The state of exception as standard and the banned life of the legal system

a study from Agamben

Abstract

In this essay we aim to examine the modus operandi with which Giorgio Agamben (1942) faces matters related to the state of exception. In his intellectual enterprise, this notion is intertwined with the idea of biopolitics, which makes them inseparable. It turns out that, while the philosopher seeks to develop points that revolve around biopolitics, it is scientific that life has become a political issue, that is, that biology has become a technique of government, with the closely political problem of sovereignty. He considers that there is a paradigm regarding the state of exception, which concerns the nomos. In short, according to Agamben, biopolitics, with a range of governmental devices, condemns the population to live in a perennial state of emergency and panic, reduced to what he nicknamed nuda vita.

Keywords: Biopolitics. Exception state. Sovereignty. Nuda vita.