The Concept of “Community” in the Social Ontology of J.-L.Nancy and J. Agamben

Abstract

The article discusses new ontological approaches to the concept of “community” that appeared after the “ontological turn”. If ontotheology (metaphysics) in search of the foundation of the existing (society) takes the existing beyond the limits of the existing, then the new ontology (ontoheterology) based on new methodological premises asserts the difference of being, its multiplicity due to which the being is affirmed in its being. On the basis of new theoretical prerequisites, Nancy and Agamben create new concepts of “community” which are discussed in this article. For Nancy, “community” is, first of all, a shared coexistence of being, where each individual being is manifested in multiplicity. The unitary is singular and displayed in the display to the Other. In co-existence, individuals share the meaning of finite existence, but finiteness (death) is not completeness, it is an immeasurable responsibility for existence constituting a community. In constructing the ontology of the “community”, J. Agamben uses the concepts of dispositive, homo sacer, naked life, state of emergency, and messianic time. According to Agamben, modern society is in a state of emergency, where the rule and law are suspended. In this suspension, a person turns into a homo sacer, and his life turns into a vita sacra (naked life), the city becomes a camp. At the foundation of the coming community, Agamben believes that non-activity is rooted in the Messianic time, which overcoming violence and totality opens the way to a new form-life. Thus, the new concepts of the “community”, overcoming the traditional notions of society, eliminate any form of theoretical (and practical) totality, since they carry the multiple redundancy of social being.

Keywords

• community
• being-together
• singularity
• dispositive
• homo sacer