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They remain obscured by their own constitutive nature. However, the liminal nature of both comes to light as soon as we reflect on the close correspondence between the Latin crimen—which designates human action as imputable and punishable, i.e., called into question in the order of responsibility and law—and the Sanskrit karman—which marks action that generates consequences.

In a revealing move, Giorgio Agamben identifies in karman/crimen the Indo-European keystone, without which both the edifice of Western ethics and politics and the free and responsible subject that is its prerequisite and effect would collapse. This pragmatic, rather than gnoseological, archaeology of subjectivity clarifies how the hold of sanctioned action on the agent is increasingly reinforced precisely at the moment when—with patristics—the notion of free will seeks to ensure the sovereignty of the will, ousting the Aristotelian primacy of power. According to Agamben, it will not be possible to jam the will-action-imputation device unless we move away from the paradigm of finality: against the rule of ends, we need to rethink a politics of pure means, which Benjamin already entrusted to the idle gesture—capable of deactivating human works and destining them “to a new, possible use.”

Giorgio Agamben

Giorgio Agamben is one of the most hotly debated political philosophers today. His works on the political and legal paradigm of the West have caught the attention of philosophers, sociologists, political scientists and jurists alike, but his significance has been obscured by myths and misunderstandings. His works have been translated into more than 15 languages.