The Sacrament of Language

Transcription

1 The Sacrament of Language

2 Translated by Adam Kotsko

3 THE SACRAMENT OF LANGUAGE An Archaeology of the Oath ( Homo Sacer II, 3) Giorgio Agamben polity

4 Copyright Giorgio Agamben 2010 The right of Giorgio Agamben to be identified as Author of this Work has been asserted in accordance with the UK Copyright, Designs and Patents Act First published in 2011 by Stanford University Press and Polity Press Polity Press 65 Bridge Street Cambridge CB2 1UR, UK 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: ISBN-13: (pb) A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. Printed and bound in Great Britain by MPG Books Group Limited, Bodmin, Cornwall 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 inadvertently overlooked the publisher will be pleased to include any necessary credits in any subsequent reprint or edition. For further information on Polity, visit our website:

5 Contents Translator s Note Abbreviations vii viii The Sacrament of Language 1 Bibliography 73

6 Von diesen Vorgängenen meldet kein Zeuge; sie zu verstehn bietet unser eignes Bewusstsein keinen Anhalt. Nur eine Urkunde ist uns von ihnen geblieben, so schweigsam dem unkundigen, wie beredt dem kundigen: die Sprache. (No witness reports these events; our own consciousness offers no grounds to understand them. Only one document is left to us by them, as silent to the ignorant as it is eloquent to the experienced: language.) Hermann Usener Der Schematismus der Verstandesbegriffe ist... ein Augenblick in welchem Metaphysik und Physik beide Ufer zugleich berühren Styx interfusa. (The schematism of the concepts of the intellect... is an instant in which the shores of metaphysics and physics make contact Styx interfusa.) Immanuel Kant

7 Translator s Note The translator would like to thank Giorgio Agamben, Kevin Attell, Daniel Colucciello Barber, Joshua Furnal, Ted Jennings, and Virgil Brower for their suggested improvements; Nunzio N. D Alessio, Dennis Hou, Evan Kuehn, Craig McFarlane, and Yotam Pappo for bibliographical assistance; and Emily-Jane Cohen, Sarah Crane Newman, and the rest of the staff of Stanford University Press. Existing English translations have been used wherever possible, though sometimes altered to reflect the translation provided by the author; citations of modern texts where a translation is available have the original page numbers followed by the English edition cited, while premodern texts are cited according to standard textual divisions. All biblical quotations are taken from the New Revised Standard Version. All other translations are my own, carried out in consultation with the author s translations. vii

8 Abbreviations Aen. Ann. Apol. Cra. Mens. Il. Inst. Metaph. Od. PL Pyth. Rep. Theog. Tib. Verr. Aeneid (Virgil) Annales (Tacitus) Apologeticus (Tertullian) Cratylus (Plato) De mensibus (Lydus) The Iliad (Homer) Institutiones (Gaius) Metaphysics (Aristotle) The Odyssey (Homer) Patrologia Latina ( J.-P. Migne, ed.) Pythian Odes (Pindar) Republic (Plato) Theogonia (Hesiod) Life of Tiberius (Suetonius) The First Oration Against Verres (Cicero) viii

9 The Sacrament of Language