WHAT IS AN
APPARATUS?
MERIDIAN
Crossing Aesthetics
Werner Hamacher
Editor
WHAT IS AN
APPARATUS?
and Other Essays
Giorgio Agamben
lranslzud by D(wid KisJuk
and Stefim PI'ti.uella
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STAl·.iI:ORll. CALIFORNIA
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"What Is an Appara!lJ<?" was originally published in Italian in 2006 under
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Agamben. Giorgio. 1942[Esys. English. Sc:1=ionsl
What is an apparatus? and other esys I Giorgio Agamben ;
uanslated by David Kishik and Stefan Pedatella.
p.
cm.-(Meridian. crossing aesthetics)
Indu<h bibliographical references.
ISBN 978 0 8047 6219 8 (cloth:
a1k. paper)
ISBN 978-0-8047-6230-4 (pbk. : alk. P.1P')
I.
Powe r <Ph ilosop hy)
1. Knowledge . Theory of.
1926-1984.
4. Friendship.
I. litle.
3. Foucault. Michel.
5. Contemporary. The.
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Contents
Translators' Not(
IX
§ What Is an Apparatus?
§ The Friend
25
§ What Is the Contemporary?
39
Notes
55
Translators' Note
English translations of sC<.:Olloary so u rces have
been amended i n order to take i nto a c co u n t the au­
thor's somet i mes distinctive Italian translations. Ma n­
dclstam's poem on pages 42-43 was translated from
the Russian by Jane Mikkelson . We would l i ke to
thank Gior gio Agambcn for his generous assistance,
which has improved the grace and accuracy of our
translation.
WHAT IS AN
APPARATUS?
What Is an Apparatus?
§
I.
Term i nological questions are im po rt ant in philoso­
phy. As a philosopher for whom I have t he greates t re­
spect once said, terminology is the poetic moment of
thought. This is not to say t hat philosophers must a l ­
ways necessarily de fi n e their tech n ical terms. Plato
never defined idea, his most i m por ta nt t er m . Ot hers ,
li ke Spi noz.a and Leibniz., preferred instead to define
t hei r term i nol ogy more geometrico.
The hypo t h e sis that I wis h to propose is that the
word
dispositif, or "a p parat us" i n E ngl ish, is a decisive
technical term in the strategy of Foucault's t h ou ght .·
He uses it quite often, especially from the mid 1970s,
when he begi ns to concern hi mself with what he
calls "governmental ity" or the "gove rn me nt of men."
T h ough he never offers a complete de fi n i t i on , he
What Is an Apparatus?
2
comes close to something like it i n an interview from
1977:
What I'm trying to s i n gle
Ollt
with this term is, fi rst and
foremost, a thoroughl y hete ro gen eous set consis t ing
of discourses, institutions, architectural forms, re g ula
­
tory decisions, l aw s, administrative measures, scie nti fic
statements, philo sophical , moral, and philanthropic
propositions-in short, the sa i d as much as the unsaid.
Such are t he elements of the apparatls. The apparatus it­
sel f is the network t h at can be established between the se
e l eme n ts ...
. . . by t he term
"appa ratu s"
I mean
a kind of a forma­
tion, so to speak, that at a gi ve n his to ric al mo ment h as as
its maj or function the respon s e to an urgency. The appa­
ratus therefore has a dominant stra tegi c func t ion . ..
. . . I said that the nature of an ap parat us is essentially
strategic, which means that we are
sp eaking
about a
certa i n m anipulation of relations of forces, of a rational
and concrete intervention i n the relations of forces, either
so as to develop them i n a par ticul a r di rection, or to
block t hem,
(0
stabilize them, and
to
util ize t hem . The:
apparatus is thus always i n scribed into a play of power,
but it is also always l i n ked to certain l i m its of knowledge
that arise from it a nd, to an equal degree. condition it.
The apparatus is precisely this: a set of st ra tegie s of the
relations of forces suppor t i ng , and supported by, cer ta in
types of knowledge.2
Let me briefly summarize three points:
a.
It is a heterogeneous set that includes virtually
anything, linguistic a nd non linguistic. u nder [he
Whllt Is an ApparatUJ?
3
same he ad ing : discourses, institutions, build ings,
laws, police measures, philosoph ical pro posi
tions, and so on. The apparatus it se lf is the net
work that is establ ished between these e lem e nts
­
­
.
b. The apparatus always has a concrete strate­
gic function and is always located in a power
relation.
c. As such, it appears at the intersection of power
relations and relations of knowledge.
2.
I would l ike now to try a nd trace a brief genealogy
of this term, first in the work of Foucault, and then in
a broader h istor i cal contex t.
At the end of t h e 1960s,
m or
e or less at the time
when he was writing The Archeology ofKnowledge,
Fo ucau lt does not yet use the term "apparatus" in or­
der to define t he object of his research. Instead, he uses
the term positivit!, "positivity," a n etymologic al ne igh
bor of dispositif, again w it h out off ering us a defin i t io n .
I often asked myself w here Foucault found this
­
term, until the moment when, a few months ago, I re­
read a book by J e an Hyppol ite e nt it led Introduction a
la philoJophie de l'bistoire de Hegel. You probably k now
abollt the strong link that ties Foucault to Hy ppo l ite
,
4
What Is an Apparatus?
a person whom he referred to at times as "my mas­
ter� (Hyppolire was in fact his teacher, fi rst during the
khJgne i n the Lycee Henri-IV [the preparatory course
for the Ecole normale superieure] and then in the
Ecole norma Ie).
The th ird part of Hyppolite's book bears the tide
"Raison et histoire: Les idees de p ositivitc et de des­
tin" ( Reason and History: The Ideas of Positivity and
Desti ny). The focm here is on the analysis of two
works that date from Hegel's years i n Bern and Frank­
furt (1795-96): The fi rst is "The Spirit of Christianity
and Its Desti ny," and the second-where we fi n d the
term that imerests us-"The Positivity of the Chris­
tian Rel i gion" (Die Positivitiit der christliche Religion).
According to Hyppolite, "destiny" and "positivity"
are two key concepts in Hegel's thought. In particu­
lar, the term "positivity" finds in Hegel its proper place
in the opposition between "natural rel igion" and "posi­
tive religion." While natural re l igio n is concerned with
the immediate and general relation of human reason
with the divi ne, positive or h istorical rel igion encom­
passes the set of beliefs, rules, and rites that in a cer­
tai n society and at a certain historical moment are ex­
ternal ly imposed on i ndividuals. "A positive rel igion,"
Hegel writes in a passage cited by Hyppolite, "impl ies
feeli ngs that are more or less impre�sed through con­
straint on suuls; these are actions that are the effect of
What Is an Appardtus?
command and the
resu lt
5
of obedience and are accom­
plished without d i rect i nterest.ft.l
Hyppolite shows how the opposition between na­
ture a nd positivity cor res p onds , in this se n se to the
,
d ialectics of freedom and obligation, as well as of rea­
son and history. In a passage that could not have failed
to provoke foucault's cu riosity, because it in a way
presages the notion of a p pa rat u s Hyppolite writes:
,
We see here the knot of questions impl icit in the concept
of positivity, as well as Hegel's successive attempts to
bring together dialectically-a d ialectics that is not yet
conscious of itself-pure reason (theoretical and above all
practical) and positivity, that is, the historical dement. I n
a cer tain sense, Hegel considers positivity as a n obstacl e
to the freedom of man, a nd
as
sllch it is condemned. To
i nvestigate (he positive elemenrs of a religion, and we
m i ght add, of a social state, means to discover in them
t hat which
is imposed through a constraint on man, that
which obfuscates the pu rity of reason. But, in anoth er
sense-and this is the aspect that ends up having the
upper hand in the cou rse of Hegel's development
pos­
itivit y m ust be reconciled with reason, which then loses
its abst ract cha racter and adapts to the concrete rich ness
of life. We see then why the concept of positivity is at the
center of Hegelian perspectives:
If"positivjty" is the n ame that, accord i ng to Hyp­
polite, the you ng Hegel gives to the h i s tori c al ele­
ment-loaded as it is with rules, rites, and i nstitut ions
that
are
i m pose d on the i ndividual b y an external
6
What Is an Apparatus?
power, but that become, so to spea k . internalized i n
the system s o f bel iefs and feel ings-then Foucault,
by borrowing this term (later to become "apparatus"),
takes a position with respect to a decisive problem,
wh ich is actually also his own p rob lem : the rclation
between i ndividuals as living bei ngs and the histori­
cal element. By "the historical element," I mean the set
of i nstitutions, of processes of subjectification. and of
ru les i n which power relation s become concrete. Fou­
cault 's ultimate aim is not, then. as i n Hegel, the rec­
onciliation of the two elements; it is not even to em ­
phasize their conflict. For Foucault, what is at stake
is ra t he r the i nves tigat i on of con c re te modes in which
the p ositiv iti e s (or the a p paratuses) act within the rela­
tions, mecha nisms, a nd "plays " of power.
3·
It sho u ld now he c l e a r in what sense I h ave ad­
vanced the hypot h es is that "apparatus" is an essen­
tial technical term in Foucaulc's thought. What is at
stake here is not a pa rticul a r term that re fers o n ly to
this or that technology of power. It i s a genera l term
that has t he same breadth as the te r m "positivity" had ,
according to Hypp olitc . for the young Hegel. Within
Foucault's strategy. it comes to occupy t h e place of
o n e of those terms th at he d efi nes, critically, as "the
What Is an Apparatus?
7
universals" (les universaux). Fo uca u l t, as you know, al­
ways refused to deal with the gen e ra l cat ego rie s or
mental constructs that he calls "the universals," such
as the State, Sovereignty, Law, and Power. But this is
not to say that there are no o pe rat ive concepts with a
general c h ara cte r in his thou ght. Apparat uses are, in
poin t of fact. what take the place of the universals in
the Foucauldian strategy: not simply this or that po­
lice measure, this or th at t ec h nology of power. and not
even the generality obtained by t he ir abstrac tion. In­
stead, as he claims in the interview from 197. an appa­
ra t us is "the network [Ie rlseau1 that can be established
between these elements."
If we now try to exa m in e the definition of " app ara­
tus" that can be found i n common French diction a r­
ies, we see that they distingu ish between three mean­
i n gs of the t erm :
a.
A strictly jurid ical sense: "Apparatus is th e part of a
judgment that contains the decision se parate from
the opinion ." That is. the section of a sentence that
decides. or the enacting clause of a l aw.
b. A technological meani ng: "The way in which the
parts of a mach i ne or of a
m ech
a n i sm and. by exten­
sion. t h e mechanism itself are arranged."
c.
A m i l i ta ry use: "The set of means arranged in confor­
m it y w i t h
a
"
pl a n .
8
What f1 an Apparatus?
To some extent, the t h ree defi nitions are all pres�
ent in Foucault. But dic tiona ries , in particular those
t ha t lack a h i stor ical e tymological character, divide
�
and separate this term into a variety of m ea n i ngs . T h is
fragm e n tation nevertheless, generally c or res ponds
,
to th e historical development and ar ti clli a c ion of a
unique original meani ng that we should not lose sight
of. What is this original meaning for the term a pp a
"
�
rat us"? The term cer tainly refers, in its common Fou�
callidian use, to a set of practices and mechanisms
( b o th l in g uis tic a nd non linguistic ju ridical, techni­
cal, and milit ary) that aim to face an u rgent need and
to o bta in an effect that is more or less immediate. But
,
what is the strategy of practices or of tho u g h t , what is
the h is tor i cal context, from which the modern term
originates?
4·
Over the past three years, I have fou nd myself in�
c re a s i n g l y involved i n a n i n ves tiga t i on that is only now
begin n i ng to come (0 i t s end, one that I can roughly
defi ne as a theological genealogy of economy. In the
first centuries of Church history-let's say, between
the second and sixth c e n t ur ies c.E.-the Greek term
oikonomia d e ve lo ps
Greek,
a
decisiv e theol ogic al function . In
oikonomia signifi es
the ad m i n i st rat io n of t he
oikos (the home) and, more genera l ly, management.
What Is an Apparatus?
We a re dea l i n g here, as Aristo t l e
9
says (Politics 1155b21),
not with an e piste m i c para d i gm but with a praxis,
,
with a prac tica l ac t i v ity that must face a problem and
a particular situation each and every t i me. Why, then,
did the Fathers
of the Church feel
the need to intro­
duce this t er m into theological discou rse? How did
t h ey come to spea k about a div i ne
"
economy"?
What is at issue here, to be precise, i s an ex tremely
delicate a nd vita l problem , perhaps the decisive ques­
t i on in the history of Ch r i stia n theology: the Trinity.
W h en the Fathers of the Churc h bega n to argue dur­
ing the second century about the th reefold n a t ure of
the divine figure (the Father, the Son , and the Holy
Spirit), t h ere was, as one c a n i magine a powerful re­
,
sistance from reasonable-m i nded people in the Chu rch
who were horri fied at the prospect of rei ntroduc-
ing polyt h eis m and paga nism to the C h ristian faith.
In order to convi nce t hose stubborn ad ve rsa r i es (who
were later called "monarchiam," that is, promoters of
the govern ment of a si ngle
God),
theologia ns such as
Tertu llian, I renaeus, Hippolytus, and many others
could not find a better term to serve their need than
the Greek oikonomia. Th e i r argu ment went some­
t h ing like this: "God, insofar as his being and sub­
stance is co n c e r ned , is cer ta i n ly one; but as
to his oiko­
nomia-that is to say th e way i n which he ad ministers
his home, his life, a nd the world t h a t he created-he
10
What Is an Apparatus?
is, rather, triple. JUSt as a good father can entrust to
his son the execution of cenain functions and duties
without in so doing losing h is powe r a nd h is u n i t y, so
God entrusts to Christ the 'economy,' the administra­
tion a nd government of human history." Oikonomia
therefore became a specialized term signifying in par­
t i c u l ar the incarnation of t h e Son, together with (he
economy of redemption and salvation (this is the rea­
son why i n Gnostic sects, Christ is called "the man of
economy," ho anthropos tes oikonomias). The t he olo
gi an s slowly got accustomed to distinguishi ng between
a "discourse-or logos-of th e ol ogy " and a "logos of
eco n o my." Oikonomia became t here a f ter an apparatus
­
th rough w hich the Trin itarian dogma and the idea of
d ivine p rov i de n t ial governance of the world were in­
a
troduced into the Christian faith.
But, as often h ap pe n s , the fracture that the theo­
logians had sought (0 avoid by removing it from the
plane of God's be in g , reappeared in the for m of a cae­
sura that separated in H im being and action, ontology
and p ra x is . Action (econo my, b u t also po li tics ) has no
fo u n d at io n in being: this is the schizophrenia that the
theological doc t rin e of oikonomia l e ft as its legacy to
Western culture.
What Is an Apparatus?
11
5·
I t h i nk that even on the basis of t h is brief exposi­
tion. we can now account for the centrality and im­
portance of the fu nction that the notion of oikonomia
perform ed i n Christian theology. Already i n Clement
of A le xa nd ria . oikonomia merges wit h the notion o f
Providence
and b egins to indicate the redemptive gov­
ernance of the world and huma n history. Now, what is
the translation of this fu nd a men t a l Greek (erm in the
w r i t i n gs of the L a t i n Fathers? Dispositio.
dispositio from which the French
d
term ispositif, or apparat us. derives. comes therefore
The Lat i n term
,
to take on t he complex seman tic sphere of the theo­
log ic al oikonomia. Th e "d ispositifs" about which Fou­
cault speaks are somehow l i n ked to this t heo log ica l
legacy. They can be in some way traced back to the
fracture that di vides and. at the same time, articulates
in God being and praxis. t he natu re or essence, on the
one ha nd. a n d t he opera tio n t h ro ugh wh ich He ad­
m i n isters and governs the created world, on the other.
The term "apparat u s " d es ignate s that in which. and
through which, one realizes a pure ac t ivi t y of gover­
nance devoid of a ny foundation in bei ng. This is the
reason why appa ratuses m u st always i m p l y a process of
subjec t i flca t ion. that is to say, they must produce t hei r
subject.
What Is an Apparatus?
12
In l igh t o f t h is the o lo gical genea l o gy the Foucaul­
dian apparatuses acquire an even more pregnant and
decisive s ig n i fi ca nc e , s i nce they intersec t not only w it h
the context o f wh a t the young Hegel ca l le d "pos i t i v
ity," but a l so w i t h wh a t t he late r H e idegge r ca lle d Ges­
tell (which is similar from an etymological p o i nt o f
view to dis-positio, dis-ponere, just as the G er m a n stel­
im c orresp o n d s to the Latin ponere). W hen H e idegger,
in Die Technik und die Kehre (The Que stio n Concern­
ing Te ch no lo gy), writes that Ce-stell means i n o rdi­
nary usage an apparatus (Ceriit), but that he intends
by this term t he gathe ri n g toget he r o f t he (in}stalla­
tion [Stellm] that (in)stalls man, this is to say, c hal ­
lenges h i m to ex po se the real in the mod e of ordering
[Bestellm]," the prox i m i ty o f t h i s te r m to t he t heo l ogi­
cal dispositio, as well as to Foucauh's apparatuses, is ev­
id ent.' What is common to all these terms i s that they
re fer back to this oikonomia, that is, to a set of prac­
tices, b o d ies o f k nowle dge, measures, and i n s tit ut i ons
that aim to manage, govern, control, a nd orient-in
a w ay that pu r p ort s to be use ful-th e behaviors, ges­
tures, and t hough ts o f human bei ngs.
­
u
6.
O ne o f t h e m e tho do l ogi cal principles that I con­
in my investigations is to i de n tify in t he
and contexts on w hic h I work wha t Feuerb ach
sta ntly follow
texts
What Is an Apparll?
13
used to cal l the philosoph ica l element, t ha t is to say,
the point of their Entwicklungsflihigkeit ( li terally ca­
p aci ty to be de velop ed), the locus and the moment
w herei n t h ey are susceptible to a development. Never­
.
thel ess whenever we interpret and develop the text of
,
an author in this way, there comes a moment when we
are aware of our inability to proceed any further with­
o
u t contrave ning the most elementary rules of her me
­
neutics. This means that the development of t h e text
in q uest io n has reached a point of u ndecidabil ity
wh e re it becomes i mp oss ibl e to d isti nguish between
the author and the i nterpreter. Although th i s is a pa r­
ticularly happy moment for the interp re ter, he knows
that it is now time to abandon the text that he is a na­
lyzing and to proceed on his own.
I i n v i te you therefore to aba ndo n the context of
f'oucau ld ian philology in which we have moved up to
now i n order to situate appa ratu ses in a new context
I wish to propose to you nothing less than a gen­
eral and massive pa rtit ion i n g of beings into two large
grou ps or classes: on t h e one h a n d living beings (or
substances), and on the other, apparatuses in wh i ch
.
,
living be in gs a re incessa n t ly captu red On one side,
.
then, to return to the term inology of the t heologia ns
lies the o nto logy of creatures, and on the other side,
the oikonomia of appa ratuses that seek to govern and
guide them toward t he good.
,
]4
What J$ an Apparatw?
Further e x pa ndin g the already large class of Fou­
cauld ian apparatuses, I s ha ll call an apparatus literally
anything that has in some way th e capac ity to capture,
orient, determine, inte rcept , model, control, or secure
the ge stures behaviors, opinions. or discourses of l iv
,
­
ing beings. Not o n ly therefore. prisons. mad houses.
,
the panopticon. schools. confession. fac tori es disci­
pl i nes j uridic a l measures. and so fort h (whose connec­
.
.
tion wi t h power is in a certain sense evident), but also
the pen, writing literature, phi losophy. a g ricu lture ,
,
igarettes navigation, computers, c ellu l ar telephones
and-why not l angu a ge itself. which is perhaps the
most ancient of a p paratuses-one in which thousands
c
.
-
and thousands of years ago a primate in adve rte ntly let
h imself be captured, prob ably wit h out reali zing the
consequences t h at he was about to face.
To recapitulate. we have then two great classes: l iv­
ing bei ngs (or substances) and apparatuses. And. be­
tween these two. as a third cl ass s u bj ec ts I call a sub­
ject that which results from the rclation and. so to
,
.
speak. from the relentless fight between l iv ing be­
in gs and apparatuses. Naturally. the su bstances and
the subj ec ts as in a n c i ent metaphysics. seem to over­
lap. but not completely. I n this sense, for e x ample the
sa me in dividua l the samc substance can be the place
of multiple processes of subjectification: th e lIser of
cellular phone s, the web surfer. the writer of stories.
.
,
.
.
What Is all Apptlrtltus?
15
the tan go aficionado, the anti globali zat ion activist,
and so on and so forth. The boundless growth of ap­
paratuses in our time corresponds to the equally ex­
treme pro l i fe ratio n in processes of subjectification.
This may produce the impression that in our time, the
-
category of subjectivity is wavering and losing its con­
sistency; but what is at stake. to be precise. is not an
erasure or an overcoming. but rather a dissemi nation
(hat pushes (0 (he extreme the masquerade that has al­
ways accompan ied every personal identity.
7·
It would probably not be wrong to define the ex­
treme phase of capitalist de ve lopm e n t i n wh i c h we l ive
as a massive accumulation and p rol ifera t ion of appara­
tuses. It is dear that ever since Homo sapiens first ap­
peared. there have been apparatuses; but we could say
that today there is not even a single instant in which
the life of individuals is not modeled, contaminated,
or controlled by some apparatus. In what way, then,
can we confront this situation, what strategy must we
follow in our everyday hand-to-hand struggle with ap­
paratuses? What we are looki ng for is neither simply to
destroy them nor, as some naively suggest, to use them
in the correct way.
For example, I live in Italy. a country where the ges­
tures and behaviors of i ndividuals have been reshaped
What Is an Apparatus?
16
from top to toe by the cellular telephone (which the
It alians dub the ttlefonino). I have developed an impla
­
cable hatred for this apparatus, which has made the re­
l ation ship betwee n p eople all the more abst ract. Al­
though I found myse lf more than once wondering
how to destroy or deac tiva te those telefonini, as well
as how to el imi nate or at least to punish and i mpri son
those who do not stop using them, I do not believe
that th is is the right solution to the p roblem
The fact is that according to all i ndicatio n s . appa­
ratuses are nor a m ere accident in which humans are
.
caught by chance, but rather are rooted in the very
process of "humanization" t hat made " humans" out
of the a n i mals we classi fy u nder the rubric Homo sa­
p i e ns In fact, the event that has produced the human
.
constitutes. for the living being something like a divi­
sion, which repro d uces in some way the d ivision that
the oikonomia i n t rod uced in God between being and
action. This division separa tes the living being from it­
self and from its immediate relationship with its envi­
,
ronment-that is. with what Jakob von Uexktill and
then He idegger name the circle of receptors-disi n h ib­
ito rs The break or interruption of this rel at ionship
p roduces in livin g bei ngs both boredom-that is. the
capacity to s us pe nd (his i mmed iate relationship with
.
their disi nh ibitors-and the O pe n which is the pos­
,
sibility of know i ng being as such. by const r u c ti ng a
Whllt Is lin Apparatus?
17
world. But. along with these possibilities. we must also
i mmed ia tely conside r the apparatuses that crowd the
Open with instruments. objects. gadgets. odds and
ends. and various technologies. Throu gh t hese appara­
tuses. man attempts to nullify the ani malistic behav­
iors that are now separated from him. a nd to enj oy t he
O pen as such. to e nj oy b e i ng insofar as it i s bei ng At
.
the root of each apparatus l ie s an all-too-human de­
sire for happiness. The capture and subjectification of
this desire i n a separate sphere constitutes the specific
power of t he ap pa ratus
.
8.
All of th is means that the strategy that we must
adopt in our hand-to-hand combat with appa ratuses
cannot be a s i mp l e one. This is becau s e what we are
d eal in g with here is the liberation of that wh ich re­
mains ca p tured and separated by means of ap para
tuses, i n order to bring it bac k to a possibl e common
use. It is fro m this perspective that I would like now
to speak about a concept that I h appen to have worked
­
on re ce n tly I am re fer ring to a te rm that ori gi nates
in the s p h e re of Roma n law and rel igion (law a n d re­
.
ligion arc closely connected , and not only i n ancient
Rome): p ro fa n ation.
Ac cord ing to Roman l aw objects t h at b e lon ged
in some w ay to th e gods were considered sacred or
,
18
What Is an Apparatus?
rel igious As such th e se things were removed from
.
,
free use a n d trad e a mong h um a ns : t h ey could nei�
ther be sol d nor given a s sec urity nei th er reli nqui shed
,
for the enjoyment of others nor subjected to servitude.
Sacrilegious were the acts that violated or transgressed
the special unava ilabil ity of these objects which were
,
reserved either for celestial beings (and so they were
prope rly called "sacred") or for the b e ings of the neth�
erworld (in this case, t hey were simply called "rcli�
gious"). While "to consecrate" (sacrare) was the term
that de sign ated the exit of t hings from the sp h e re of
human law, "to profane signified , on the contrary, to
restore the thing to the free use of men. "Profane," the
great jurist Trebatius was therefore able to write, " is, in
the t ruest sense of the word , that which was sacred or
religious but was then restored to the use and prop�
"
,
er ty of hu m an beings."
From this pe rspec tive, one can define religion as
that wh ich removes things places animals. or peo�
pie from common use a nd transports them to a sepa�
rate sphere. Not only is there no religion without sep�
aration, but every separation contains or conserves in
,
,
itself a genuinely rel igious nucleus. The app a ratus that
activates and regulates separation is sacri fice. Through
a ser ies of minute rituals that va ry from culture to cul�
ture ( whic h Henri H ubert and Marcel Mauss have
pa t iently inventoried), sacrifice always sanctions the
What Is an Apparatus?
19
passage of so me t hi ng from the profane to the sacred,
from the human sphere to the d i v i ne But what has
been ritual ly s eparat ed can also be restored to the pro­
fane sp here Profanation is t he counter-apparatus that
restores to common use w hat sacrifice had separated
.
.
a
nd div id ed
.
9·
From this pe rs pective capitalism and other modern
,
forms of power seem to gen era l ize and push to the ex­
treme the processes of separa tion that defi ne reli gion
If we consider once aga i n the theological gene alogy of
ap pa ra tuses that I have traced above (a genealogy that
.
connects them to the Christian paradigm of oikono­
mia, that is to say, the divine govern ance of the world)
we can then see tha t mod e rn apparatuses differ from
,
their t rad itional predecessors in a way that renders any
at t empt to profane them p a rtic ula rly problematic.
In­
deed, every apparatus implies a process of su bjectifica­
tion, wit hout which it cannot function as an apparatus
of governance, but is rather reduced to a mere exercise
of violence. On t his basis, Foucault has demonstrated
how, in
a
disciplinary soci e ty, apparatuses aim to cre­
ate-through a series of pra ctic es discourses, and
bodies of knowledge-docile, yet free, bodies that as­
.
sume their ident ity and t he ir "freedom" as s u bjec ts in
20
What Is an Apparatus?
the very process of their desubject ification. Apparatus,
then, is first of all a machine that produces subjectifi­
cations, and only as such is it also a mach i ne of gov­
ernance. The example of confession may elucidate t he
matter at ha nd: the formation of Western subjectivity
that both splits and, nonet heless. masters and secures
the self, is inseparable from this centu ries-old activity
of the apparatus of penance-a n appa ratus i n which a
new I is constituted through the negation and, at {he
sa me time, the assumption of the old
I.
The spl it of
the subject performed by the apparatus of penance re­
sulted , therefore, i n the production of a new subject.
wh ich fou nd its real truth i n the nontruth of the
al­
ready repud iated s i n n i ng I. Analogous considerations
can be made concerning the apparatus of the prison:
here is an apparat us that produces , as a more or less
u n foreseen consequence, the constitution of a subj ec t
and of a m i l ieu of del inquents. who then become the
subject of new-and, this ti me, perfec tly calculatcd­
tech n iques of governa nce.
W hat defi nes the apparatuses that we have to deal
with in the current phase of capital ism is that they no
longer act as much through the producrion of a sub­
ject, as th rough the processes of what can be called
desubjecti ficaLiun. A desubjectifying moment is cer­
tainly i m pl icit i n every process of subjecti ficat ion. As
we have seen, the pen itential sel f is constituted only
What Is an Apparatus?
21
thro ugh its own negation. But what we are now wit­
nessi n g is that processes of subjectification and pro­
cesse s of desubjectification seem to become recipro­
cally indifferem, and so they do nor give rise to the
recomposition of a new subjec t except in larval or,
as it were, spec t ra l form. I n the nu ntruth of the sub­
ject, its own truth is no longe r at stake. He who lets
,
h imself be ca p tured by the cellular tel ephone appa­
r atu s
whatever the in tensity of the des ire that has
"
"
-
driven h im
-
c a nnor acquire a new subjecti v ity, bur
on ly a number through which he can, eventually, be
cont rolled. The spectator who spe nds his eveni ngs i n
front o f the television set only gets, in e xchange for his
desubjectificarion, the frustrated m a s k of the couch
porato, or his inclusion in the calculation of viewer­
ship ratings.
Here lies the vanity of the wel l meanin g d iscourse
-
on tech no l og y which asserrs that the problem with a p­
paratuses can be reduced to the question of their cor­
,
rect use. Those who make such claims seem to ignore
a simple fact: If a certain process of subj ec tificat i on (or,
in this case, desubjecti fication) corresponds to every
pparatu s then it is impossible for the subject of an
a
,
apparatus ro use it "in the righ t way." Those who con­
ti nue ro promote simi l ar arguments are, for their parr,
the p roduct of the m edia apparatus in which they are
captured.
What Is all ApparatJlS?
22
10.
C ontemp orary societies therefore present them­
selves as inert bodies go ing thro u g h mass i ve processes
o f d es ubjec t i fi catio n without acknowledging any real
subj ectificat io n . Hence the ecl i pse of p ol i tic s , which
used to presuppose the existence of subjects and real
identities (the workers' movement, the b o u rgeo is ie,
etc.), a nd the tr i u mph of the oikonomia, that is to say,
of a pu re ac tivi t y of govern ment that aims at noth­
i ng other t h a n its own repl ication. The R ig ht and
the Left , wh ic h today al terna te i n th e m a n a ge me m
of power, have for t h i s reason very little to do wi t h
t he po l i t i c al sph e re in wh ich they or ig i n ated . They
a rc s i mply the n a m es of t wo p ole s- the fi rst poin t i n g
witho ut scrupl e to desubjecti fication, the second wa nt­
i ng instead to hide behi nd the hypocritical mask of
Lile good democratic citizen-of the same govern men­
tal machine .
This, above all, is the source of the pecu l iar uneasi­
n ess of power preci sely d ur ing an era in wh ich it con­
fronts t he most docile and c owardly soc i al b o dy that
has ever existed in huma n h i sto ry. It is on ly an appar­
em parad ox that the harmless citizen of p o sti n d us t r ial
democracies (the Bloom, as it has been effectively sug­
ges ted he be c a ll ed ), " who read i l y does eve rythin g that
he is asked to do, inasmuch as he leaves his e veryd ay
What Is an AppllrdNlS?
23
gestu res and his health, his amusements and his occu­
pations , his diet and his desires, to be com ma nded and
controlled in (he smallest detail by appar a tuses , is also
considered by powe r- p erha p s precise ly because of
t his- as a pO lem i a l terrorist. Wh i le a n ew European
norm i mpos es biometric appa ra tus e s on a l l its citizens
by d evelo p i ng and perfec ti ng anthropomet r ic t ech nol­
og ies invented in the n i neteenth cent ury in order to
identify recidivist c ri m i nals (from mug shots to fin­
gerp rinting) , surveillance by means of video cameras
t ran sfo rms the public space of the city i nto the interior
of an i m mense prison. In the eyes of authority-and
maybe righ tly so-nothing loo ks more like a terro r ist
than the ord i n ary man .
The more appa ratuses pervade and disseminate
their power in eve ry field of life, the more govern ment
wil l fi nd itself faced with an elusive el e me nt , which
seems to e scape its grasp the more it docilely submits
to it. This is ne ither (0 say t ha I (his element consti­
tutes a revol ut ion ary subject in its own right, nor that
it can ha l t or even t h reaten t he governmental mach i ne .
Rather than the proclaimed end of history, we are, i n
fact, w itnessi n g the i ncessa nt though a i mless mot ion
of this machine, which, in a sort of colossal parody of
theological oikonomia, has assu med the legacy of the
providential governance of the w orl d ; yet instead of re­
deeming our world, this machine (true to the origi nal
24
What Is an Apparatus?
eschatological vocation of Providence} is leading
us
to
catastrophe. The problem of the profanation of appa­
ratuses-that is to say, the restitution to common use
of what has been captured and separated in them­
is, for this reason, all the more u rgent. But this prob­
lem cannot be p roperl y ra ised as long as t hose who
are concerned with it are u nable to i ntervene in thei r
own processes of subject ification, any more than in
their own apparatuses, in order to then bring to light
the Ungover nable which is the beginning and, at the
,
same t ime. the vanishing p oin t of every politics
.
§
The Friend
I.
Frien d shi p is so t i g ht ly l i n k ed [0 t he defi n ition of
p hiloso phy that it can be said t h at without it, ph ilos­
ophy would not re a lly b e poss Ible The intimacy be
.
­
tween friendsh ip a nd phi losophy is so profound t hat
philosophy contains the philos, t he friend, i n its very
name, a nd as often h a p pe n s with such an excessive
,
proximi t y t he r i sk ru n s h i g h of not m a ki ng heads or
,
tails of it. I n t he classica l world, this promiscu ity, this
n e a r consubstantiality,
of t h e friend and the phi loso­
pher was ta ke n as a given. It is c er t a i n ly wit h a some­
wha t a rc h aizing i ntt:nt, t hen, [hat a contemporary phi­
losopher-when p o si n g t he ex treme qu e st i o n "W hat
is philosophy?"-was able to write that this is a ques­
tion to be d i scu ssed entre ami;, be t wee n friends. To­
d ay the relat io n sh i p between friendship and phi loso­
phy has actually fallen into discredit, and it is w ith a
26
The Friend
kind of embarrassment and bad conscience (hat pro­
fessional philosophers try to come to terms with this
u ncom fortable and, as it were, clandesti ne partner of
their thought.
Many years ago my friend Jean-Luc Nancy and I
had decided to exchange some letters on the theme of
friendship. We were persuaded that this was the best
way of drawing closer to-al most "staging"-a prob­
lem that otherwise seemed to resist analytica l treat­
ment. I wrote the fi rst letter and awaited his response,
not without trepidation. This is not the place to at­
tempt to comprehend what reasons-or, perhaps, what
m isunderstandi ngs-signaled the end of the project
upon the arrival of Jea n-Luc's Icner. But it is certai n
that o u r friendship-which we assumed would open
up a privileged poi nt of access to the problem-was
i nstead an obstacle. and that it was, in some measure,
at least temporari ly, obscured.
It is an analogous, and probably conscious, sense of
discomfort (hat led Jacques Derrida (0 choose as a leit­
motif for his book on friendship a sibyll i ne motto, at­
tribured to A ris(Otle by tradition, that negates friend­
ship with the very same gesture by wh ich it seems to
i nvoke it: 0 phi/oi, oudeis phi/os, "0 friends, there are
no friends." One of the themes of the book is, i n faer,
the critique of what the aurhor defines as the phallo­
centric notion of friendship that has dominated our
TIle Friend
27
phi losoph ical and pol itical trad ition . When Derrida
was still working on t he lecture that would be the ori­
gin of the book, we discussed together a curious ph i lo­
logical problem concerning the motto or quip in ques­
tion. It can be found in Momaigne a nd in Niet7.sche,
both of whom would have taken i t from Diogenes
Laertius. But if we open a modern edition of the lat­
Lives ofEminent Philosophers to the chapter ded i­
cated to Aristotle's biography (pI), we do not find the
ter's
ph rase in question but rather one to a l l appeara nces al­
most identical, whose sign i ficance is nevertheless dif­
ferent and much less mysterious: oj (omega with iota
subscript) philoi, oudeis philas, "He who has (many)
friends, does not have a single friend." ·
A visit to the l ib ra ry was a l l it took to clarify the
my s te ry. In 1616, a new ed it ion of the Lives appeared,
ed ited by the great Geneva n philologist Isaac Casau­
bon. Reac h i ng the passage i n question-wh ich still
read a
philoi (0 friends) i n the edition establ ished by
h is father-i n-law Hen ry Estien ne- Casaubon without
hesitation corrected the en igmatic lesson of the m a n­
uscripts. which then beca me so perfectly intell igible
that it was ta ken up by modern editors.
Si nce I h a d immed iately i n formed Derrida of the
results of my research. I was s t u n ned not to fi nd any
trace of the second reading when his hook
Politiques
de l a
' mitie was publ i she d . 1 I f the motto-apocryphal
28
The Friend
accord i ng to
mode r n phi lolog ists-was re p roduc ed i n
the origi nal form, i t certa i n ly was not due to forgetful ­
ness: it was essential to the book 's strategy th at friend ­
sh ip wou ld he at on ce affirmed
and revoked.
In this sense, Derrida's gesture is a repetition of
N ietzsche's. When he was sti l l a smdent of philology,
Nietzsche h ad begu n a work on the sou rces of Dio­
genes Laertius's book, a nd so the textual h istory of the
Lives ( hence also Casaubon's amend ment) must have
been perfectly k nown to h i m . Nevert heless, the ne­
cessity of friendship and , at the same time, a certa i n
d istrust o f friends were essent i a l to Nietzsche's ph i lo­
soph ical strategy. Hence his recourse (0 [he uaditional
lesson that was a l ready o u t of date by N ietzsche's time
(I luebncr's 1828 ed it ion
add i n g the a n not a t ion ,
adopts the modern version,
" legebatur
0
p h il o i , emendavit
Casaubonus").
2.
I t is poss i b l e that t h e peculiar semamic status o f
the term " fr iend " h a s contributed [ Q the discomfort of m odern phi loso phers . It is c ommon knowl­
edge that no one has e ve r been able to s a ti s fac tori ly de­
fi ne the meaning of the syntagm "I love you"; so muc h
i s this
the case t hat one m i ght think that it has a pcr­
fo rmat ive cha racter: that it s mea n i n g , i n other words,
The Friend
2.9
coi ncides with t he act of its u tu ra nce. A n a l ogous con­
siderat ions cou ld be made regard i ng the ex pre ssion , "I
a m your friend," al thou gh recourse to the performa­
dve categor y seems i mpossible here. I m ai nt ain . rather,
that " friend" b e longs to the class of terms that l in­
guists define as nonpred icative; these are terms from
which it is not possible [0 esta bli sh a class that in­
cludes all t he t h i n gs to wh i ch the p re d icate in q ues
­
tion is a ttri bu t ed . "Wh i te," " hard," or "hot" are cer­
t a i n ly predicative terms; but is it p oss ihle to say that
" friend " defi nes a consis te n t class i n the above sense?
As strange as it m i gh t seem. " friend" shares [his qual­
ity with a no th e r type of nonpredicative term: insu lts.
L in g u i sts have de m o n s trated that ins ult s do not offend
those who are subj ecte d to t hem as a result of includ­
i n g the i nsu lte:d person in a particu lar category (for ex­
a m p le, that of exc reme n t or the ma le or female sexual
orga ns. depend i ng o n the l a nguage) -something that
would si mply be i m possi b l e or. a nyway, fa l se. An i n­
sult is effective precisely because it does not fu nction as
a constative utte rance . bur rather as a pro pe r nou n ; be­
cause it uses l a n g u a ge in order to give a name in such
a way that the: named can not accept his name, a nd
aga i nst which he cannot defend hi msel f (as if s o m e o ne
were to insist on calling me G astone know i ng that my
name is G iorgio). What is offensive in the insult is, in
The Friend
30
other words, a pure experience of language and not a
re fere nc e to the
world
.
I f this is t r u e , M f r i e nd s h ares it s c ond itio n n ot o n ly
"
with insu l ts but a l s o with phi losoph ical terms-terms
that as is well known, do not possess an o bj ective de­
,
notation, and, l i ke those terms that med ieva l logicia ns
define as "tra nscendental ," sim p ly sig n i fy bei n g
.
3·
I n the col lection o f t h e G a l le ri a n az ion a le d i am:
antica i n Rome, t he re is a p a in ti n g by G i ovan n i Se­
rod ine that represents the meeti ng of the a post le s Pe­
ter and Pau l on the road to t h eir ma rtyrdo m The twO
.
saints, i m mobi le, occupy the center of t h e ca nvas, sur­
rounded by the wild gesticulations of the soldiers and
executioners who a re lead ing them (0 their to rmen t .
Critics have often rema rked on t he contrast
be twee n
the heroic fortitude of the two apostles a nd t he: t u mult
of the c rowd h igh l ig h ted here and there by drops of
l ight splashed a l most at ra ndom on arms, fa ces and
trumpets . As far as I a m concerned, I ma i nta i n that
,
,
what renders this pai n t i ng gen u i nely i ncomp a ra bl e is
that Serod ine h as d ep i c ted the two a post l es so close (0
each o the r (t hei r foreheads are al most stuck toge t her)
that t here is no way that they can se:e: one: a nother.
On the road t o m a rtyrd o m they look at e a c h othe r
,
The Frimd
31
without recog n i z i n g one another. Th is i mp ress ion of a
nearness that is, so to speak, excessive is e n han c ed by
the silent gesture of the ba rely v i s ib l e , s h a ki ng h a nds
at the bottom of the painti ng. This painting has al­
ways s ee m ed [0 me to be a pe rfect al legory o f frie nd­
s h i p I ndeed, what is fr iend s hip other than a p rox i m i t y
tha t resists b o t h rep re s e nt a tion and conceptual ization?
To recog n i ze someone as a friend means no t b e i n g able
to recog n i z e him as a "someth i ng." C a l l i n g someone
.
" friend " is not the same as c a l li n g h i m "white," "Ital­
ian,"
or " hot," since friendsh ip is n e i ther a property
nor a q u a li ty of a subject.
4·
But it is now t i me to begin rc:ading the passage by
A r i stot l e that I was pla n n i ng to comment on. The ph i
­
losopher dedicates to the subject of friendship a trea­
tise, which comprises the eighth and n i nth books of
the Nicomachtan Ethics. Si n c e we a re d e a l i n g here
with one of the most celebrated and w id e ly d iscussed
texts in the enti re h i s to r y of phi losophy, I sha l l as­
s u me you r fa m i l i a rity with i t s well-known theses: th at
we ca nnot l ive without friends; that we n eed to distin­
g u i s h between a fr iend s hi p based on utility or on p lea
sure and virtuous friendship, where the friend is loved
a s such; that it is n o t poss i ble to have ma ny fr ie n d s ;
­
32
The Friend
that a distant frie n dsh ip tends to
lead
to obl iv io n and
.
so on. These poi nts are common knowledge. There
is. t hough, a passage in the treatise that seems to me
to have received insufficient attention, even though it
conta i ns. so to speak. t he ontological ba s i s of Aristo­
de's theory o f friendship. I am re fe rr i ng to 1170a28117Ib35. Le t s read it toge ther:
'
He who sees senses [aisthanetatl that he is seeing. he who
hears senses that he is heari ng. he who walks senses that
he is wa l k i ng. and thus for all the other activities there
is somc:t h i ng that senses that we are exerting them
[hot;
energoumen) . in such a way that if we sense, we sense
that we are seming. and i f we t h i n k. we sense that
we
a re
t h ink i ng. This is the same thing as sensing existence: ex
isting [to e;lIiul means in fact sensing a nd thinki ng.
Sensing that we arc a l ive is i n and of itself sweet. for
l i fe is by nature good. and it is sweet to sense that such a
good bdongs to us.
Living is desirable. above all for those who are good.
si nce for them existing i s a good and sweet thing.
For good men, "con-semi ng" [syna;slhallommoi. sens­
ing together) feels sweet because thc:y recognize the good
itself, a nd what a good man feels w i t h respect to h i msel f.
he a lso feels with respect to his friend: the friend is. i n
fact . a n other self [heteros autos] . A nd a s a l l people find
the fact of their own existence [to aulon tilllltl desir­
able. the existence of t heir friends is equally-or al most
equally-desirable. Existence is dc:si rable because one
senses that it is a good t h i ng. and this sensation
(aisthisisl is in itself sweet. One must t herefore also
Tht Frimd
33
"con-sent" that h is friend exists. and this h appens by
living together and by s harin g acts and thoughts in com­
mon [koinont'inl . In this
sense, we
say that humans live
together [syzinl , u n l i ke c att le that share the pasture to­
get h e r . . .
Friendsh ip i s , in fact. a com m u n i t y ; and as we are
with respect [0 ou rsel ves , so we are. as well, with respect
to
our
friends. And a s the sensation of ex isti ng (aisthisis
hoti tstin)
friends.
is desi rable for us, so would it also b e for our
5·
We are dealing here with an extraordinarily dense
passage, because A r is tot l e enunciates a few theses of
first philosophy that wil l
not rec ur
in this form in any
of his other writ i ngs:
I.
There i s
a
sensation of pure being, an alith isis of
existence. Aristotle repeats Ihis point se vera l times
by mobilizing the tech nical vocabulary of ontology:
ajsthanom�/ha hOli �smen, aisthisis hoti estin: the hoti
estin is existence-the quod est- i n sofa r as it opposes
essence (quid est. ti min).
2.
3.
T hi s sensation of exist i ng is in itself sweet (hidys).
There is an equivalence between being a nd livi ng,
between sensing one's existence a n d sensing one's l i fe.
It is a decided anticipation of the N ietzschean thesis
that states: " Being-we h a\'e no other way of imagin­
i ng it apart from 'living.' "} (A n analogous, if more ge-
The Friend
34
neric. cla i m ca n be found in De anima 41Sb13: � 8ei ng.
for the l ivi ng. is l i fe.")
4.
Withi n t h is sensat ion of existing there is another
sensation. specifica l ly a hu m a n one. that takes the
form of a joint sensation. or a con-sent (synaisthanest­
hal) with the existence of the friend. Friendship iJ the
instance oftbis "con-sentiment " ofthe existence ofthe
friend withi" the sentiment ofexistence itself But this
means that friendsh i p has an ontological and politi
cal stat us. The sensation of being is. in fact. always
a l ready both divided and "con-divided " [con-divisa.
shared1 . and friendsh ip is the name of this "con ­
d ivision." This s h a r i n g h a s norhi ng whatsoever to
do with the modern ch i mera of i ntersubjectivity. the
relationship between subjects. Rather. bei ng itself is
divided here. it is non identica l to i tself. and so the I
a nd the friend a re the two faces. or the two poles. of
t h i s con-division or shari ng.
5.
The friend is. therefore. an other sel f, a heteros au­
tos. Th rough its Lati n translation. alter ego. this
expression has had a long history. wh ich can not be
reconstructed here. But it is i mportant to note that
t he Greek formulation is much more pregnant with
mea n ing than what is u nderstood by the modern ear.
F i rst and foremost. Greek. l i ke Lat i n , has two terms
for alterity:
alios (lat. Illius)
is generic alterity. while
heteros (lat. alter) is alterity in the sense of a n opposi­
tion between t wo. as in heterogeneity. Moreover. the
Lati n ego is not an exact translat ion of autos. which
means "sel f." The friend is not a n other I. but an
otherness i m ma nent
[0
scl fness. a beco m i n g other of
The Frimd
35
the self. The point at which I pe rcei ve my existence
as sweet, my sensation goes through a con-senting
wh ich dislocates a nd depor t s my se n s at ion toward the
friend, toward the other sel f Friendsh ip is t h is desub­
jecti fication at the very hea rt of the most inti mate
sensation of the self.
6.
At this poi nt we can take the ontological status o f
fr i endshi p i n A ristotle's ph i l osophy as a given. Friend­
ship belongs to proti philosophia, si nce t h e same ex­
perience, the same "sensation" of be i n g , is what is
at stake in bmh. One therefore compre h en ds why
" friend" cannot be a real predicate add ed to a c on c e p t
in order to be admitted to a certain class. Using mod­
ern terms, one could say that " friend" is an existential
a nd no t a c a tegorial . But this existential-wh ich, as
suc h , cannm be conceptualized-is still i n fused with
an inte n si t y th a t c harges it with so met h ing l i ke a po­
l it ical potentiality. Thi s intensilY is (he SY'I, the "con-"
or "with," t h a t d ivides, d i ssem i n ates , and renders shar­
able (actua l l y, it has always been shared) t h e same sen­
sation, the same sweemess of existi ng.
That this sharing or con-division has, for A r isto t l e ,
a political significance is implied in a passage i n the
text that I have a l ready analyzed and to wh ich it i s op­
portune to retu rn :
36
The Frimd
One must therefore a l s o "con-sent" that his friend ex ists.
and this happens by living together [syzinj and by shar­
ing acts and thoughts in common [koinoneinj. I n this
sense.
we
say
that hu ma n s
share the pas t ure together.
l ive together. u n l i ke
ca
t t l e that
The expression that we have rendered as "share [he
pasture together" is en toi autoi nemesthai. But the
verb nemo-which. as you know, is rich with pol itical
implications (it is enough to think of the deverbative
Tlomos)-also means in the middle voice "partaki ng,"
and so the Aristotelian expression cou ld si mply stand
for "partaking in the same." It is essential at any rate
that the human community comes [0 be defi ned here,
in contrast to the animal com munity, through a l iving
together (syzin acqui res here a tech nical meaning) that
is not defined by the participation in a common suh­
stance, but rather by a sharing that is purely existen­
tial, a con-division that, so to speak. lacks an object:
friendsh ip, as the con-sentiment of the pure fact of be­
i ng. Friends do not share something (birth. law. place.
taste): they are shared by the experience of friendship.
Friendsh ip is the con-division that precedes every di­
vision, si nce what has to be shared is the very fact of
existence. l i fe itself. And it is this sharing without an
object, this original con-senting. that constitutes the
political.
The Frimd
37
How this origi nary pol itical "synaesthesia" became
over time the consensus to which democracies today
e ntr u st their fate in this last, extreme, and exhausted
phase of their evolution, is, as they say, another story,
wh ich I leave you to reRect on.
§
What Is the Contem p orary ?
I.
The question that I would l ike t o inscribe on
the t h reshold of t hi s seminar is: "Of whom and of
what are we contemporaries?" A nd, fi rst and fore­
most, "What does it mean to be contemporary?" I n
the course o f this sem inar, we shall have occasion to
read texts whose authors are many centuries removed
from us, as well as mhers (hat are more recent, or even
very recent. At all events, it is essential that we man­
a ge to be in some: way contemporaries of t hese texts.
The "ti me" of our sem i n a r is contem p orari ness, and
as such it demands lesigel to be contemporary with the
texts and the authors it examines. To a great degree,
the success of this seminar may be evaluated by its­
by our c apac i t y to meas ure up to this exigency.
A n i n itial, provisiona l i ndication that may ori
-
­
ent
our search for an answer to the above questions
40
Wlt Is th� Contnnporary?
comes from Nietzsche. Roland B a r thes s ummarizes this answer i n a n Ole from his lectures at t h e
College de France: "The contempora ry is the u n­
t i mely." I n 18]4, Friedrich Nietzsche, a yo ung phi lolo­
g i s t who had worked up t o that point on G reek texts
and had two years earlier achieved an u ne x p ec ted ce­
lebrity with The Birth of Tragedy, pu blished the Un­
zeitgemiise Betrachtungen, the Untimely Meditation s, a
work in which he tries to come (0 terms with h is t i me
a nd take a pos i t io n w i t h rega rd s (0 th e present. "Th is
med itation is itself u ntimely," we read at the begin­
ning of the second m ed i tat i o n , " b ecause it seeks (0 u n ­
derstand as a n ill ness, a di sa b i l i t y. and a defect some­
t hin g which t h is e poc h is qu ite right ly p ro ud of. that
is to s ay, its h istorical culture, because I bel ieve that we
are all consumed by the fe ve r of h i story a nd we should
at least realize it:" In o t he r words, Nietzsche situates
his own cla i m for "releva nce" [ atiU alita] , his "contem­
pora ri ness" with respect to the p rese nt . in a disconn ec­
tion and o ut- o f-j o i n t n ess . Those who are tru ly contem­
porary. who truly belong to their time, are those who
nei t her perfect ly coincide with it nor adj ust themselves
to its dem a nds. They are thus in ( h is sense irreleva nt
[inattuale]. But prec i sely because of this c ond i t io n ,
prec i se l y t h ro u gh this d i scon n ection and t h is a nach ro ­
n i sm , they are more c a p abl e than others of perceiving
and graspi ng their own time.
What Is the Contemponlry?
41
Naturally, this n o nco i n c i de n ce , t h i s " dys- c h ro n y,"
does not mean that the contemporary is a person who
lives in another time, a nostalgic who feels more at
home i n the Athens of Pericles or in t he Paris of
Robespierre and t h e marquis de Sade than in the ci t y
and the time in which he l ives. An i n tell igent man
can despise his time. while knowing that he neverthe­
less i rrevoc a b ly belongs to it, that he can not escape his
own time.
Contemporariness is, then, a singular relationship
with one's own time, wh ich adheres to it a nd . at t h e
same t i me, keeps a distance from it. More precisely, it
is that relationship with time that adheres to it through
a disjunction and an anachronism. Those who coincide
too wel l with the epoch, those who are perfectly tied
to it in every respect. are not con te mporaries , pre c isely
beca u se t hey do n o t ma n a ge to see it; t hey are not able
to fi rm ly hold the i r gaze on it.
2.
I n 1923 , Os i p Mandelsta m writes
a
p oe m e n tit l ed
" Th e C e n t u ry" (th o ugh the Russian word vek also
means "epoch" or "age"). It does not contain a reflec­
tion on the century, but rather a reflection on the rela­
t i on between the poet and his time, that is to say, on
c o nte mp o rari n e ss . Not "the century," but. ac co rd i n g
What Is th( Conumporary?
42
to the words that open the fi rst verse. "my century· or
"my age" (v�k mOl):
My century. my b eas t who will manage
to look inside you r eyes
and wel d together with his own blood
the vertebrae of two centuries?
.
The poet. who must pay for
h is
contemporariness
with his life. is he who must firmly lock his gaze onto
the eyes of his century-beast. who must weld with his
ow n blood the shattered backbone of ti me. The two
centuries. the two t i mes. are not only. as has be e n sug­
gested. t he n i neteenth a nd twentieth. but also. more
to the po i nt . the length of a sin g l e i ndividual 's l i fe (re­
member that sd(culum originally means the period of
a person's l i fe) and the colleclive historical period that
we call in this case the twentieth century. As we shall
learn in the las t strophe o f the p o e m the backbone of
this age is shattered. The poet. i nsofar as he is con­
tem p o ra r y. is lhis fract u re. is at once that which i m­
pedes time from composing itself and the blood that
.
must suture th is break or this wound. The para l l e l­
ism between the time and the verte b rae of the crea­
ture. on the one hand. and the time a nd the vertebrae
of the age. 011 the other. conslitules o n e of the essential
themes of the po e m:
S o long a s t h e creature lives
it
m us t
carry forth its verrebrae.
Whllt Is the ContempoTflry?
as
43
the waves play along
with an invisible spine.
Like
a
child's tender ca rt i lage
is the century of the newborn earth .
The o t he r great theme-and this, l i ke the preced
­
ing one, is also an image of contemporariness-is that
of the shattering, as well as of the welding, of the age's
vertebrae, both of wh ich a re the work of a single i ndi
vidual (in this case the po et):
­
"10 wrest the century away from bondage
so as to start the world anew
one must tic together with a Rute
the knees of all the kno tted days.
That this is an impossible task-or at a ny rate a par­
dox ical one-is proven by the fol lowing strophe with
a
which the poem concludes. Not only does the epoch­
beast have broken vertebrae, but vek, t he newborn age,
wants ro t u r n aroll nd (a n impossible ges tu re for a per­
son with a broken backbone) in order to contemplate
its own tracks and, in this way, to display its demented
face :
But your backbone has been shattered
o my won d rous wretched century.
With a senseless smile
like a beast [hat was once l imber
you look back. weak and c rue l
,
.
to contemplate you r own tracks.
44
What Is thf Conrnnporary?
3·
The poet-the contemporary-must fi rmly hold his
gaze on h is own time. But what does he who sees his
r i me actua l ly see? What is this demented grin on the
face of his age? I
w
ould like at this poi nt to propose a
second defin ition of contemporariness: The contempo­
rary is he who fi rm ly holds his gaze on h is own time
so as to perceive not its light, but rather its darkness.
All eras, for those who ex perienc e contemporariness,
are obscure. The contemporary is precisely the person
who knows how to see this obscurity, who is able to
wr i te by d ippi ng his pen in the obscurity of the pres­
ent. But what does it mean, "to see a n obscurity," "to
perce i ve the darkness"?
The neurophysiology of vision suggests an i n itial answer. What happens when we find ourselves i n
a place de p ri ved o f l i gh t , or when we close o u r eyes?
What is the darkness that we see then ? Neurophysiol­
og i s t s tell us that the absence of l ight activates a series
of peripheral cells in the reti na called "off-cells." When
activated, these ce l l s produc e the particular k i nd of vi­
sion that we call dark ness. Da rk ness is not, therefore, a
privative notion (the s imple absence of l ight , or some­
thing li ke nonvision) but rather the result of the acdv­
i ty of the "off-cells," a pro d uc t of our own retina. This
means, if we now re t u rn to our thesis on th e dark ness
What Is the Contemponzry?
45
of con te mp ora r i n ess that to perceive this darkness is
,
not a fo rm of inertia or of passivity, bu t ra t h e r imp l ies
a n activit y and a singu l a r ab ilit y. In our case, t h is ab i l
ity amounts to a ne u t ra l izati on of the l ights t hat come
from the ep och in order to d i scover its obscurity, its
s pecia l darkness, which is n o t however, separable from
­
,
those lights.
The ones who can call themselves contemporary a re
o n l y those who do not al low themselves to be bl i nded
by the l ights of the century, and so m a n a ge to get a
gl i mpse of the shadows i n t hose li gh ts, of their i nti­
mate obscurity. Having sa id this much, we have nev­
ertheless sti ll not addressed our qu es t i o n. W h y should
we be a t a l l i n te res ted in p e rceiv i ng t h e ob sc u rit y that
emanates from t he epoc h ? Is d a rk n ess no t p rec i se l y an
a nonymous ex pe r ienc e that is by defin ition i m p e n e t ra
ble; something that is no t di rected at us and thus ca n­
no t concern us? On the co nt r a r y the contemporary is
the person wh o p e rcei ve s the dark ness of his t i me as
some th i n g that concerns h i m, as so m e th in g that neve r
ceases to engage h i m Darkness is so m e t h i n g that­
more than any l ight-turns di rect l y and si n gul a rly to­
wa rd h i m . The contem p ora ry is the o n e whose eyes
are struck by the beam of darkness that comes from
his own time.
­
,
.
What Is the Contemporary?
46
4·
I n the fi rma ment that we o bser ve at ni ght the stars
,
shine b ri gh t ly su rrou nded by a t h i c k dark ness. Since
,
the number of gala xies a nd l u m i nous bod ies in the
u n iverse is al most i n fi n ite, the darkness that we see in
t he sky is somethi ng that, accord ing to sc i e nt i sts, de­
mands an expla nation. It is precisely the explanation
t hat contempora ry astrophysics gives for t h i s darkness
that I would now l i ke to d iscuss. In an ex pan d i n g u n i­
verse, the most remote galax ies move away from us at
a sp eed so great that thei r l ight
is never able to reach
us. What we perceive as the dark ness of the heavens
is this l ight th a t , though t ravel i n g toward us, can not
re a c h li S , si nce the ga la x ies from wh ich the l ight origi­
nates move away from us at a velocity greater than the
speed of l i g ht .
To perceive, in the darkness of the p resent, this l ig h t
that st rives to re ac h us but ca n n o t
-
th i s is what it
mea ns to be contemporary. As such, contempora ries
are rare. And for t h is
reason, [0 be contemporary is,
fi rst and foremost , a question of cou rage because it
,
mea ns bei ng able not only to fi rmly fix you r gaze on
th e darkness of the e p o c h but a lso [0 pe rce ive in t h is
.
d a rk n ess a l ight ( hat, wh i le d i rected toward us, i n fi­
n itely d ista nces itself from us. I n other words, it is l i ke
being on ti me for an a ppoi nt mem that one cannot but
mIss.
What Is the Conumporary?
47
This is the reason why the present that contempo­
rari ness perceives has broken vertebrae. Our t i me, the
present, is in fact not on ly the most d istant: it ca n not
in any way reach us. Its backbone is broken and we
fi nd ou rselves in the exact point of this fractu re. This
is why we a re, despite every thing, contemporaries.
It is important to real ize that the appoint ment that
is i n question in contemporariness does not si mply
rake place in chronological ti me: it is somet h i ng that,
working with i n ch ronologica l t i me, u rges, presses, and
transforms it. A nd t h is u rgency is the untimeliness,
the a nach ron ism that perm its us to grasp our time in
the form of a "too soon" that is also a "too late"; of an
"already" that is also a "not yet." Moreover. it al lows
us (0 recogn ize in the obscu rity of the present the l ight
that, without ever being able to reach us, is perpetually
voyaging toward us.
5·
A good example o f t h is special experience o f time
that we call comempora ri ness is fashion. Fashion can
be defi ned as the introduction i nto t i me of a peculiar
d isconti n u ity that d ivides it according to its relevance
or irrelevance, its being-i n-fash ion or no-Ionger-bei ng­
i n-fash ion. This caesura, as subtle as it may be,
is
re­
markable i n [he sense that t hose who need to make
What Is the C(}ntemporary?
48
note of it do so infall ibly; and in so doing they attest to thei r own being in fash ion. But i f we try to ob­
jectify and fix this caesu ra with i n
ch ronologic a l time,
it reveals itsel f as ungraspable. I n the first place, the
"now" of fashion , the instant in wh ich it comes into
being. is not ident i fi able via any k i nd of ch ronometer.
Is t h i s "now" perhaps t he moment in which the fash­
ion designer conceives of t he genera l concep t, the nu­
ance that wil l defi ne the new style of the clothes? Or is
i t t he
m
o m e nt when r he fash ion designer conveys the
concept to h i s assistants, a nd then to t he ta i lor who
wi l l sew the prototype? Or. rat her, is it the moment
of the fash ion show, when the clothes
a re
wor n by t he
only people who a re a lways and only i n fashion, the
mannequins, or models; those who nonetheless, pre­
c i sely for t h i s reason , a re never truly in fash ion? Be­
cause in this last i nsta nce, the being i n fash ion of the
"st yle" will depend on (he fac t t h a t the people of fl es h
a nd blood, rather tha n the mannequins «(hose sacri fi­
cial vict i ms of a faceless god), will recogn i ze it as such
a nd choose that s tyle fi)r their own ward robe.
The t i me of fashion , therefore, constitutively a n t ic­
ipates itsel f and con sequently is also a lways roo late. It
always takes t he form of an ungraspable th reshold be­
tween
a
"not yet" and a "no more." It is quite prob­
able that, as the theologians suggest , t h is constel la­
t ion dep en d s on the fact that fash ion , at least i n our
What Is th( C01lttmporary?
49
culture, is a theologica l sign a t u r e of clot h i ng, which
de r i ve s from the fi rst pi e c e of clmhing that
was
sew n
by Adam and Eve after the Original Sin, in (he form
of a loi ncloth woven from fi g leaves. (To be preci se,
the clothes that we wea r de r ive not fro m this vege,
tal loi nclot h , but from th e tunicae pel/iceae, the cl o t h e s
made from a n i ma ls' skin that God. accord i ng to G en­
esis 3 : 21, gave to our progenitors as a tangible symbol
of si n and death i n the moment he expel led them from
Pa rad ise.) In any case, whatever [he reason may be, the
"now," t he kairo$ of fash ion is u ngraspable: the ph rase,
"I am in this instant in fashion" is contradictory, be­
cause the momen t in which the
subject
pronou nces it,
he is a l ready o u t of fashion. So, bei ng i n fa s h i on, like
contcmp ora ri ness, enta i ls
a
certa i n "ease," a certain
qual ity of being out-of-phase or out-of-date, in which
one's relevance includes with i n itsel f a small pa rt of
what I ies outside of itself,
a
shade of dhnodt, of be-
ing out of fashion. It is in this sense that it was sa id of
an elega nt lady in nineteenth-centu ry Pa ris,
"
E l le est
contempora ine de tout Ie monde," "She is everybody's
contempora ry."
Bur the te m po ra l i t y of fash ion has another character
that relates it
(0 contem p orari ness. Fol low i n g the
same
gesture by which the present d ivides time accord i n g to
a "no more" and a "nm yet," it a l s o establ ishes a peCll­
l i a r relationship with these o t h e r t i mes"-certa i n ly
"
50
What Is the Conumporary?
with the past. and perhaps also with the future. Fash­
ion can therefore "cite." and in this way make rele­
vam again, any moment from the past (the 1920S, the
1970s, but also the neoclassica l or empire style). It can
therefore tie together that which it has inexorably di­
vided-recall, re-evoke, and rev ital ize that w hich it
had declared dead.
6.
There is al so another aspect to this spec i al re l ation­
ship with the past.
Contemporariness i n scri bes itself in the presem by
m a rk ing it above all as arch a ic . Only he wh o perceives
the indices and signatures of the archaic in the m ost
modern and recem can be contemporary. "Archaic"
means close to the arkhi, t hat is to say. the o rigin . But
the origin is not on ly situated in a ch rono lo gical past:
it is contempo ra ry with historical becoming and does
nor cease to operate within it. just as the embryo con­
tinues to be active in the tissues of the mature or­
ganism . and the child in the psychic life of the adult.
B o th this distancing and nearness. which define con­
tempo rar in ess. have their foundation in this proxim­
ity to the o ri g i n that nowhere pulses with more force
than in the presem. Whoever has seen the skysc rapers
of New York for the first time arriving from the o cean
What Is the contemporary?
51
at dawn has immediately p erc eived this archaic facies
of the present, this c ontiguousness with the ruin that
t he atemporal images of S eptem ber lIth have made ev­
ide nt to all.
Historians of literature and of art know that there is
a secret affinity b e twe en the archaic and the modern,
not so much because the archaic forms seem to exer­
cise a pa r ticul a r charm on t he present, but rather be­
cause the key to the modern is hidden in t he imme­
morial and t he preh i storic Thus. the ancient world in
.
its decline turns to the p ri m ordi al so as to rediscover
itself. The avant-garde, which has lost itself over time,
also pursues the pr i mi tive and the archaic. It is in this
sense that one can say that the entry point to the pres­
ent ne cessarily takes the form of an a rc h eolog y ; an ar­
ch eology that does not, however. regress to a historical
past, but returns to that part within the present that
we are absolutely incapable of living. What remains
unlived there fore is incessa ntly sucked back toward the
origin, without ever being able to reach it. The present
i s no thin g other than this unlived element in every­
t h ing that is lived. T hat wh ich impedes access to the
present is precisely the mass of what for some reason
(its traumatic character, its ex cess i ve nearness) we have
not managed to live. The attention to this "unlived"
is the life of the contemporary. And to be contem p o
-
52
What !J th� Contemporary?
rary means in this se ns e to ret urn to a present where
we have never been .
7·
Those who have tried to thi n k about comempora r­
i ness have been able
[0 do so only by spl itti ng it up
i nto several t i mes, by introducing into t i me an essen­
"
tial d ishomogeneity. Those who say my time" actually
d ivide t i me-they i n scribe i n to it a caesura and a dis­
continuity. But precisely by means of this caesu ra, t h i s
interpolation o f the present i nto the i nert homogeneity
of l inear ti me, the comempora ry puts
to
work a special
relationship between the d ifferent t i mes. I f, as we have
seen, it is the contem p orary who has broken t he verte­
brae of ll is l i me (or, at a ny rate, who has perceived i n it
a fau l t l i ne or a break i ng poi nt), t hen he also makes of
t h is fract u re
a
mee l i ng place, or a n encounter between
t i mes a nd generarions. There is
n ot
h i ng more exem­
pla ry, i n t h i s sense, t h an Paul 's gesture at the poi nt
in which he experiences and
a n no u nces
to his broth­
ers rhe contemporari ness par excellence that is messi­
a n ic ti me, the bei n g-contemporary with (he Messia h,
wh ich he calls preci sely t h e "ti me o f the now"
kairos). NOI
(ho nyn
on ly i s t h i s ti me ch ronologically indeter­
m i nate (t he parousia, the ret u rn of Christ that signals
the end is cenain and near, though not at a calculable
What Is tht Conttmporary?
point), but it
53
also has the singular c a pac i t y of pun i ng
every i nstant of the paSt in d i rec t relationship
w
i t h it­
s el f, of m a k i ng every mo me n t o r e pisode
h is tory a prophecy or a prefiguration
term typos,
of bibl ic a l
(Paul prefe rs t he
fi g ure) of the present (t h us Adam,
th rough
whom huma n ity received death a nd sin, is a "type" or
figure of (he Messiah, who bri ngs about
and l ife to men).
This
means
redemption
that the comem porar y is not only the
o n e who, perceiving the darkness of the p res e n t . grasps
a l ight t h at can
never reach
its des ti ny ; he is
also the
one who, d ivid ing a nd i nterpolating ti me , is capable of transform i ng it and putti ng it in relation with
other t i mes. He is a b le (0 read h istory in u n fo reseen
ways, to "cite it" accord i n g (0
a rise in
a ny way from
a
necessity that does not
his will, but from an ex igency
to which he ca n not not respond. It is
as
if this i nvis­
i ble l ight that is the d a rk ness of the p re s en t cast its
s h adow on the past. so that the past, touched by this
shadow. acqui red the abi l i ty to respond to t he dark­
ness of the now. It
is someth ing alo ng
these l i nes t ha t
M ichel Foucault probably had i n m i nd when he w rote
that h is h istorical i n vest igat ions of t he past a re only
the shadow c a st by his theoret ica l i nrerrogation of t h e
present. Similarly. Wa lter Benj a m i n writes t h at the
historical i n dex
contained
d icates that these i mages
of the p as t in­
m ay ac h i eve l eg i b i l i t y o n ly
in
the
i m a ge s
What Is th� Contemporary?
54
in
a
determined
moment
of thei r h istory. It is on our
abi l ity to respond to th is exigency and to this shadow,
[0
be contemporaries not only of our century and the
"now," but also of its figures in the tex ts a nd docu­
ments of the past, that the
seminar depends .
success
or failu re of o u r
Notes
What Is an Apparatus?
We follow here the common English
dispositifas uappara(Us. In ev­
eryday w,e, the French word can designate any sort of device.
Agambcn poi nts out that the torture machine from Kafka's In
fix Penal Colony is called an Apparat.
2 . M ich e l Foucault. Power/Knowledge: Selected Interviews
and Othu Writings, 1972-1977. ed . C. Gordon ( New York:
I.
Translators'
note:
r ranslarion of Foucault's term
�
Pan theon Books. ' 980) . ' 94-96.
3. Jean Hyppol i te. Introduction to Hegel's Phi/moph} ofHis­
tory, crans. B. Harris and J. B. Spurlock (Gainesville: Univer­
sity Press of Fl or id a. 1996) . 2.I .
4. Ibid . • 23 .
5. Martin Heideger. Bllfic Writing.!, ed. D. F. Krell (New
York: Harper Col l i ns, 1993), 325.
6 . Translators' noce: See Thlorie du Bloom (Paris: Fabrique,
2(00 ) , by the French collective TiqqUJ1. The all usion is to
l.eopold Bloo m . [he m a i n character in James Joyce's Ulysses.
NOles
56
The Friend
I . Diogenc:s Laertius. The lilies of Eminent Philosophtrs.
vol . I . rrans. R. D. H icks (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard. Uni­
versity Press. (972) , 465.
2.. Jacques Derrida. Politics ofFrimdship, trans. G. Collins
(London: Verso. 1997) .
3. Friedrich N ietz.�che, The Win to POUl". rrans. W Kauf­
mann and R. J . Holli ngdale (New York: Vintage: Books,
(968). 3 1 1 . §582.
What Is the Contemporary?
J.
Friedrich N ietzsche. "On (he Uses and Abuses o f His­
rory ro Lfe," i n
Untimely Mtditatiom.
trans.
R. J. Hollingdale
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. (997) . 60.
M E R I D I A N
Crossing Aesthetics
Bernard Stiegler. Trchnics and Tim�.
2:
Disorientation
Bernard Stiegler. Acting Our
Susan Bernstein. Housing Froblnns: Wriling and
Archilecture in Goethe.
Walpok. Freud, and Heidfgger
Marrin Hagglund. Radical Atheism: D�rrida and th� Timr
ofLift
Cornelia Vism a n n . Files: Law and Media uchnoJogy
Anne-Lise Fran-;ois.
Open Secrets:
Uncount�d Experimer
Jean-Lue Nancy, The Discollrse
Logoda�dalus
The Liurature of
ofthe Syncope:
Skirting the Ethical: Sophocles, PMto,
Hamann. Sebald, Campion
Carol Jacobs,
Corndius Casroriadis,
Figures ofthe Thinkable
Jacques Derrida, Psyche: /nwntiom Ofthe Otkr,
2
volumes. edired by Peggy Kamu f and Elizabe(h
Rottenberg