The Omnibus Homo Sacer; What is Philosophy?

Abstract

The Omnibus Homo Sacer brings together in 1336 pages all volumes of the twenty-year Homo Sacer project by Italian philosopher Giorgio Agamben, written between 1990 and 2015, starting with Homo Sacer: Sovereign Power and Bare Life and concluding with The Use of Bodies. In line with Agamben’s division of the project, the Omnibus edition is divided into four parts (Part 1: Homo Sacer; Part 2: State of Exception, Stasis, The Sacrament of Language, The Kingdom and the Glory & Opus Dei; Part 3: Remnants of Auschwitz; and Part 4: The Highest Poverty & The Use of Bodies). Since the volumes comprising the Omnibus edition have already been published in English and are either already considered as contemporary classics (particularly Homo Sacer: Sovereign Power and Bare Life, which has arguably occupied the position of a classic in political philosophy a mere two decades since its publication) or find themselves en route to becoming so, it would make little sense to refer to the project’s substance in this book note or to describe the main characteristics of Agamben’s thought; I will restrain myself to commenting on the book as such.