The archaeology of the present and the question of the subject in the thought of Giorgio Agamben

Abstract

This article proposes to show how the Agambenian archaeology takes place through a double movement that, at one and the same time, displays tradition from an exceptional paradigm. It is possible to think here of a play on words, since the word paradigm is usually used as a synonym for model and, in this sense, the exception is what models that which tradition has transmitted and, equally, repressed. However, with his characteristic gesture, Agamben takes the word paradigm back to its etymological sense, as "that which is shown alongside", and gives it a strategic meaning in his archaeology. Like the example, the paradigm displays the functioning and belonging of something without belonging to that which is displayed, showing itself alongside, subtracting its belonging to a rule. What it displays is the exceptional structure of tradition, also referring the word exception to its etymological sense, "caught outside". This sense, which defines the exception as such, is used to characterise the way in which tradition operated by presupposing an origin. This presupposition of an originary dimension, prior to all supposition, destined as an underlying foundation, the sub iectum, that is, the problem of the subject.