Immunitas

The Protection and Negation of Life

Roberto Esposito

• Publisher: Polity
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781509526178
• Topic: Filosofía
• Subtopic: Historia y teoría filosóficas
• Edition: 1

This book by Roberto Esposito - a leading Italian political philosopher - is a highly original exploration of the relationship between human bodies and societies. The original function of law, even before it was codified, was to preserve peaceful cohabitation between people who were exposed to the risk of destructive conflict. Just as the human body's immune system protects the organism from deadly incursions by viruses and other threats, law also ensures the survival of the community in a life-threatening situation. It protects and prolongs life.

But the function of law as a form of immunization points to a more disturbing consideration. Like the individual body, the collective body can be immunized from the perceived danger only by allowing a little of what threatens it to enter its protective boundaries. This means that in order to escape the clutches of death, life is forced to incorporate within itself the lethal principle.

Starting from this reflection on the nature of immunization, Esposito offers a wide-ranging analysis of contemporary biopolitics. Never more than at present has the demand for immunization come to characterize all aspects of our existence. The more we feel at risk of being infiltrated and infected by foreign elements, the more the life of the individual and society closes off within its protective boundaries, forcing us to choose between a self-destructive outcome and a more radical alternative based on a new conception of community.

Notes

Introduction

1 See J. Korpela, “Das Medizinalpersonal im antiken Rom. Eine Sozialgeschichtliche Untersuchung,” in Annales Academiae Scientiarum Fennicae, Humanae Litterae 45 (1987), pp. 35 ff.

2 J. Scarborough, Roman Medicine, Thames & Hudson, London 1969, p. 113.

3 See in general, K. H. Below, “Der Arzt im römischen Recht,” in Münchener Beiträge zur Papyrusforschung und antiken Rechtsgeschichte 37 (1953), pp. 22 ff.

4 See J. André, Être medecin à Rome, Payot & Rivages, Paris 1995, pp. 140–43.

5 G. W. Bowersock, Greek Sophists in the Roman Empire, The Clarendon Press, Oxford 1969, p. 31.

6 See V. Nutton, “Two Notes on Immunities: Digest 27, 1, 6, 10 and 11,” in From Democedes to Harvey, Variorum Reprints, London 1988, p. 62.

7 M. Vegetti and P. Manuli, “La medicina e l’igiene,” in Storia di Roma, Einaudi, Turin 1989, vol. 6, p. 395.

8 Ibid., pp. 396–97.

I Appropriation

1 See Roberto Esposito, Communitas: The Origin and Destiny of Community, trans. Timothy C. Campbell, Stanford University Press, Stanford, Calif. 2010.

2 Simone Weil, Need for Roots, Routledge, London and New York 1996, p. 3.

3 “Human Personality,” in Simone Weil: An Anthology, ed. Sian Miles, Grove Press, New York 1986, p. 64.

4 Weil, Need for Roots, p. 4.

5 Ibid., p. 64.

6 The genealogy of the proprium traced out by P. Barcellona in L’individualismo proprietario, Boringhieri, Turin 1987, is still useful in this regard.

7 Friedrich Nietzsche, Genealogy of morals, Dover Publications, Mineola, N.Y. 2003, p. 45; in German: Zur Genealogie der Moral, in Sämtliche Werke, De Gruyter, Berlin 1967 ff., vol. 6, p. 2.

8 Weil, “Human Personality,” p. 61. For this interpretation of Weil, see my Categorie dell’impolitico, il Mulino, Bologna 1988, pp. 189–244.

9 Ibid., p. 62.

10 Weil, Need for Roots, p. 275.

11 Martin Heidegger, Parmenides, in Gesamtausgabe, Klostermann, Frankfurt am Main 1982, vol. 64, pp. 58–59.

12 Rudolf von Jhering, Geist des römischen Rechts auf den verschiedenen Stufen seiner Entwicklung, Scientia, Aalen 1993 (Leipzig 1866), vol. 1, p. 109. See also the introduction by F. Fusillo to the Italian translation of Das Schuldmoment in römischen Privatrecht (1867), Il momento della colpa nel diritto privato romano, Jovene, Naples 1990, pp. xxiii ff.

13 Ibid., pp. 112–13.

14 Walter Benjamin, “Critique of Violence,” in Reflections, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, New York 1978, p. 287.

15 See also E. Castrucci, La forma e la decisione, Giuffré, Milan 1985, pp. 67–89.

16 Benjamin, “Critique of Violence”, p. 281.

17 See F. Garritano, Aporie comunitarie, Jaca Book, Milan 1999, p. 26.

18 I am referring to Giorgio Agamben, Homo sacer, Einaudi, Turin 1995, pp. 36 ff.

19 Carl Schmitt, Political Theology: Four Chapters on the Concept of Sovereignty, trans. George Schwab, MIT Press, Cambridge, Mass.-London 1985, p. 5.

20 “Fate and Character,” in Reflections, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, New York 1978, p. 204.

21 For more on “this” Kafka, see the intense pages written by M. Cacciari in Icone della legge, Adelphi, Milan 1985, pp. 56–137...