Giorgio Agamben quotes

Giorgio Agamben is an Italian philosopher and political theorist known for his work on concepts such as the "state of exception" and "homo sacer." His interdisciplinary approach bridges philosophy, law, literature, and theology. He has had a significant influence on contemporary political thought and critical theory. Here are 10 of his quotes:

Life and death are not properly scientific concepts but rather political concepts, which as such acquire a political meaning precisely only through a decision.

Giorgio Agamben

Remembrance restores possibility to the past, making what happened incomplete and completing what never was. Remembrance is neither what happened nor what did not happen but, rather, their potentialization, their becoming possible once again.

Giorgio Agamben

Antoine Meillet also noted that imperatives in European languages are typically the morphological root of the verb, and hypothesised that the imperative was the primitive form of a verb: "walk!” precedes "to walk” or "he walks”. This opens up the possibility of an alternative ontology, or pre-ontology, based on commandment rather than assertion, on "be!” rather than "is”. While philosophical or scientific statements would fall under the ordinary "is”-based ontology, fields like law, religion or magic would operate in the imperative mode: "let there be...”.

Giorgio Agamben

If human beings were or had to be this or that substance, this or that destiny, no ethical experience would be possible... This does not mean, however, that humans 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 in 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.

Giorgio Agamben

God did not die; he was transformed into money.

Giorgio Agamben

In the eyes of authority - and maybe rightly so - nothing looks more like a terrorist than the ordinary man.

Giorgio Agamben

The camp is the space that is opened when the state of exception begins to become the rule.

Giorgio Agamben

Those who are truly contemporary are those who neither perfectly coincide with their time nor adapt to its demands... Contemporariness, then, is that relationship with time that adheres to it through a disconnection.

Giorgio Agamben

The thought of security bears within it an essential risk. A state which has security as its sole task and source of legitimacy is a fragile organism; it can always be provoked by terrorism to become more terroristic.

Giorgio Agamben