1. Agamben points out the gaps in the Biopolitique's question of life, focusing on the potential dangers that Stato di eccezione (state of exception) reveals for all: The "state of exception" in which the law is suspended re-emerges as the sovereign of life management, and even the opposite of totalitarian management shares a set of methods with the "enemy." Suspension (Iustitium) is not to abolish the law, but to remove the restrictions imposed by the law on the sovereign itself, through the "interpretation of power" to enhance the sovereign's freedom of governance measures. The creation intention of the "state of exception" is to destroy itself in the future, and in the process of its function, it has completed the promotion of real power in secret.

2. Agamben points out the antagonism between Benjamin's (Messianic concept) and Schmidt's (sovereign theory) views on "the relationship between law and the 'state of exception'", and in contrast to Schmidt, who is indifferent to the fact that bare life cannot be redeemed, Agamben chooses to take Benjamin's position. Thus Agamben obtained a new way of interpreting the "messianic concept" - "messianic katargēsis of law"

للمرة الثانية كتاب نظرية سياسية. ليس تمامًا في الواقع فهو ينطلق من منظور قانوني بشكل كبير ..
المهم
مرة ثانية ، النصوص "النظرية" لا تُفهم من مرة واحدة
له عدة قراءات أخرى بالتأكيد مع باقي كتابات أغامبين
ممتنة لمناقشته مع د.هبة و للاقتراح من الأصل
( )

This book is essential reading for anyone interested in modern politics and, more parochially, anyone interested in the legacy of Carl Schmitt's thought.

Agamben traces, relatively briefly but nonetheless expertly, the history of the (mostly legal but also philosophical) treatment of the problem of the state of exception. Part of his thesis is that this "treatment" has more often than not consisted in a determined effort to avoid and paper over the difficulties presented by this curious and situation in which the disturbingly problematic relation between authority and power, between life and law, is revealed as essential to law and politics in all forms.

Several times throughout the book Agamben pronounces authoritatively on various philological matters concerning ancient legal texts, as well as debates over Schmitt-Benjamin interpretation, the validity of which I am wholly unqualified to evaluate, but which I found convincing nevertheless.

The book occasionally veers too far into Benjamin-ian stylistic territory for my tastes, especially towards the closing paragraphs in which Agamben indulges in some speculative and barely comprehensible musings reminiscent of Benjamin's "Critique of Violence." It is entirely unclear to me, for example, what Agamben means by a pure form of law that neither commands nor prohibits, and how this would differ at all from how he, earlier in the book, conceives of pure language that would only communicate itself, its communicability. ( )

En el siglo XX asistimos, según Giorgio Agamben, a un hecho paradojal y preocupante, en la medida en que pasa inadvertido para la mayoría de los ciudadanos: vivimos en el contexto de lo que se ha denominado una "guerra civil legal". El totalitarismo moderno se define como la instauración de una guerra civil legal a través del estado de excepción, y esto corre tanto para el régimen nazi como para la situación vivida en los EE.UU. durante la presidencia de George W. Bush. ( )

As always with Agamben, a really interesting exploration-- here, specifically, of legal theory and the state of exception/suspension of the law that makes law possible. Wish he would have gone more into how the increasing tendency to make the state of exception the norm plays out in contemporary life-- but I might have to go back and reread Homo Sacer, the predecessor to this book, to put it all together. ( )