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345th out of 465 books
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448 voters
The Coming Community
In this extraordinary and original philosophical achievement, Agamben develops the concept of community and the social implications of his philosophical thought. Agamben’s exploration is, in part, a contemporary response to the work of Heidegger, Wittgenstein, Blanchot, Jean-Luc Nancy, and, more historically, Plato, Spinoza, and medieval scholars and theorists of Judeo-Chr
...morePaperback, 1st edition, 120 pages
Published
February 26th 1993
by Univ Of Minnesota Press
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yes! in a bound of fabulous fortune, i am reading agamben directly after _zen mind, beginner's mind_. i'm not sure that i could handle agamben's prose if not for the softening of the concept of the dialectic that suzuki imposes on the reader. i am reading agamben out loud to myself, which is difficult only when i hear myself saying something i don't believe. for example, i'm willing to take as a given that (and here i paraphrase) the antinomy between the individual and the universal has its root...more
This book is exciting and frustrating. Like other things I've read by Agamben, there are lots of provocative and interesting ideas presented here, but nothing is fleshed out properly. I was surprised by how deep into the linguistic turn this books dives; sometimes hilariously so.
The appendix seems to be entirely nonsensical. If anyone can parse it for me, I'd love to know what it means.
The appendix seems to be entirely nonsensical. If anyone can parse it for me, I'd love to know what it means.
This is such a beautiful book and Hardt's translation is very carefully executed so that the poetic language and all Agamben's complexity comes through without the clunkiness that could result from trying too hard. I know this book has been criticized for being too nostalgic, too romantic, too hopeful, but I love how Agamben finds a way through pain and difficult to propose something that could be: a whatever-being such that it always matters. How could one imagine anything better.
There is a co...more
There is a co...more
I really wanted to enjoy this book. Just too many vague statements that can be passed off as lazy... also extremely intertextual, I know that's the going style these days, but he rarely says anything original in this text without relying on someone else to do so.
It makes me wonder - who are the big philosophers of today? Have all the big ideas been thought already? Is this really the end of philosophy (as Heidegger pronounced nearly 80 years ago)? Meh, Agamben is overrated in my opinion, but fo...more
It makes me wonder - who are the big philosophers of today? Have all the big ideas been thought already? Is this really the end of philosophy (as Heidegger pronounced nearly 80 years ago)? Meh, Agamben is overrated in my opinion, but fo...more
Es un golpe duro entrar hablar así con Agamben. Es como sentarse a la mesa de una conversación que ya había empezado hace mucho tiempo. Claro que aquí la conversación había empezado hará unos dos mil quinientos años y que, sin ningún preámbulo histórico, empezamos a desgranar en las posibilidades ontológicas que nos presenta.
Sin embargo, esto que parece ser una desventaja, es también una ventaja. ¿Será una trampilla eso de no leer a Duns Scoto ni a Santo Tomás de Aquino ni a Heidegger ni a Walse...more
Sin embargo, esto que parece ser una desventaja, es también una ventaja. ¿Será una trampilla eso de no leer a Duns Scoto ni a Santo Tomás de Aquino ni a Heidegger ni a Walse...more
"The coming being is whatever being."
Very, very interesting stuff. I suggest, unlike me, reading it in one sitting. It's short enough to, I'd imagine. At the very least do yourself a favor and read it in at most two or three days. The problem I kept facing is that it's hard to pick up where you left off without reading pretty much everything that came before it again. I would leave for a week and come back and just be perplexed. I started leaving little notes in the margins to kick-start my memo...more
Very, very interesting stuff. I suggest, unlike me, reading it in one sitting. It's short enough to, I'd imagine. At the very least do yourself a favor and read it in at most two or three days. The problem I kept facing is that it's hard to pick up where you left off without reading pretty much everything that came before it again. I would leave for a week and come back and just be perplexed. I started leaving little notes in the margins to kick-start my memo...more
Ok after I finished this for about 2 days I was thoroughly confused about what the hell he was talking about, but now I think I have a somewhat firm grasp on the material (though I know there's tons that went right over my head). I think the majority of this is very accurate and helpful in praxis. highly recommended
***updated review****
this book sat in my stomach like a cold piece of glass after i read it. i didn't quite understand it at first, but then one day i had some sort of epiphany or som...more
***updated review****
this book sat in my stomach like a cold piece of glass after i read it. i didn't quite understand it at first, but then one day i had some sort of epiphany or som...more
Despite the title, it's a series of meditations not only on community, but also on language, ontology, culture, capitalism, etc. I enjoyed the Derridean take and the sense of play. There are some great insights in here, but it doesn't pull together the way I expected, and I think much of the vision is obscured (I'll confess some of it is opaque to me since I lack some of the philosophical background). I'd like to see his vision of community expanded. There's a call to arms and an optimistic visi...more
Agamben's philosophy on the singularity and contingency of a community that exists simply to be, "such as it is", rather than in static institutionalized forms which uses traits of identity to distinguish it from those outside of it (such as Italian, Communist, etc). "These pure singularities communicate only in the empty space of the example, without being tied by any common property, by any identity. They are expropriated of all identity, so as to appropriate belonging itself..." (10,1).
This is a pretty heavy book and gives some good introductions to Agamben's themes of potentiality and society of the spectacle (which isn't really his idea, but oh well). If you're interested in those ideas, then I think this would be a pretty good place to start your investigations. But the rest of the book talks mostly about linguistics and being which, even though they're incredibly interesting, may not be where Agamben-beginners might want to start. You should probably just go with "Homo Sac...more
(6/10) I'm not really sure how to rate philosophy books -- I always feel completely out of my depth. This is partly Agamben's elusive style, which could be criticized as simply obscuritan, but also achieves a kind of poetry. Of the ideas I comprehended, some were insightful and some were less so, but who knows how much I misunderstood. For philosophy nerds only.
To oversimplify, the book addresses the idea of community based upon "whatever." It's somewhat vague, insofar as he drifts from the Greeks, the Medieval and 20th century for models, yet that's precisely the idea Agamben is getting at. What have demarcations done for us?
Difficult and dense but generates incredible concepts the more you return to it.
always open...always becoming
whatever
Don't read this without a mentor's guidance. Or, read it, but with the thought in that back of your head that you're going to have to read it again. This piece sort of denounces Agamben's critics in that it's way more critical than people give him credit for, and it's also very hopeful. I actually read it after Homo Sacer, which I think made it a little bit easier to understand. The chapter on Limbo is almost poetic.
Apr 15, 2009
Victor
added it
Another fascinating read. I like Agamben's exploration of St. Augustus grappling with what happens after the end of the world and the physical world is accommodated to the spiritual world. Also Agamben's exploration of the origin of the halo. Sly stuff just like Dave Hickey.
Well... I'll maybe say a bit more later, but suffice it to say that Agamben is basically a friggin genius and this is his masterpiece in many ways. Definitely an amazing book that proposes an entirely new form of thought and a new conception of self and world...
Excelente e difícil livro, o qual se situa em linha com as análises iniciadas por Bataille, Blanchot e Nancy a cerca da 'comunidade que vem'.
Aug 08, 2007
Samuel
added it
commended, recommended,
whatever
a brave and lovely book
whatever
a brave and lovely book
Aug 21, 2008
Lesley
added it
a very beautiful thing
Jun 15, 2013
Jesse
marked it as to-read
Jun 08, 2013
Muzzy
marked it as to-read
Jun 05, 2013
Frances
marked it as to-read
Jun 04, 2013
Soonha
marked it as to-read
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“The coming being is whatever being.”
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