Introduction: Italian Biopolitical Theory and Beyond: Genealogy, Psychoanalysis and Biology

Abstract

Over the last two decades Italian biopolitical theory has ignited a series of fierce debates, in both philosophy and the social sciences. On the one hand, so-called ‘Italian Theory’ remains to date a highly problematic phrase; it is both too general, attempting to coalesce under its label a vast array of positions that remain in the end incompatible, and too specific, given the risk of resurrecting the frankly outdated category of national philosophy that goes with it. On the other hand, it is beyond doubt that a growing number of Italian authors have, for good reasons, become very popular worldwide. A plethora of publications have been dedicated to understanding this phenomenon, especially in anglophone academia. The aim of this collection of essays is not simply to introduce, or further inspect, the wide range of Italian theories on the politics of life. The main objective of the present work is rather to take a step beyond, or aside, existing lines of investigation concerning Italian biopolitical theory, and establish a constructive dialogue with what persists as its extimacy, that is, as an otherness that already tacitly dwells at its core. This we identify in its relations with psychoanalysis and the life sciences. Biopolitical thought is, first and foremost, a renewed form of critique. Methodologically, as emphasized by Tarizzo’s contribution to this volume, this fact cannot be underestimated. Unsurprisingly, in Foucault’s work the biopolitical question runs parallel to a reassessment of the achievements and limits of the Enlightenment, as epitomized by Kant. While Italian biopolitical thinkers have rightly insisted on the benefits provided by a genealogical approach to the critical enterprise,