Giorgio Agamben’s attendance at Martin Heidegger’s seminars in 1966 and 1968 profoundly shaped his intellectual trajectory, particularly his concepts of being, potentiality, sovereignty, and the structure of law. Heidegger’s influence on Agamben can be traced through several key themes:
1. The Question of Being and Ontology
Heidegger’s Influence:
Heidegger’s fundamental question, “Whar is Being?, deeply shaped Agamben’s approach to philosophy. Heidegger saw Western metaphysics as being dominated by a forgetfulness of Being (Seinsvergessenheit), and he sought to overcome this by rethinking existence outside of traditional ontological categories.
Agamben’s Response:
Agamben extends Heidegger’s concern with ontology by exploring the relation between Being and law, Being and power, and Being and language.
His concept of bare life (homo sacer) reflects a Heideggerian thinking of Being as exposure, where the subject is neither fully included in political order nor fully excluded but exists in an ontological threshold.
2. Potentiality and Inoperativity
Heidegger on Potentiality (Dynamis) and Being-Toward-Death:
Heidegger, especially in Being and Time, distinguishes between what something is (actuality) and what it could be (potentiality). He argues that human existence is defined by its relationship to potentiality, particularly in its capacity to confront death.
Agamben’s Concept of Potentiality:
Agamben develops a radical theory of potentiality in texts such as The Coming Community and Homo Sacer, drawing heavily from Heidegger.
He emphasizes that true potentiality is the ability “not to” actualize itself. This is inspired by Aristotle’s discussion of dynamis, which Heidegger also explored. For Agamben, true power lies in retaining potentiality without necessarily exercising it.
His idea of inoperativity (inoperosit) is a Heideggerian extension, where politics and philosophy should deactivate established forms of power, allowing life to exist without being reduced to mere functionality.
3. The State of Exception and Sovereignty
Heidegger’s “Decision” and the Political:
While Heidegger did not develop a full theory of sovereignty, his emphasis on the decision (Entscheidung) as an ontological act influenced Agamben’s understanding of how sovereignty functions as a force that determines inclusion and exclusion.
Agamben’s Expansion:
In Homo Sacer, Agamben explores how sovereignty operates by deciding the exception, echoing both Heidegger and Carl Schmitt.
Heidegger’s idea that the foundation of Being is an act of decision and withdrawal mirrors how Agamben sees law functioning: law exists by deciding who falls outside it (i.e., the creation of “bare life”).
The sovereign’s power to decide on the state of exception reflects Heidegger’s insight that Being is revealed through moments of crisis.
4. Language, Law, and the Voice
Heidegger on Language (Sprache als das Haus des Seins - language is the house of Being)
Heidegger saw language as more than a tool for communication; it is the medium through which Being is disclosed.
Agamben’s Use of Heidegger:
Agamben radicalizes Heidegger’s view by arguing that law and power function through linguistic structures.
In The Sacrament of Language, Agamben examines how law is a performative structure that produces subjects - in a Heideggerian sense, language calls beings into existence, just as law creates legal subjects.
Agamben’s critique of law as a system of “pure means” without inherent meaning echoes Heidegger’s concern that modernity has reduced Being to technical functionality.
5. The Open: Man and Animal
Heidegger’s Critique of Humanism:
Heidegger critiques traditional humanist distinctions between humans and animals, arguing that man is not defined by rationality but by his relationship to Being.
Agamben’s Expansion:
In The Open: Man and Animal, Agamben builds on Heidegger’s discussion of the animal’s relation to the world (Umwelt) and the human’s “openness” to Being.
He argues that modern politics operates by producing a distinction between human and animal life, reducing some groups to bare life (deprived of political status).
This reflects Heidegger’s idea that Western metaphysics defines the human by excluding the non-human, a structure that Agamben sees as a mechanism of power.
6. Messianism and the End of History
Heidegger on the History of Being:
Heidegger believed that history was not linear but shaped by epochs of Being, each defined by a certain way of thinking and revealing.
Agamben’s Messianic Time:
Agamben transforms Heidegger’s history of Being into a messianic concept of time, particularly in The Time That Remains.
He sees messianic time as a rupture, a moment that suspends chronological history, allowing for a radical transformation of politics and Being.
While Heidegger’s later thought moved toward a mystical waiting for a new “event” of Being, Agamben seeks a more immediate and political transformation.
Conclusion: Heidegger as Agamben’s Ontological Foundation
Agamben’s philosophy is deeply Heideggerian in its core concerns but diverges in application:
Heidegger explored ontology primarily through philosophy and metaphysics, while
Agamben took Heidegger’s ontological insights and applied them to law, sovereignty, biopolitics, and modern power structures.
Ultimately, Agamben inherits Heidegger’s critique of Western metaphysics but pushes it into the political realm, showing how Being is structured, excluded, and manipulated through law, language, and sovereignty. His biopolitics, messianism, and concept of inoperativity are all direct extensions of Heidegger’s thought, but with a more radical and immediate ethical-political urgency.
