Telos | 2019
The Problem of Our Law: Political Theology and the Theological-Political Problem in Giorgio Agamben and Leo Strauss
Abstract
A writer once summed the matter up in this way: The sole visible and indubitable law that is imposed upon us is the nobility, and must we ourselves deprive ourselves of that one law? —Franz Kafka, “The Problem of Our Laws”1 The great grinding wheels of the State were getting to grips with the citizen Andreas Pum, and, before he even realized it, he was being slowly and comprehensively crushed. —Joseph Roth, Rebellion2 Introduction The above two epigraphs express concerns present in central Europe during the first few decades of the prior century (Kafka s was published in 1931, Roth s in…