What if we’ve been wrong when reading Agamben? Mathew Abbott argues that Agamben’s thought is misunderstood when read in terms of critical theory or traditional political philosophy. He shows instead that it engages in political ontology: studying the political stakes of the question of being.
Abbot demonstrates the crucial influence of Martin Heidegger on Agamben’s work, locating it in the post-Heideggerian tradition of the critique of metaphysics. He also positions it in relation to the thought of Benjamin, Nietzsche, Levinas, Nancy, and Wittgenstein. As he clarifies it, Abbott links Agamben’s philosophy with Wittgenstein’s picture theory and Heidegger’s concept of the world-picture, showing the importance of this for understanding – and potentially overcoming – the forms of alienation characteristic of the society of the spectacle.