g., for treason, as a [[natural ]] person) and ''[[outside ]] of'' the law (since as a [[body politic]] he has power to suspend law for an indefinite time).Indeed, Giorgio Agamben draws on Carl [[Schmitt]]'s definition of the Sovereign as the one who has the power to decide the state of exception (or ''[[justitium]]''), where law is indefinitely "suspended" without being abrogated. But if Schmitt's aim is to include the necesity of [[state of emergency ]] under the rule of law, Agamben on the contrary demonstrates that all life can't be subsumed by law. As in ''Homo sacer'', the state of emergency is the inclusion of life and [[necessity ]] in the juridical order solely in the form of its exclusion.

Since its origins, Agamben [[notes]], law has had the power of defining what "bare life" (''zoe'', as opposed to ''bios'': qualified life) is by making this exclusive operation, while at the same time gaining power over it by making it the subject of political [[control]]. The power of law to actively [[separate ]] "political" beings (citizens) from "bare life" (bodies) has carried on from [[Ancient history|Antiquity]] to [[Modernity]] -- from, literally, [[Aristotle]] to [[Auschwitz]]. Aristotle, as Agamben notes, constitutes political life via a simultaneous inclusion and exclusion of "bare life": as Aristotle says, man is an [[animal ]] born to [[life]] (''zen''), but existing with [[regard ]] to the [[eudemonia|good life (''eu zen'')]] which can be achieved through politics. Bare life, in this ancient conception of politics, is that which must be transformed, via the State, into the "[[good ]] life"; that is, bare life is that which is supposedly excluded from the higher aims of the state, yet is included precisely so that it may be transformed into this "good life." Sovereignty, then, is conceived from ancient [[times ]] as a state of exception. According to Agamben, [[biopower]], which takes the bare lives of the citizens into its political calculations, may be more marked in the modern state, but has essentially existed since the beginnings of sovereignty in the West, since this [[structure ]] of ''ex-ception'' is essential to the core concept of sovereignty.

In this book, written in the aftermath of [[Bush]]'s campaign labelled the "[[War on terror]]", Agamben traces the concept of ''state of exception'' used by Carl Schmitt to Roman ''[[justitium]]'' and ''[[auctoritas]]''. This leads him to a response to Carl Schmitt's definition of sovereignty as the power to proclaim state emergency.

Agamben shows that ''auctoritas'' and ''[[potestas]]'' are clearly distinct - although they form together a [[Wiktionary:binary|binary]] [[system]]" {{ref|Agamben}}. He [[quotes ]] [[Theodor Mommsen|Mommsen]], who explains that ''auctoritas'' is "less than an [[order]] and more than an advice".While ''potestas'' derives from social function, ''auctoritas'' "immediately derives from the ''patres'' personal condition". As such, it is akin to [[Max Weber]]'s concept of [[charismatic authority|charism]]. This is why the tradition ordered , at the king's [[death ]] , the creation of the sovereign’s wax-[[double ]] in the ''funus imaginarium'', as did [[Ernst Kantorowicz]] demonstrate in ''The King's Two Bodies'' (1957). Hence, it is necessary to distinguish two bodies of the sovereign in order to assure the continuity of ''dignitas'' (term used by Kantorowicz, here a synonym of ''auctoritas''). Moreover, in the person detaining ''auctoritas'' - the sovereign -[[public]] life and [[private]] life have become inseparable. [[Augustus]], the first Roman emperor who claimed ''auctoritas'' as the basis of ''[[princeps]]'' status in a famous passage of ''Res Gestae'', had opened up his house to public eyes.

The concept of ''auctoritas'' played a key-[[role ]] in [[fascism]] and [[nazism]], in [[particular ]] concerning [[Carl Schmitt]]'s theories, argues Agamben:

:"To [[understand ]] modern phenomenons such as the fascist ''[[Duce]]'' or the [[nazi ]] ''[[Führer]]'', it is important not to forget their continuity with the principe of ''auctoritas principis'' {Agamben refers here to Augustus's ''Res Gestae''}. {...} Neither does the ''Duce'' nor the ''Führer'' [[represent ]] constitutionally defined public charges - even though Mussolini and Hitler endorsed respectively the charge of head of [[government ]] and [[Reich]]'s chancellor, just as Augustus endorsed the ''imperium consulare'' or the ''potestas tribunicia''. The ''Duce'' 's or the ''Führer'' 's qualities are immediately related to the [[physical ]] person and belong to the [[biopolitical]] tradition of ''auctoritas'' and not to the juridical tradition of ''potestas'' ".

Thus, Agamben opposes [[Foucault]]'s concept of "[[biopolitics]]" to [[right]] (law), as he defines the state of exception, in ''Homo sacer'', as the inclusion of life by right under the figure of ex-ception, which is simultaneously inclusion and exclusion. Following Walter Benjamin's lead, he explains that our task would be to radically differentiate "pure [[violence]]" from right, instead of tying them together, as did Carl Schmitt.

Agamben concludes his chapter on " ''Auctoritas and potestas'' " [[writing]]:

:"It is significative that modern specialists were so enclined to admit that ''auctoritas'' was inherent to the [[living ]] person of the ''pater'' or the ''princeps''. What was evidently an [[ideology]] or a ''fictio'' aiming to be the groundwork of ''auctoritas'' ' preeminence or, at least, specific rank compared to ''potestas'' thus became a figure of right's {law - "[[droit]]"} [[immanence]] to life. (...) Although it is evident that there can't be an eternal human type that would incarnate itself each time in Augustus, Napoleon, Hitler, but only more or less comparable ("semblables") mechanisms {"dispositif", a term often used by Foucault} - the state of exception, ''justitium'', the ''auctoritas principis'', the ''Führertum'' -, put in use in more or less differents circumstances, in the [[1930s]] - overall, but not only - in [[Germany]], the power that Weber had defined as "charismatic" is related to the concept of ''auctoritas'' and elaborated in a ''[[Führertum]]'' [[doctrine ]] as the original and personal power of a [[leader]]. In [[1933]], in a short article intending to define the fundamental [[concepts ]] of national-[[socialism]], Schmitt defines the ''Führung'' principe by the "root [[identity ]] between the leader and his entourage" {"''identité de souche entre le chef et son entourage"''} (we shall note the use of weberian concepts)."

Agamben’s [[thoughts ]] on the state of emergency leads him to declare that the [[difference ]] between dictatorship and [[democracy ]] is thin indeed, as [[rule by decree#Giorgio Agamben's critique of the use of decrees-law|rule by decree]] became more and more common, starting from [[World War I]] and the reorganization of constitutional [[balance]]. Agamben often reminds that [[Hitler]] never ''abrogated'' the [[Weimar Constitution]]: he ''suspended'' it for the [[whole ]] duration of the [[3rd Reich]] with the [[Reichstag Fire Decree]], issued on February 28, 1933. Indefinite suspension of law is what characterizes the state of exception. Thus, Agamben connects Greek political philosophy through to the [[concentration camps]] of 20th century fascism, and even further, to detainment camps in the likes of [[Guantanamo Bay]] or [[immigration ]] detention centers, such as [[Bari]], [[Italy]], where asylum seekers have been imprisoned in football stadiums. In these kinds of camps, entire zones of exception are being formed: the state of exception becomes a status under which certain [[categories ]] of [[people ]] live, a ''[[capture]]'' of life by right. Sovereign law makes it possible to create entire areas in which the application of the law itself is held suspended, which is the basis of [[George W. Bush|Bush administration]]'s definition of an "[[unlawful combatant|enemy combatant"]].

In the chapter preceding ''Auctoritas and potestas'', Agamben advances an explanation of the transformation of ''justitium'', a technical term referring to the state of exception, declared to cope with ''[[tumultus]]'' state (rebellion, uprising, riots...), at the end of the [[Roman Republic]], into a term simply referring to the [[mourning ]] of the sovereign's death during ''[[interregnum]]'' periods:

:"The correspondence between ''justitutium'' and mourning here shows its [[true ]] [[signification]]. If the sovereign is a living ''[[nomos]]'', if then [[anomie]] and ''nomos'' coïncide in his person without any [[left]]-over, then [[anarchy ]] (which, at his death, when the link attaching him to law his broken, threatens to unleash itself in the city) must be ritualized and controlled, by the transformation of the state of exception into public mourning and of mourning into ''justitium'' (...) Before acquiring the modern form of a decision on emergency {Schmitt's definition}, the [[relationship ]] between sovereignty and state of exception presents itself under the form of an identity between the sovereign and anomie. As living law, the sovereign is deeply ''anomos''. Here also the state of exception is the life -more [[secret ]] and true - of the law."

The first formulation of the thesis according to which "the sovereign is a living law" found its first formulation on the treaty "On law and justice" by pseudo-[[Archytas]], conserved by Stobée with Diotogène's treaty on sovereignty. It is the first attempt to conceive a form of sovereignty completely enfranchised from laws, being itself the source of [[legitimacy]]. This [[theory ]] must be radically distinguished from [[natural rights]] theory or [[Antigone]]'s appeal to the "eternal and unwritten laws" to which even monarchs must abide, as it is a theory of sovereignty (in fact, it is quite the reverse of Antigone's rebellion).

:"I say that all communities are composed of an ''archōn'' (the magistrate who commands), a commanded one, and, as tierce party, laws. Among those ones, the living one is the sovereign (''ho men empsuchos ho basileus''), and the inanimate one is the [[letter ]] (''gramma''). Law is the first element, the king is [[legal]], the magistrate accorded to law, the commanded free and all of the city happy; but, in [[case ]] of corruption ("dévoiement"), the sovereign is a [[tyrant]], the magistrate is not accorded to law and the community is unhappy."