Method and Salvation

The Theologico-Political Archaeology of Giorgio Agamben

Abstract

The article investigates the articulation between genealogy and archaeology in Giorgio Agamben, arguing that, although the terms at times appear indistinct, the former carries out a destabilizing task in the lato sensu documents of any canonical narrative, whereas the latter adds a theologico-political activity of “profane salvation” from the ruins of historico-linguistic phenomena. Methodologically, the study undertakes a comparative reconstruction of the Nietzschean and Foucauldian matrices, followed by a conceptual analysis of Agamben’s texts in light of Benjaminian interlocutions and of operators such as paradigm, example rule, protophainomenon, signature, historical a priori, point of insurgency, prehistory, fringe of ultra-history, and vortex. As a result, it is proposed that genealogy and archaeology, when joined, expose the void in which apparatuses and anthropological machines operate onto-temporal cuts in the West and, moreover, orient a practice of profanation and inoperativity of these same mechanisms, letting shine forth the originary an-archy of events and the possibility of inexhaustibly assigning them to other uses.