Out of Being: Agamben and the anthropological machine

Abstract

Giorgio Agamben in his last book Open. Human and the Animal [L'aperto. L'uomo e I'animale] (2002), brings into question the simplicity of the reduction that we are witnessing today between animal humanity and human animality. The questions he raises not only concern the fusion between animal and human, but he proposes that we articulate the difference between the animal and the speaking being, i.e. the human. He questions the difference between nature and history and goes in depth into what is to be perceived the humanity of the human. He is interested in the process of the human becoming human. This is a story of biopolitics and anthropogenesis as he asks how anthropological machines function today, those that were established by Western metaphysics and science. He brings into question the functioning of such machines.