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- Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
- Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
- Sprache: Englisch
- Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2024
What is at stake in that form of inquiry that the western philosophical tradition has called "first philosophy" or "metaphysics"? Is it an abstract, now outmoded branch of philosophy, or does it address a problem that is still of great interest - namely the unity of western knowledge? In fact, metaphysics is "first" only in relation to the other two sciences that Aristotle called "theoretical": the study of nature (phusike) and mathematics. It is the strategic sense of this "primacy" that needs to be examined, because what is at issue here is nothing less than the relationship - of domination or subservience, conflict or harmony - between philosophy and science. The hypothesis of this book is that philosophy's attempt to use metaphysics as a way of securing primacy among the sciences has resulted instead in its subservience: philosophy, once handmaiden to theology (ancilla theologiae), has now become more or less consciously handmaiden to the sciences (ancilla scientiarum). So it is all the more urgent to explore the nature and limits of this primacy and subservience, which is what the present book does through an archaeological investigation of metaphysics. This important rereading of the western philosophical tradition by a leading thinker will be of interest to students and scholars in philosophy, critical theory and the humanities more generally, and to anyone interested in contemporary philosophy and European thought.
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Guide
Cover
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright
Quotes
Translator’s Note
Begin Reading
References
Index
End User License Agreement
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First Philosophy Last Philosophy
Western Knowledge Between Metaphysics and the Sciences
Giorgio Agamben
Translated by Zakiya Hanafi
polity
Originally published in Italian as Filosofia prima filosofia ultima. Il sapere dell’Occidente fra metafisica e scienze © 2023 Giulio Einaudi editore s.p.a., Torino
This English edition © Polity Press, 2024
The translation of this work has been funded by SEPSSegretariato Europeo per le Pubblicazioni Scientifiche
Via Val d’Aposa 7 – 40123 Bologna – [email protected] – www.seps.it
This book has been translated thanks to a translation grant awarded by the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation / Questo libro è stato tradotto grazie a un contributo alla traduzione assegnato dal Ministero degli Affari Esteri e della Cooperazione Internazionale italiano.
Polity Press65 Bridge StreetCambridge CB2 1UR, UK
Polity Press111 River StreetHoboken, NJ 07030, USA
All rights reserved. Except for the quotation of short passages for the purpose of criticism and review, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher.
Library of Congress Control Number: 2023946010
ISBN-13: 978-1-5095-6053-0
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
The publisher has used its best endeavours to ensure that the URLs for external websites referred to in this book are correct and active at the time of going to press. However, the publisher has no responsibility for the websites and can make no guarantee that a site will remain live or that the content is or will remain appropriate.
Every effort has been made to trace all copyright holders, but if any have been overlooked the publisher will be pleased to include any necessary credits in any subsequent reprint or edition.
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Thus, the whole of philosophy is like a tree. The roots are metaphysics, the trunk is physics, and the branches emerging from the trunk are all the other sciences.
René Descartes
Therefore, our regeneration depends upon what one might call an “overphilosophy,” which, knowing things completely and profoundly, brings us closer to nature.
Giacomo Leopardi
Translator’s Note
Italian has more options for expressing “being” than English: essere, ente, esistente. This multiplicity is amplified by the Greek and German equivalents, especially in the tradition of Heidegger translations, which expand the English-language option with “Being,” “beings,” “the being,” and even “beying.” Readers who are interested in this intriguing topic (a Borgesian hall of mirrors or labyrinth or rabbit hole, depending on your aesthetic) are invited to read Umberto Eco’s chapter “On Being” in Kant and the Platypus: Essays on Language and Cognition (trans. Alastair McEwen, San Diego, Harcourt, 1997, pp. 9–56). Initially I considered retaining the distinctiveness of l’ente in quanto ente, l’essere in quanto essere, and l’esistente in quanto esistente, for example, by using respectively “the being insofar as it is a being,” “being as being,” and “the existent considered as existent.” In private correspondence, however, Agamben stated that the Italian distinctions he makes in this book between essere, ente, and esistente are not pertinent. Therefore, on the basis of the majority of English translations of the texts cited, I have chosen to use the phrase “being qua being” to translate all these locutions, unless the distinction seems significant in a particular context. In the Heidegger quotations, for example, I retain “Being” with a capital B, since to use the lowercase “being” would annul the ontological difference signaled by “Being” versus “beings” and create confusion for readers who are familiar with this usage.
I took a similarly ecumenical approach to translating the citations from ancient Greek and Latin, the majority of which are translated into Italian by Agamben himself. The notes and the bibliography list the foreign-language sources cited in the original Italian text and provide English editions, when available. For Aristotle, I based my terminology primarily on the revised Oxford translation of The Complete Works of Aristotle, edited by Jonathan Barnes in the Bollingen Series (Princeton, NJ, Princeton University Press, 1984, Bollingen Series 71, Part 2). Nevertheless, my English translations of all cited passages are based on the author’s Italian renditions, supplemented and modified according to the corresponding English editions, when available. It should be noted, then, that even when English editions are cited, priority is always given to preserving the intention and lexical consistency of the original Italian version.
This translation benefited greatly from the vital editing and research work of Manuela Tecusan, who also corrected and completed the quotations from ancient Greek and Latin sources. My thanks also go to Kevin Attell, who reviewed the first draft and offered insightful comments.
Zakiya HanafiSeattle, 2023
