“What Is an Apparatus?” and Other Essays (Meridian: Crossing Aesthetics) 1st Edition by Giorgio Agamben (PDF)

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The three essays collected in this book offer a succinct introduction to Agamben’s recent work through an investigation of Foucault’s notion of the apparatus, a meditation on the intimate link of philosophy to friendship, and a reflection on contemporariness, or the singular relation one may have to one’s own time.”Apparatus” (dispositif in French) is at once a most ubiquitous and nebulous concept in Foucault’s later thought. In a text bearing the same name (“What is a dispositif?”) Deleuze managed to contribute its mystification, but Agamben’s leading essay illuminates the notion: “I will call an apparatus,” he writes, “literally anything that has in some way the capacity to capture, orient, determine, intercept, model, control, or secure the gestures, behaviors, opinions, or discourses of living beings.” Seen from this perspective, Agamben’s work, like Foucault’s, may be described as the identification and investigation of apparatuses, together with incessant attempts to find new ways to dismantle them.Though philosophy contains the notion of philos, or friend, in its very name, philosophers tend to be very skeptical about friendship. In his second essay, Agamben tries to dispel this skepticism by showing that at the heart of friendship and philosophy, but also at the core of politics, lies the same experience: the shared sensation of being.Guided by the question, “What does it mean to be contemporary?” Agamben begins the third essay with a reading of Nietzsche’s philosophy and Mandelstam’s poetry, proceeding from these to an exploration of such diverse fields as fashion, neurophysiology, messianism and astrophysics.

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Editorial Reviews: Review “What is remarkable about Agamben’s claim is the range of cultural practices that it incorporates . . . A rigorous engagement with these experiential elements, grounded in rigorous historical, technical, and theoretical methods.” — Seb Franklin ― Popular Culture About the Author Giorgio Agamben, a leading Italian philosopher and radical political theorist, is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Venice. Stanford University Press has published six of his previous books: Homo Sacer (1998), Potentialities (1999), The Man Without Content (1999), The End of the Poem (1999), The Open (2004), and The Time that Remains (2005). Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. WHAT IS AN APPARATUS?and Other EssaysBy Giorgio Agamben, David Kishik, Stefan PedatellaStanford University PressCopyright © 2006 NottetempoAll rights reserved.ISBN: 978-0-8047-6230-4ContentsTranslators’ Note………………………………………………….ix§ What Is an Apparatus?…………………………………………….1§ The Friend………………………………………………………25§ What Is the Contemporary?…………………………………………39Notes…………………………………………………………….55 CHAPTER 1§ What Is an Apparatus?I.Terminological questions are important in philosophy.As a philosopher for whom I have the greatest respectonce said, terminology is the poetic moment ofthought. This is not to say that philosophers must alwaysnecessarily define their technical terms. Platonever defined idea, his most important term. Others,like Spinoza and Leibniz, preferred instead to definetheir terminology more geometrico.The hypothesis that I wish to propose is that theword dispositif, or “apparatus” in English, is a decisivetechnical term in the strategy of Foucault’s thought.He uses it quite often, especially from the mid 1970s,when he begins to concern himself with what hecalls “governmentality” or the “government of men.”Though he never offers a complete definition, hecomes close to something like it in an interview from1977:What I’m trying to single out with this term is, first andforemost, a thoroughly heterogeneous set consistingof discourses, institutions, architectural forms, regulatorydecisions, laws, administrative measures, scientificstatements, philosophical, moral, and philanthropicpropositions—in short, the said as much as the unsaid.Such are the elements of the apparatus. The apparatus itselfis the network that can be established between theseelements …… by the term “apparatus” I mean a kind of a formation,so to speak, that at a given historical moment has asits major function the response to an urgency. The apparatustherefore has a dominant strategic function …… I said that the nature of an apparatus is essentiallystrategic, which means that we are speaking about acertain manipulation of relations of forces, of a rationaland concrete intervention in the relations of forces, eitherso as to develop them in a particular direction, or toblock them, to stabilize them, and to utilize them. Theapparatus is thus always inscribed into a play of power,but it is also always linked to certain limits of knowledgethat arise from it and, to an equal degree, condition it.The apparatus is precisely this: a set of strategies of therelations of forces supporting, and supported by, certaintypes of knowledge.Let me briefly summarize three points:a. It is a heterogeneous set that includes virtuallyanything, linguistic and nonlinguistic, under thesame heading: discourses, institutions, buildings,laws, police measures, philosophical propositions,and so on. The apparatus itself is the networkthat is established between these elements.b. The apparatus always has a concrete strategicfunction and is always located in a powerrelation.c. As such, it appears at the intersection of powerrelations and relations of knowledge.2.I would like now to try and trace a brief genealogyof this term, first in the work of Foucault, and then ina broader historical context.At the end of the 1960s, more or less at the timewhen he was writing The Archeology of Knowledge,Foucault does not yet use the term “apparatus” in orderto define the object of his research. Instead, he usesthe term positivité, “positivity,” an etymological neighborof dispositif, again without offering us a definition.I often asked myself where Foucault found thisterm, until the moment when, a few months ago, I rereada book by Jean Hyppolite entitled Introduction àla philosophie de l’histoire de Hegel. You probably knowabout the strong link that ties Foucault to Hyppolite,a person whom he referred to at times as “my master”(Hyppolite was in fact his teacher, first during thekhâgne in the Lycée Henri-IV [the preparatory coursefor the Ecole normale supérieure] and then in theEcole normale).The third part of Hyppolite’s book bears the title”Raison et histoire: Les idées de positivité et de destin”(Reason and History: The Ideas of Positivity andDestiny). The focus here is on the analysis of twoworks that date from Hegel’s years in Bern and Frankfurt(1795-96): The first is “The Spirit of Christianityand Its Destiny,” and the second—where we find theterm that interests us—”The Positivity of the ChristianReligion” (Die Positivitãt der christliche Religion).According to Hyppolite, “destiny” and “positivity”are two key concepts in Hegel’s thought. In particular,the term “positivity” finds in Hegel its proper placein the opposition between “natural religion” and “positivereligion.” While natural religion is concerned withthe immediate and general relation of human reasonwith the divine, positive or historical religion encompassesthe set of beliefs, rules, and rites that in a certainsociety and at a certain historical moment are externallyimposed on individuals. “A positive religion,”Hegel writes in a passage cited by Hyppolite, “impliesfeelings that are more or less impressed through constrainton souls; these are actions that are the effect ofcommand and the result of obedience and are accomplishedwithout direct interest.”Hyppolite shows how the opposition between natureand positivity corresponds, in this sense, to thedialectics of freedom and obligation, as well as of reasonand history. In a passage that could not have failedto provoke Foucault’s curiosity, because it in a waypresages the notion of apparatus, Hyppolite writes:We see here the knot of questions implicit in the conceptof positivity, as well as Hegel’s successive attempts tobring together dialectically—a dialectics that is not yetconscious of itself—pure reason (theoretical and above allpractical) and positivity, that is, the historical element. Ina certain sense, Hegel considers positivity as an obstacleto the freedom of man, and as such it is condemned. Toinvestigate the positive elements of a religion, and wemight add, of a social state, means to discover in themthat which is imposed through a constraint on man, thatwhich obfuscates the purity of reason. But, in anothersense—and this is the aspect that ends up having theupper hand in the course of Hegel’s development—positivitymust be reconciled with reason, which then losesits abstract character and adapts to the concrete richnessof life. We see then why the concept of positivity is at thecenter of Hegelian perspectives.If “positivity” is the name that, according to Hyppolite,the young Hegel gives to the historical element—loadedas it is with rules, rites, and institutionsthat are imposed on the individual by an externalpower, but that become, so to speak, internalized inthe systems of beliefs and feelings—then Foucault,by borrowing this term (later to become “apparatus”),takes a position with respect to a decisive problem,which is actually also his own problem: the relationbetween individuals as living beings and the historicalelement. By “the historical element,” I mean the setof institutions, of processes of subjectification, and ofrules in which power relations become concrete. Foucault’sultimate aim is not, then, as in Hegel, the reconciliationof the two elements; it is not even to emphasizetheir conflict. For Foucault, what is at stakeis rather the investigation of concrete modes in whichthe positivities (or the apparatuses) act within the relations,mechanisms, and “plays” of power.3.It should now be clear in what sense I have advancedthe hypothesis that “apparatus” is an essentialtechnical term in Foucault’s thought. What is atstake here is not a particular term that refers only tothis or that technology of power. It is a general termthat has the same breadth as the term “positivity” had,according to Hyppolite, for the young Hegel. WithinFoucault’s strategy, it comes to occupy the place ofone of those terms that he defines, critically, as “theuniversals” (les universaux). Foucault, as you know, alwaysrefused to deal with the general categories ormental constructs that he calls “the universals,” suchas the State, Sovereignty, Law, and Power. But this isnot to say that there are no operative concepts with ageneral character in his thought. Apparatuses are, inpoint of fact, what take the place of the universals inthe Foucauldian strategy: not simply this or that policemeasure, this or that technology of power, and noteven the generality obtained by their abstraction. Instead,as he claims in the interview from i977, an apparatusis “the network [le réseau] that can be establishedbetween these elements.”If we now try to examine the definition of “apparatus”that can be found in common French dictionaries,we see that they distinguish between three meaningsof the term:a. A strictly juridical sense: “Apparatus is the part of ajudgment that contains the decision separate fromthe opinion.” That is, the section of a sentence thatdecides, or the enacting clause of a law.b. A technological meaning: “The way in which theparts of a machine or of a mechanism and, by extension,the mechanism itself are arranged.”c. A military use: “The set of means arranged in conformitywith a plan.”To some extent, the three definitions are all presentin Foucault. But dictionaries, in particular thosethat lack a historical-etymological character, divideand separate this term into a variety of meanings. Thisfragmentation, nevertheless, generally correspondsto the historical development and articulation of aunique original meaning that we should not lose sightof. What is this original meaning for the term “apparatus”?The term certainly refers, in its common Foucauldianuse, to a set of practices and mechanisms(both linguistic and nonlinguistic, juridical, technical,and military) that aim to face an urgent need andto obtain an effect that is more or less immediate. Butwhat is the strategy of practices or of thought, what isthe historical context, from which the modern termoriginates?4.Over the past three years, I have found myself increasinglyinvolved in an investigation that is only nowbeginning to come to its end, one that I can roughlydefine as a theological genealogy of economy. In thefirst centuries of Church history—let’s say, betweenthe second and sixth centuries C.E.—the Greek termoikonomia develops a decisive theological function. InGreek, oikonomia signifies the administration of theoikos (the home) and, more generally, management.We are dealing here, as Aristotle says (Politics 1255b21),not with an epistemic paradigm, but with a praxis,with a practical activity that must face a problem anda particular situation each and every time. Why, then,did the Fathers of the Church feel the need to introducethis term into theological discourse? How didthey come to speak about a “divine economy”?What is at issue here, to be precise, is an extremelydelicate and vital problem, perhaps the decisive questionin the history of Christian theology: the Trinity.When the Fathers of the Church began to argue duringthe second century about the threefold nature ofthe divine figure (the Father, the Son, and the HolySpirit), there was, as one can imagine, a powerful resistancefrom reasonable-minded people in the Churchwho were horrified at the prospect of reintroducingpolytheism and paganism to the Christian faith.In order to convince those stubborn adversaries (whowere later called “monarchians,” that is, promoters ofthe government of a single God), theologians such asTertullian, Irenaeus, Hippolytus, and many otherscould not find a better term to serve their need thanthe Greek oikonomia. Their argument went somethinglike this: “God, insofar as his being and substanceis concerned, is certainly one; but as to his oikonomia—thatis to say the way in which he administershis home, his life, and the world that he created—heis, rather, triple. Just as a good father can entrust tohis son the execution of certain functions and dutieswithout in so doing losing his power and his unity, soGod entrusts to Christ the ‘economy,’ the administrationand government of human history.” Oikonomiatherefore became a specialized term signifying in particularthe incarnation of the Son, together with theeconomy of redemption and salvation (this is the reasonwhy in Gnostic sects, Christ is called “the man ofeconomy,” ho anthropos tes oikonomias). The theologiansslowly got accustomed to distinguishing betweena “discourse—or logos—of theology” and a “logos ofeconomy.” Oikonomia became thereafter an apparatusthrough which the Trinitarian dogma and the idea ofa divine providential governance of the world were introducedinto the Christian faith.But, as often happens, the fracture that the theologianshad sought to avoid by removing it from theplane of God’s being, reappeared in the form of a caesurathat separated in Him being and action, ontologyand praxis. Action (economy, but also politics) has nofoundation in being: this is the schizophrenia that thetheological doctrine of oikonomia left as its legacy toWestern culture.5.I think that even on the basis of this brief exposition,we can now account for the centrality and importanceof the function that the notion of oikonomiaperformed in Christian theology. Already in Clementof Alexandria, oikonomia merges with the notion ofProvidence and begins to indicate the redemptive governanceof the world and human history. Now, what isthe translation of this fundamental Greek term in thewritings of the Latin Fathers? Dispositio.The Latin term dispositio, from which the Frenchterm dispositif, or apparatus, derives, comes thereforeto take on the complex semantic sphere of the theologicaloikonomia. The “dispositifs” about which Foucaultspeaks are somehow linked to this theologicallegacy. They can be in some way traced back to thefracture that divides and, at the same time, articulatesin God being and praxis, the nature or essence, on theone hand, and the operation through which He administersand governs the created world, on the other.The term “apparatus” designates that in which, andthrough which, one realizes a pure activity of governancedevoid of any foundation in being. This is thereason why apparatuses must always imply a process ofsubjectification, that is to say, they must produce theirsubject.In light of this theological genealogy the Foucauldianapparatuses acquire an even more pregnant anddecisive significance, since they intersect not only withthe context of what the young Hegel called “positivity,”but also with what the later Heidegger called Gestell(which is similar from an etymological point ofview to dis-positio, dis-ponere, just as the German stellencorresponds to the Latin ponere). When Heidegger,in Die Technik und die Kehre (The Question ConcerningTechnology), writes that Ge-stell means in ordinaryusage an apparatus (Gerät), but that he intendsby this term “the gathering together of the (installation[Stellen] that (in)stalls man, this is to say, challengeshim to expose the real in the mode of ordering[Bestellen],” the proximity of this term to the theologicaldispositio, as well as to Foucault’s apparatuses, is evident.What is common to all these terms is that theyrefer back to this oikonomia, that is, to a set of practices,bodies of knowledge, measures, and institutionsthat aim to manage, govern, control, and orient—ina way that purports to be useful—the behaviors, gestures,and thoughts of human beings.6.One of the methodological principles that I constantlyfollow in my investigations is to identify in thetexts and contexts on which I work what Feuerbachused to call the philosophical element, that is to say,the point of their Entwicklungsfahigkeit (literally, capacityto be developed), the locus and the momentwherein they are susceptible to a development. Nevertheless,whenever we interpret and develop the text ofan author in this way, there comes a moment when weare aware of our inability to proceed any further withoutcontravening the most elementary rules of hermeneutics.This means that the development of the textin question has reached a point of undecidabilitywhere it becomes impossible to distinguish betweenthe author and the interpreter. Although this is a particularlyhappy moment for the interpreter, he knowsthat it is now time to abandon the text that he is analyzingand to proceed on his own.I invite you therefore to abandon the context ofFoucauldian philology in which we have moved up tonow in order to situate apparatuses in a new context.I wish to propose to you nothing less than a generaland massive partitioning of beings into two largegroups or classes: on the one hand, living beings (orsubstances), and on the other, apparatuses in whichliving beings are incessantly captured. On one side,then, to return to the terminology of the theologians,lies the ontology of creatures, and on the other side,the oikonomia of apparatuses that seek to govern andguide them toward the good. (Continues…)Excerpted from WHAT IS AN APPARATUS? by Giorgio Agamben, David Kishik, Stefan Pedatella. Copyright © 2006 Nottetempo. Excerpted by permission of Stanford University Press. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site. Read more

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⭐What Is an Apparatus? and Other Essays is a collection of three brief essays: “What Is an Apparatus?,” “The Friend,” and “What Is the Contemporary”. These essays–extended operational reflections, one might call them–are intended to provoke some thought in their own right but also to further illuminate some of the avenues of Giorgio Agamben’s larger philosophical projects, such as the Homo Sacer series. Note, then, that these essays are not intended to convince or argue or even demand that you listen. Writing in a delicate, pleasantly erratic, and at times personal register, Agamben instead takes the opportunity to hint at some of his investments as a thinker–as an “archaeologist,” in the sense Foucault gave that term.In the first place, Agamben does not intend with “What Is an Apparatus?” to begin the dismantling of each and every “apparatus,” as one previous reviewer has blithely remarked. Agamben’s interest in Foucault’s concept of “dispositifs” (or “apparatuses”) may be located in his desire to begin working towards “the restitution to common use of what has been captured and separated in them.” This “captured and separated” element is what Agamben goes on to call “the Ungovernable,” “which is,” he writes, “the beginning and, at the same time, the vanishing point of every politics.” His attention is focused not on the apparatus but on what the apparatus obscures.Moreover, the other two essays in this small collection were not just selected haphazardly or at random to fill out a book. “The Friend,” for instance, indicates its relation to the conclusion of “What Is an Apparatus?” by articulating one of Agamben’s Ungovernables. In his reconstruction, from Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics, of what a “friend” is or can be, Agamben concludes, after paying careful attention to Aristotle’s premises, as well as his Greek: “Friendship is the con-division that precedes every division, since what has to be shared is the very fact of existence, life itself. And it is this sharing without an object, this original con-senting, that constitutes the political.” “Friendship,” therefore, is an existential that cannot be predicated on “birth, law, place, taste.” It eludes the grasp of these dispositifs and points to a “pure fact of being.”Finally, the most evocative and poetic of the essays, “What Is the Contemporary?” treats, I suspect, the position which one must aim for to be able to recognize all that can be hidden by dispositifs. Drawing from the insights of neurophysiology, astrophysics, and Pauline discourse, Agamben reflects on the problem of being–and the point of being–“contemporary.” “The present is nothing other than this unlived element in everything that is lived,” Agamben writes. “That which impedes access to the present is precisely the mass of what for some reason … we have not managed to live. The attention to this ‘unlived’ is the life of the contemporary. And to be contemporary means in this sense to return to a present where we have never been.” I would suggest that Agamben, here, is pointing towards the Ungovernable and the apparatus that withdraws it from our present.In any case, Agamben proves to be a funny (that bit about the cellphones is comic, not myopic), inquisitive, thoughtful, and entrancing companion through these brief essays. There are, of course, places to object within these reflections (in fact, he encourages it), but nonetheless, anyone who finds Agamben’s work intriguing would do well to take a look at this collection, and for those who are just curious about him these essays could be a great introduction to his thought, if not his arguments per se.

⭐First off, I’ve always enjoyed reading Agamben’s work. But something’s off here.I heard the first essay “What is an Apparatus?” when Agamaben “read” it for a lecture 3 years ago. (A work in progress, etc, so I suppose everyone cut him a lot of slack for the sketchiness of the idea. At least, I did.)It was exciting to hear at the time because some of the ideas seemed fresh and cogent. Since hearing the lecture, I’ve looked forward to reading a fully developed version later in a book form. Well, this is exactly the same lecture, not a fully fleshed out version. What a disappointment!Agamben’s ideas here are not put forward as arguments. The logic is either weak or non-existent. No footnotes, no citations. At best, there is the beginning of an attempt at an “archeology” with regard to the notion of Oikonomia/economy. “Are ya ready to rock!? A one, a two, three, and… goodnight!!”Here, Agamben begins to, and only begins to, say something about the word ‘dispositif’ that Foucault used without ever explicitly defining. So, Agamben translates it into English as ‘apparatus’. The word, as Foucault used it, more or less means — if I may translate — something like a ‘reticule/web/net of conduits of power distribution/circulation’. Like a net(work), it is used to trap and entangle one in a complex web of obligations, submissions, etc. In a word, it is precisely that which makes one unfree, while giving one the means to figure that fact out.’Dispositif’ is not a thing but a webbing of things that artificially creates a system of relationship among things as Power sees fit. Thus, ‘dispositif’ includes just about anything and everything mad-made, and used to construct civilization: laws, architecture, religion, morality, education, etc. Not surprisingly, language itself is the first, and the most universal dispositif. In that sense, ‘dispositif’ is something like Power “Meridians” (as in acupuncture) that courses through the Political Body of the State. All well and good, but all that was Foucault. (Nor is the word all that mysterious if one thinks about it. Just because some Frenchmen made their careers out of being obfuscating does not mean we all must wallow in the same turgid turbidity.)OK, so, where does Agamben want to take this? That we must figure out how to free ourselves from all forms of entrapment that dispositif has to offer. One more to add to the list of the “political tasks of the future”. (Roll eyes. WTF? Didn’t people like Jesus and Siddhartha do this gig already?)Agamben, by way of expressing his hatred for the ubiquitous cellphone, introduces the idea that ‘Economy’ as such is the most extensive and dominant form of ‘dispositif’ today.Enter the Church Fathers who coined the term ‘Oikonomia’ — as a theological concept to explain how God “manages” his “household” consisting of the Trinity. It is this word, and the “Globalatinized” world that came to be structured accordingly, that ultimately came to be transmogrified into our world’s obsession with “It’s the Economy, stupid!” over all other concerns that affect the possibility of a well-lived life as a mortal.Agamben is skillful with words: he pulls out obscure concepts from classical texts, and often stacks the deck to weave a story that ‘seem’ convincing because he tells it so well. That’s first time around. But upon more critical reading, you can see that what he has to offer are ‘Wouldn’t-it-be-great-IF’ sort of scenarios. The same kind of “fireside chat” can be found in his ‘Profanations’.My feeling is that people who like Agamben’s work are now so favorably tilted to agree with him on just about everything that he and his publisher think he can get away with this sort of publication. Or he’s just tired, needs the money, etc.As an aside: Among musicians, instrumentalists tend to get better with age. Vocalists, on the other hand, must endure the humiliation of failure that bodily decay brings. Perhaps this is the price that must be paid by all whose fame was obtained through the sorcery of (insincere use of) words.And now for something entirely irrelevant:This whole ‘Theory business’ (“radical” thinking, etc) is in itself a ‘dispositif’, and of a rather insidiously deleterious kind. So many people cling to it as if it were a religion. So many people make a point of being “radical”… about thinkin’ — so they can land a university job, and collect a check every month. Sheesh, how liberating is that?My 2 cents: Theory as a road map? OK, but where to? Roads all look like lines on a map, whatever part of the map. One line is as good as another. Stop clinging to “professional thinkers” to show you the way. BE the path YOU want to be on.

⭐Great product.

⭐Small but perfectly formed.

⭐The content is ok. I could even say it is interesting…But the pricing is absurd….I mean the size of it is sth like 17cm x 11cm and a total of 60 pages,,,,,

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