Roberto Esposito - Instituting Thought

1 Title page Instituting Thought Three Paradigms of Political Ontology Roberto Esposito Translated by Mark William Epstein polity

2 Copyright page

3 Introduction

4 1 Destituting Power

5 2 Constituting Power

6 3 Instituting Thought

7 Index

8 End User License Agreement

1 Cover

2 Contents

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Roberto Esposito

Translated by Mark William Epstein

polity

Originally published in Italian as Pensiero Istituente. Tre paradigmi di ontologia politica © 2020 Giulio Einaudi editore s.p.a., Torino

This English translation © 2021, Polity Press

The translation of this work has been funded by SEPS

SEGRETARIATO EUROPEO PER LE PUBBLICAZIONI SCIENTIFICHE

Via Val d’Aposa 7 – 40123 Bologna – Italy

seps@seps.it – www.seps.it

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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.

ISBN-13: 978-1-5095-4642-8 – hardback

ISBN-13: 978-1-5095-4643-5 – paperback

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Esposito, Roberto, 1950- author. | Epstein, Mark William, translator.

Title: Instituting thought : three paradigms of political ontology / Roberto Esposito ; translated by Mark William Epstein.

Other titles: Pensiero istituente. English

Description: Medford : Polity Press, 2021. | Includes bibliographical references and index. | Summary: “A leading Italian philosopher develops an original perspective on the crisis of contemporary politics”-- Provided by publisher.

Identifiers: LCCN 2020057166 (print) | LCCN 2020057167 (ebook) | ISBN 9781509546428 (hardback) | ISBN 9781509546435 (paperback) | ISBN 9781509546442 (epub) | ISBN 9781509548040 (pdf)

Subjects: LCSH: Political science--Philosophy. | Ontology.

Classification: LCC JA71 .E68213 2021 (print) | LCC JA71 (ebook) | DDC 320.01--dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020057166

LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020057167

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Printed and bound in Great Britain by TJ Books Ltd, Padstow, Cornwall

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1. The title and subtitle of this book are related in a doubly asymmetrical manner. First because the title – Instituting Thought – only refers to the third of three paradigms mentioned in the subtitle; but also because, instead of examining it from without, I place myself and proceed from within, attempting both its definition and its radicalization. Setting up in an already established construction site, modifying its outlines to the point of reconfiguring them into a new shape is, moreover, a consequential way of proceeding for a programmatically instituting thought. As in the case of the first two ontologico-political paradigms, I also interpret the third through the work of a twentieth-century author: the French philosopher Claude Lefort. Thanks to the still somewhat limited circulation of his thought – at least as compared to Heidegger and Deleuze, the referents of the other two paradigmatic axes – one can still question it in ways that are less conditioned by other interpretations, thus foregrounding, whether explicitly or implicitly, that which refers to the lexicon of institutions or, perhaps better, of instituting. This subject matter, organized into an ample series of textual and conceptual cross-references, becomes both the gravitational center and the theoretical purview of the entire book.