Reflections on the Political Ontology of Friendship Based on Giorgio Agamben’s Reading of Aristotle

Abstract

In my study, I attempt to read together two texts by Giorgio Agamben, arguing that the reading of Aristotle given in L’amico implies an ontology of friendship that is almost identical to the political ontology developed in the early La comunità che viene. By explicating the common ontological concept underlying the two texts and by describing and providing a philological-philosophical grounding for Agamben’s reading of Aristotle, I attempt to point out the relevance of the Aristotelian concept of friendship for contemporary political philosophy. This consists, among other things, in its ability to shed light on the shortcoming of contemporary philosophies of community, which is rooted in their failure to articulate satisfactorily the relation or form of contact that holds together the community they envision and conceive. Once the readability of the two texts has been demonstrated, I think we will also be able to see more clearly how these discourses can be further conceived and supplemented along the lines of what Aristotle wrote.