Three decades of Homo Sacer: power, life, and the disarticulation of foundations in Giorgio Agamben's philosophy

Abstract

Giorgio Agamben's Homo Sacer project offers an innovative interdisciplinary analysis of the relationships between politics, law, theology, and language. The aim is to reveal how these spheres interact and shape contemporary life, challenging traditional views of sovereignty and biopolitics. Agamben uses the concept of "homo sacer", a figure symbolizing life exposed to sovereign violence without legal protection, to illustrate the invisible line of exclusion in modern democracies.

Agamben's methodology combines an archaeological and critical approach from the Humanities, revealing how sovereign power intertwines with theological and cultural traditions. He argues that secularization has not eliminated religious influences but adapted them, maintaining historical control structures. Legal language is highlighted as a mechanism of power that defines boundaries between the protected and the exposed. The results present a complex view of modern power as a field of an-archic tensions, where different forms of control overlap and interact. The conclusion suggests that Agamben's work provides a new perspective on the fragility of legal protection and the persistence of the state of exception, offering a richer and more dynamic understanding of power relations in modernity.