Fionnáin reviewed Stasis by Giorgio Agamben
A thesis on our modern condition
5 stars
This is my first foray into the philosophy of Giorgio Agamben, and it was an absolute treat. The book is divided into two essays, both presented at past conferences and then refined for the publication. Both are related, but quite different texts that examine our modern condition in the West, and how we arrived at it.
The first considers the role of civil war (and Arendt's idea of 'global civil war') as a point of 'stasis', something that flattens the division between family and state, and is entangled with it. This is done by analysing contemporary philosophy alongside Plato and Aristotle, looking at how Ancient Greece guided us toward this point of global stasis. The thesis is sound, sometimes witty, and brilliantly argued.
The second is even better. It looks at the frontispiece that was used as the cover for the publication of Thomas Hobbes' Leviathan in 1651, and then …
This is my first foray into the philosophy of Giorgio Agamben, and it was an absolute treat. The book is divided into two essays, both presented at past conferences and then refined for the publication. Both are related, but quite different texts that examine our modern condition in the West, and how we arrived at it.
The first considers the role of civil war (and Arendt's idea of 'global civil war') as a point of 'stasis', something that flattens the division between family and state, and is entangled with it. This is done by analysing contemporary philosophy alongside Plato and Aristotle, looking at how Ancient Greece guided us toward this point of global stasis. The thesis is sound, sometimes witty, and brilliantly argued.
The second is even better. It looks at the frontispiece that was used as the cover for the publication of Thomas Hobbes' Leviathan in 1651, and then analyses it through a social and historical lens, paying particular heed to the contradictions in the use of the leviathan as an image. Gradually, Agamben comes to the point: That the image is crucial to the book as a symbol of what Hobbes might have hidden in it. Leviathan is often seen as a critical text in the amalgamation of power by monarchy, and subsequently by controlling human bodies through 'biopolitics' (to use Foucault's word). Even more importantly, Agamben argues that Hobbes has entangled the state with a human (Christian) apocalypse, and he highlights the consequences of this entanglement for 21st Century political and social thought.
Both essays are wonderful, deep, frightening, and very timely.
