The anarchy of the command

Abstract

The primary objective of this essay is to develop the interpretation made by Giorgio Agamben in his Criation and Anarchy (2017) around the aporia of the Greek word arché. As a secondary objective, this essay also seeks to develop into the underlying anarchy of the act of commanding, giving orders, and issuing rules. The question-problem of this essay is: What ontologically grounds a command? The hypothesis arises from the discussion surrounding two distinct interpretations of the anarchic nature of the "ontology of command." Between Reiner Schürmann and Jacques Derrida, Agamben differentiates the anarchic interpretation and the democratic interpretation of post-Heideggerian philosophy, respectively. From this, the conclusion is drawn to a reading that combines these two interpretations, revealing the mystical, hidden, but also unfounded, and, therefore, "an-archic" (Andityas Matos) nature of the act of commanding, of giving an order, as this subject can also be understood from the analytical philosophy of John L. Austin and his theory of the "act of speech." The study method adopted in this essay is hermeneutic-philosophical, based on studies of bibliographic and theoretical-qualitative sources.