Book Section
Damiano Sacco
Highest Openness
On Agamben’s Promise
This essay follows the productive discussion of Giorgio Agamben’s The Open: Man and Animal that took place as part of the ‘Openness in Medieval Culture’ conference at the ICI Berlin. The essay attempts to develop a speculative notion of openness within Agamben’s work, in particular by connecting the question of openness to the question of the promise: the promise of the resolution of the question of man and animal ( The Open); the promise of the Franciscans’ vow, or sacramentum ( The Highest Poverty); and the promise of language ( The Sacrament of Language).
Keywords: Giorgio Agamben; The Open; The Highest Poverty; The Sacrament of Language; promise; potentiality; language; Franciscans; eschatology
| Title |
Highest Openness
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| Subtitle |
On Agamben’s Promise
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| Author(s) |
Damiano Sacco
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| Identifier | |
| Description |
This essay follows the productive discussion of Giorgio Agamben’s The Open: Man and Animal that took place as part of the ‘Openness in Medieval Culture’ conference at the ICI Berlin. The essay attempts to develop a speculative notion of openness within Agamben’s work, in particular by connecting the question of openness to the question of the promise: the promise of the resolution of the question of man and animal ( The Open); the promise of the Franciscans’ vow, or sacramentum ( The Highest Poverty); and the promise of language ( The Sacrament of Language).
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| Is Part Of | |
| Place |
Berlin
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| Publisher |
ICI Berlin Press
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| Date |
19 April 2022
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| Subject |
Giorgio Agamben
The Open
The Highest Poverty
The Sacrament of Language
promise
potentiality
language
Franciscans
eschatology
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| Rights |
© by the author(s)
Except for images or otherwise noted, this publication is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
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| Language |
en-GB
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| page start |
227
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| page end |
248
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| Source |
Openness in Medieval Europe, ed. by Manuele Gragnolati and Almut Suerbaum, Cultural Inquiry, 23 (Berlin: ICI Berlin Press, 2022), pp. 227–48
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References
- Agamben, Giorgio, ‘La parola e il sapere’, aut-aut, September–December 1980, pp. 155–66
- Agamben, Giorgio, Potentialities, trans. by Daniel Heller-Roazen (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1999)
- Agamben, Giorgio, ‘Postilla 2001’, in La comunità che viene (Turin: Bollati Boringhieri, 2001), pp. 89–93
- Agamben, Giorgio, The Open: Man and Animal, trans. by Kevin Attell (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2003)
- Agamben, Giorgio, The Time That Remains: A Commentary on the Letter to the Romans, trans. by Patricia Dailey (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2005) <https://doi.org/10.1515/9781503619869>
- Agamben, Giorgio, The Sacrament of Language: An Archaeology of the Oath, trans. by Adam Kotsko (Stanford: Stanford University Press 2011)
- Agamben, Giorgio, The Highest Poverty: Monastic Rules and Form-of-Life, trans. by Adam Kotsko (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2013)
- Agamben, Giorgio, Opus Dei: An Archaeology of Duty, trans. by Adam Kotsko (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2013)
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- Benveniste, Émile, Dictionary of Indo-European Concepts and Society, trans. by Elizabeth Palmer (Chicago: Hau Books, 2016)
- Caputo, John D., The Weakness of God: A Theology of the Event (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2006)
- Derrida, Jacques, Memoires for Paul de Man, trans. by Cecile Lindsay and others (New York: Columbia University Press, 1989)
- Derrida, Jacques, Specters of Marx: The State of the Debt and the New International, trans. by Peggy Kamuf (New York: Routledge, 1994)
- Heidegger, Martin, The Fundamental Concepts of Metaphysics: World, Finitude, Solitude, trans. by William McNeill and Nicholas Walker (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1995) <https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctvswx8mg>
- Meillassoux, Quentin, ‘L’Inexistence Divine’ (unpublished doctoral thesis, University of Paris, 1997)
- Meillassoux, Quentin, ‘Spectral Dilemma’, Collapse, 4 (2008), pp. 261–76
- Schmitt, Carl, Political Theology: Four Chapters on the Concept of Sovereignty, trans. by George Schwab (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2005) <https://doi.org/10.7208/chicago/9780226738901.001.0001>
- Suárez, Francisco, ‘De voto’, in Opera omnia, 28 vols (Paris: Vives, 1856–78), XIV (1869), pp. 750–1179
- Uexküll, Jakob von, A Foray into the Worlds of Animals and Men: With a Theory of Meaning, trans. by Joseph D. O’Neil (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2010)
Cite as:
Damiano Sacco, ‘Highest Openness: On Agamben’s Promise’, in Openness in Medieval Europe, ed. by Manuele Gragnolati and Almut Suerbaum, Cultural Inquiry, 23 (Berlin: ICI Berlin Press, 2022), pp. 227-48 <https://doi.org/10.37050/ci-23_12>