Bios

Biopolitics and Philosophy

By Roberto Esposito

2004

First Published

3.95

Average Rating

288

Number of Pages

8H47M

Audio Length

Roberto Esposito is one of the most prolific and important exponents of contemporary Italian political theory. Bíos-his first book to be translated into English-builds on two decades of highly regarded thought, including his thesis that the modern individual-with all of its civil and political rights as well as its moral powers-is an attempt to attain immunity from the contagion of the extraindividual, namely, the community. In Bíos, Esposito applies such a paradigm of immunization to the analysis of the radical transformation of the political into biopolitics. Bíos discusses the origins and meanings of biopolitical discourse, demonstrates why none of the categories of modern political thought is useful for completely grasping the essence of biopolitics, and reconstructs the negative biopolitical core of Nazism. Esposito suggests that the best contemporary response to the current deadly version of biopolitics is to understand what could make up the elements of a positive biopolitics-a politics of life rather than a politics of mastery and negation of life. In his introduction, Timothy Campbell situates Esposito’s arguments within American and European thinking on biopolitics. A comprehensive, illuminating, and highly original treatment of a critically important topic, Bíos introduces an English-reading public to a philosophy that will critically impact such wide-ranging current debates as stem cell research, euthanasia, and the war on terrorism. Roberto Esposito teaches contemporary philosophy at the Italian Institute for the Human Sciences in Naples. His books include Categorie dell impolitico, Nove pensieri sulla politica, orgine e destino della comunità, and protezione e negazione della vita. Timothy Campbell is associate professor of Italian studies in the Department of Romance Studies at Cornell University and the author of Wireless Writing in the Age of Marconi (Minnesota, 2006).

Avg Rating

3.95

Number of Ratings

113

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4 STARS

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3 STARS

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Author

Roberto Esposito

Author · 8 books

Roberto Esposito was born in Naples where he graduated at University of Naples 'Federico II'. He is Vice Director of the Istituto Italiano di Scienze Umane, is Full Professor of Theoretical Philosophy and the coordinator of the doctoral programme in Philosophy. For five years he was the only Italian member of the International Council of Scholars of the Collège International de Philosophie in Paris. He was one of the founders of the European Political Lexicon Research Centre and the International Centre for a European Legal and Political Lexicon, which was established by a consortium made up of the Universities of Bologna, Florence, Padua, Salerno, Naples L'Orientale and Naples S. Orsola Benincasa. He is co-editor of Filosofia Politica published by il Mulino, the 'Per la Storia della Filosofia Politica' series for publishers Franco Angeli, the series 'Storia e teoria politica' for publishers Bibliopolis and the series 'Comunità e Libertà' for Laterza. He is editor of the 'Teoria e Oggetti' series published by Liguori and also acts as a philosophy consultant for publishers Einaudi.