Jaeggi, Agamben and the Critique of Forms of Life

ABSTRACT

In this paper, I will try to address the question of how to conceptualise a form of life that is better than others, by putting Rahel Jaeggi’s pragmatism inspired critical theory and Giorgio Agamben’s genealogical perspective in conversation. I argue that for both authors the critique of forms of life is intertwined with “the critique of how”. Not restricting itself to ethical abstinence, and without imposing certain norms upon forms of life, “the critique of how” focuses on the reflexive capacity of forms of life, or their ability to question how they become what they are, which gives rise to an increased perception of the connections and continuities of activities in which they are engaged. In this sense, it may become possible to free the present in order to open it to contingency, and to see the glimpses of a better form of life.

KEYWORDS:

• R. Jaeggi
• G. Agamben
• critical theory
• forms of life
• contingency

Acknowledgements

An earlier version of this paper was presented in Oldenburg at the “History, Progress, Critique – 3rd Istanbul-Oldenburg Critical Theory Conference (September 12–14, 2019)”. I would like to thank all the participants for their helpful comments. I would also like to thank the reviewer for valuable and constructive comments and suggestions.

Notes

1 See Auxine, “Foucault, Dewey and the History.”

2 See Azmanova et al. “Emancipation, Progress, Critique,” 533.

3 Koopman, Genealogy as Critique, 267.

4 See Vatter, The Republic of the Living.

5 Here it is also possible to mention, the successor of Jurgen Habermas and Axel Honneth in the chair of social philosophy at the Goethe University Frankfurt, Martin Saar, who claims along side Koopman and Vater that critical theory as a critique of power is not fundamentally in tension with Foucauldian critique. See Saar “ X—What Is Social Philosophy.”

6 In one of her interviews, R. Jaeggi spells out her position with regard to genealogical approach. After mentioning three alternatives in critical theory, namely Kantianism, Hegelian-Marxist tradition and lastly Nietzscheanism, which, according to Jaeggi, takes on Foucauldian genealogy in critical theory, she assumes that “in the end both Foucauldianism and Nietzscheanism need to resort to some sort of Kantian, freestanding morality. Even if they bracket their moral position in a fruitful way, or accept certain notions of equality or freedom as historical and not founded philosophically in normativity, I still think they very much rely on the Kantian position as a result of rejecting the Hegelian-Marxist one”. Allen, Jaeggi, and Redecker, “Progress, Normativity and Social Change,” 228–9. Even though Jaeggi distances herself sharply from the Foucauldian undertaking, as we shall see later in the course of this paper, it is still possible to start a conversation between Jaeggi’s critical theory and the genealogical approach as that is put forward by Agamben.

7 A change in paradigm due to a crisis in a scientific field as it has been introduced to philosophy, philosophy of science in particular, by Thomas Kuhn, plays an important role in Jaeggi’s critique of forms of life and Agamben’s methodology. On the one hand, according to Jaeggi, forms of life are mainly problem-solving entities, and they are driven by crises. Accordingly, this triggers a debate about how to solve the given crisis, however contradictory the positionsmay be . When contradiction comes to the surface, or the given forms of life are threatened by crisis, new ways of understanding and seeing become necessary, namely a new paradigm emerges. Jaeggi, The Critique of Forms of Life, 252. On the other hand, for Agamben, paradigm is the very methodological tool which makes intelligible the present constellation, as we shall see later. In this sense, paradigm is related, for both authors, to ways of seeing and understanding. And my aim here is to engage with the question of what kind of ways of seeing and understanding are deployed with regard to the problem of progress for forms of life by the two authors.

8 Testa, “How are Bundles of,” 9.

9 Jaeggi, The Critique of Forms of Life, 349.

10 Terry Pinkard, regarding Jaeggi’s context-transcending criteria, rises his concern that while Jaeggi positions herself against liberal “ethical abstinence” with regard to critique of forms of life, her context-transcendent criteria has similar connotations with liberal proceduralism. Pinkard thus claims that the liberal position insists on not to comment on “good life” but only sets the formal path to circumvent power and ensures equal participation in political life, just as Jaeggi’s criteria merely provide necessary formal limits for the critique. See Pinkard, “Review of Kritik von Lebensformen.” However, as we all see, Jaeegi’s motto “do not block the path of further inquiry” does not lead to a proceduralist position, since her critique is deeply path dependent. Every form of life has its own path, and the only critique that can be put forward needs to regard how the given form of life has evolved during the course of its history. Jaeggi’s reference to Jared Diamond is especially important in this sense. Jaeggi, The Critique of Forms of Life, 166.

11 See Jaeggi, The Critique of Forms of Life.

12 Jaeggi, “Resistance to the Perpetual,” 19.

13 See Ibid.

14 Jaeggi, The Critique of Forms of Life, 340.

15 See Jaeggi, Alienation.

16 This is one of the important points that underlines the differences between Jaeggi and Agamben. On the one hand, as we have seen, for Jaeggi the plurality of forms of life is taken for granted which renders us to criticise each form of life according to which path it has chosen and why it has chosen that particular path and whether its course allows us to solve the problems that it has put forward and faced. However, in Jaeggi’s account, as Celikates righty points, the question of what makes a form of life a form of life is left open. For instance, whether capitalism is deemed to be the gravitational centre from which a critical endeavour can start needs elaboration. Celikates, “Forms of Life, Progress,”140–1. On the other hand, for Agamben, as we shall see in the course of this chapter, what characterises our current (Western) forms of life is the separation of life from its abstract representation. In this sense the suspension of this separation, to put it crudely, will lead to form-of-life. While in Jaeggi’s project the plurality of forms of life is maintained, for Agamben the plurality is itself subjected to the operation of suspension.

17 The term “ontologically aware” refers to Agamben’s peculiar understanding of thinking. According to him, to think pertains to an experience, an experimentum, which “does not mean merely to be affected by this or that thing, by this or that content of enacted thought [i.e., to think is not simply to think within the constraints of the customs or forms of life we encounter], but rather at once to be affected by one’s own receptiveness and experience in each and every thing that is thought”. Agemben, Means Without End, 9. Thus, in Agamben’s diagram “to think” is considered to be the modulation of life which suspends such dualities as body and mind, or brain and mind, etc.

18 Agamben, Means Without End, 4.

19 Agamben, The Signature of All Things, 9.

20 Durantaye, Giorgio Agamben, 245.

21 DeCaroli, “Paradigm/Example,” 147.

22 In Agamben’s methodology, or in his words “archaeological philosophy”, paradigm plays a crucial role, since through the paradigms we make sense of our present world, and categorise our relations with ourselves and the world, thus it is related to knowability of current constellation: “1. A paradigm is a form of knowledge that is neither inductive nor deductive but analogical. It moves from singularity to singularity. 2. By neutralising the dichotomy between the general rule and the particular, it replaces a dichotomous logic with a bipolar analogical model. 3. The paradigmatic case becomes such by suspending and, at the same time, exposing its belonging to the group, so that it is never possible to separate its exemplarity from its singularity. 4. The paradigmatic group is never presupposed by the paradigms; rather, it is immanent in them. 5. In the paradigm, there is no origin or archê; every phenomenon is the origin, every image is archaic. 6. The historicity of the paradigm lies neither in diachronic nor in synchrony but in a crossing of the two.” Agamben, Signature of All Things, 31.

23 As for Agamben’s take on Franciscan monasticism, Ian Hunter holds that the Italian philosopher’s discourse treats actual historical events as symbols of hidden metaphysical reality with a special spiritual exercise. Regardless of historical scholarship, continues Hunter, Agamben is in search of hidden meanings, and he tries to decipher the past, which will reveal the future. Thus, Agamben misses the ‘true’ content of Franciscan monasticism. See Hunter, “Giorgio Agamben’s Form of Life.” While “actual historical events”, in many ways, play an important role for a philosophical undertaking, Agamben’s attempt is very similar to the work of a pearl diver as it has been delineated by Hannah Arendt, in her Introduction to Walter Benjamin’s Illuminations. Arendt writes: “Like a pearl diver who descends to the bottom of the sea, not to excavate the bottom and bring it to light but to pry loose the rich and the strange, the pearls and the coral in the depths, and to carry them to the surface, this thinking delves into the depths of the past-but not in order to resuscitate it the way it was and to contribute to the renewal of extinct ages.” Arendt, “Introduction. Walter Benjamin, 1892–1940,” 54–5. Therefore, Agamben’s project, in line with Arendt’s insight, focuses less on showing the “historical actual events” about Franciscans than on resurfacing the untold story which might help to elaborate the contours of form-of-life.

24 Agamben, The Highest Poverty, 122.

25 See Agamben, The Highest Poverty and especially see Prozorov, “Living à la mode,” 142–3.

26 Agamben, The Use of Bodies, 30.

27 Agamben, The Highest Poverty, 69.

28 Here, it is not possible to do justice to Agamben’s genealogy of sovereignty as a biopolitical apparatus which is based on the assumption that biopolitics was inaugurated when life has been divided into bare or natural life, zoe, which being located in the household (oikos), was common to all beings (animals, god and humans) and related to reproductive activities, and qualified or good life, bios, “which indicate[d] the form of way of living proper to an individual or a group.” Agamben, Homo Sacer, 1. Furthermore, Agamben unpacks his assumptions throughout history, without necessarily following a chronological path. In this sense, Agamben’s genealogy of sovereignty is to a certain extent different from M. Foucault’s. While for Foucault the interaction between life and politics has been set forth with the entrance of the population into politics, as a modern phenomenon, Agamben’s genealogical account puts this interaction way back to Ancient Greece. For a detailed discussion, see Ojakangas, “Impossible Dialog on Biopower.”

29 According to Agamben the Franciscan form of life eventually failed, for in the Franciscan literature, the definition of use, which was not put at any rate in relation to the law, was missing. In the Franciscan doctrine use lost its centrality and “ended up being characterised only negatively with respect to the law”. Agamben, The Highest Poverty, 144.

30 Agamben, The Use of Bodies, 30.

31 Prozorov, Democratics Biopolitics, 130.

32 Jaeggi, “Progress, Normativity,” 136.

33 Agamben, The Use of Bodies, 231.

34 Jaeggi, The Critique of Forms of Life, 349.

35 Agamben, The Use of Bodies, 231.

36 Foucault, “Life: Experience and Science,” 477.

37 See in Azmanova et al. “Emancipation, Progress,” 513.