Gaia and Ctonia

Abstract

In this brief and dense essay, the Italian philosopher compares two dimensions of the earth as originally thought by the Greeks, the surface where everything flourishes, personified in the goddess Gaia, and the mysterious subterranean areas understood under the sign of Ctonia. However, more than a stratigraphic reflection, with this text Agamben intends to indicate the inseparability of the sphere of the dead in relation to that of the living, concluding that a society that, like ours, broke its ties with Ctonia, in reality creates for itself a dimension in which life becomes impossible, as well as politics.