Antonio Cimino

Agamben’s Political Messianism in 'The Time That Remains'

ABSTRACT The aim of this article is to shed light on the political ambitions of Agamben’s book The Time That Remains. First, the article examines Agamben’s political messianism in The Time That Remains by taking into account the question of political theology. Second, the article elaborates on a number of important concepts and ideas that are at the forefront of Agamben’s political messianism. Third, the author elucidates the general framework within which one has to view Agamben’s political messianism. In the fourth and last part of the article, the author assesses the innovative nature of Agamben’s political messianism by sketching out a comparison between The Time That Remains and Heidegger’s phenomenological interpretation of Paul the apostle.

Index of Names and Subjects

The Ideal Ruler in Medival Bohemia discusses the development of medieval concepts and ideas about just and unjust rulership in medieval Bohemia. This theme is examined in the context of the European political thinking between 6th and 14th centuries.

Attestation and Facticity : On Heidegger's Conception of Attestation in 'Being and Time'

Preliminary Remarks In his Faith and Knowledge Jacques Derrida emphasizes the central role of attestation in Being and Time and considers it a “decisive and largely underestimated motif”.2 He attributes the same importance to all the other related concepts, especially to conscience (Gewissen), guilt (Schuldigsein) and resoluteness (Entschlossenheit). According to Derrida, in all these concepts one can recognize “the immense question of the ontological repetition [...] of a so markedly Christian tradition” (FK 96). By formulating these remarks, Derrida intends to allude above all to a crucial circumstance defining Heidegger’s existential analytic, a circumstance he pointedly expresses as follows: “Like the experience of authentic attestation (Bezeugung) and like everything that depends upon it, the point of departure of Sein und Zeit resides in a situation that cannot be radically alien to what is called faith” (FK 96). At a first glance, this remark is quite surprising, because Heidegger repeatedly affirms both the “a-theistic” character of his thought and the basic difference between a philosophical and a religious (or theological) selfunderstanding of human life.3 However, in this context Derrida doesn’t refer to religion or theology in the narrow sense of the word, and he is obviously aware of Heidegger’s differentiation between faith and philosophical discourse. Rather, he wants to point out the pre-philosophical, intersubjective dimension of experience and language, which, in the existential analytic, is characterized as the bare fact of the pre-ontological pre-understanding of being. Terminologically, I would like to summarize such a seminal point by using the following designation for this preliminary dimension, which, according to Derrida’s reformulation, is prior to all philosophical questioning: prephilosophical facticity.4 If one pays attention to the fact that Derrida considers such a pre-philosophical facticity as a dimension of acquiescence, one can understand, at first appearance, the reason why Derrida is connecting faith and pre-philosophical facticity in Heidegger.5 In the present contribution, I intend to develop, specify and, if necessary, correct Derrida’s above-mentioned remarks, by focusing my attention on the role attestation plays in the context of Heidegger’s existential analytic.6 According to my main interpretive hypothesis, attestation represents a defining component for the entire methodological and thematic framework of Being and Time, even if Heidegger doesn’t devote particular attention to attestation and