An Agamben question

Sunday, August 5, 2012 — Adam Kotsko

It seems to me that Agamben uses the terms “archeology” and “genealogy” more or less interchangeably, or perhaps more precisely as two aspects of what is essentially a single mode of inquiry. Does this sound right?

Posted in Agamben. 10 Comments »

10 Responses to “An Agamben question”

  1. specularimage Says:
    Sunday, August 5, 2012 at 5:21 pm

    Hey Adam, at first I was going to state of course there is a difference, but then I wasn’t so sure. I am still not so sure, but I do have some points I can make. For instance here is a passage that explains this idea of “archaeology”: “That practice which in any historical investigation has to do not with origins (which is exactly what he writes for genealogy which I will quote after this)but with the moment of a phenomenon’s arising and must therefore engage anew the sources and tradition”. Now here is what I find a bit interesting to finish off this quote: “It cannot confront tradition without deconstructing the paradigms, techniques, and practices through which tradition regulates the forms of transmission, conditions access to sources, and in the final analysis determines the very status of the knowing subject (emphasis mine). Here again even after writing this it makes me think even more, but here we go explaining genealogy: “It is necessary to get rid of the subject itself by getting rid of the constituting subject, that is to arrive at an analysis that would account for the constitution of the subject in the historical plot…to account for the constitution of knowledge, discourses, spheres of objects, etc. without having to refer to the subject (of course this is quote from Foucault) but then he writes The operation involved in genealogy consist in conjuring up and eliminating the origin and the subject”. Both of these methods if there is a both are not concerned with origins but they do seem to be similar in this aspect, but if I read these together it does seem that the subject plays more of an integral role in archeology and he is speaking of a paradigms within archeology and not in genealogy. Also, I think Durantaye mentions a split in these terms depending upon the time frame.

  2. Matthew Chrulew Says:
    Sunday, August 5, 2012 at 7:23 pm

    To the extent that the discontinuity between these two methods in Foucault is often overemphasised, I think Agamben is right to relate them so strongly. However he seems to me to prioritise archaeology, as part of his downplaying of questions of power.

  3. Adam Kotsko Says:
    Monday, August 6, 2012 at 10:23 am

    Where are those quotes from?

  4. spritzophrenia Says:
    Tuesday, August 7, 2012 at 2:42 am

    I agree with Matthew; archaeology and genealogy are similar enough in Foucault. (Just noticed Agamben has used both terms in his book titles).

    I have a separate question: Has anyone read the entry for “Bare Life” by Arne De Boever in the “Agamben Dictionary” (ed. Whyte, Murray) ? It claims that Agamben uses “bare life” as a THIRD category apart from bios and zoe. Does anyone else agree with this interpretation? I always read zoe as equivalent to la nuda vista.

  5. Adam Kotsko Says:
    Tuesday, August 7, 2012 at 7:11 am

    It does seem a little counter-intuitive, but I think you could make a distinction between zoe, which is how “the system” views bare life, and the authentic, actual bare life that always escapes its capture, etc.

  6. specularimage Says:
    Tuesday, August 7, 2012 at 7:15 am

    Adam, The quotes are from The Signature of All Things: On Method

  7. specularimage Says:
    Tuesday, August 7, 2012 at 7:34 am

    And yes, in Agamben’s critique of Thomas Hobbes he makes the distinction between bare life and Zoe that Adam just mentioned. Bare life as remainder or zone of indistinction between “man and beast”

  8. Agamben’s Deleuzian Moment: Reading the essay Absolute Immanence (a life..) | Specular Image Says:
    Tuesday, August 7, 2012 at 8:24 pm

    [...] I was reading a post over at An und für sich. I begin to think about the idea of Agamben’s bare life as distinct from the notions of zoe and [...]

  9. spritzophrenia Says:
    Tuesday, August 7, 2012 at 10:44 pm

    Many thanks re: zoe/bios/bare life. *thinks aloud* I guess the coming community, whatever singularity will be expressions of bare life then.

  10. Paolo Davoli Says:
    Tuesday, August 21, 2012 at 11:28 am

    Maybe it could be helpful to read and listen to some recent Agamben’s interventions in Scicli, Sicily (9th August 2012), where the philosopher introduces the term archeology in direct opposition to the concept of “futurology”. Let’s have a look to the Scicli lectio magistralis and Agamben’s interview on the same object (Archeologia dell’opera d’arte):
    http://rizomatika.blogspot.it/2012/08/il-capitalismo-e-una-religione-la-piu.html + http://rizomatika.blogspot.it/2012/08/giorgio-agamben-archeologia-dellopera.html.
    In that context, archeology means that knowledge of the past is the only way to access to the present (time).


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