potentiality

all quotes from homo sacer by giorgio agamben

"schmitt considers constituting power as a 'political will' capable of  'making the concrete, fundamental decision on the nature and form of one's own political existence.' as such, constituting power stands 'before and above every constitutional legislative procedure' and is irreducible to the level of juridical rules as well as theoretically distinct from sovereign power. but if constituting power is identified with the constituting will of the people or the nation . . . then the criterion that makes it possible to distinguish constituting power from popular or national sovereignty becomes unclear, and the constituting subject and the sovereign subject begin to become indistinguishable."

"'the truth of constituting power,' [antonio negri] writes, 'is not the one that can (in any way whatsoever) be attributed to the concept of sovereignty. this is not the truth of constituting power not only because constituting power is not (as is obvious) an emanation of constituted power, but also because constituting power is not the institution of constituted power: it is the act of choice, the punctual determination that opens a horizon, the radical enacting of something that did not exist before and whose conditions of existence stipulate that the creative act cannot lose its characteristics in creating. when constituting power sets the constituting process in motion, every determination is free and remains free. sovereignty, on the other hand, arises as the establishment - and therefore as the end - of constituting power, as the consumption of the freedom brought by constituting power.'"

"the strength of negri's book lies instead in the final perspective it opens insofar as it shows how constituting power, when conceived in all its radicality, ceases to be a strictly political concept and necessarily presents itself as a category of ontology. the problem of constituting power then becomes the problem of the 'constitution of potentiality', and the unresolved dialectic between constituting power and constituted power opens the way for a new articulation of the relation between potentiality and actuality, which requires nothing less than a rethinking of the ontological categories of modality in their totality."

"the relation between constituting power and constituted power is just as complicated as the relation aristotle established between potentiality and act, dynamis and energeia; and, in the last analysis, the relation between constituting and constituted power (perhaps like every authentic understanding of the problem of sovereignty) depends on how one thinks the existence and autonomy of potentiality. according to aristotle's thought, potentiality precedes actuality and conditions it, but also seems to remain essentially subordinate to it. . . aristotle always takes great care to affirm the autonomous existence of potentiality - the fact that the kithara player keeps his ability [potenza] to play even when he does not play, and that the architect keeps his ability [potenza] to build even when he does not build."

"if potentiality is to have its own consistency and not always disappear immediately into actuality, it is necessary that potentiality be able not to pass over into actuality, the potentiality constitutively be the potentiality not to (do or be), or, as aristotle says, that potentiality be also im-potentiality (adynamia). . . 'what is potential can both be and not be. for the same is potential as much with respect to being as to not being.'"

"this potentiality maintains itself in relation to actuality in the form of its suspension; it is capable of the act in not realizing it, it is sovereignly capable of its own im-potentiality [impotenza]. but how, from this perspective, to think the passage into actuality? if every potentiality (to be or do) is also originarily the potentiality not to (be or do), how will it be possible for an act to be realized?"

"'a thing is said to be potential if, when the act of which it is said to be potential is realized, there will be nothing im-potential (that is, there will be nothing able not to be)' (aristotle, metaphysics). the last three words of the definition do not mean, as the usual and completely trivializing reading maintains, 'there will be nothing impossible' (that is, what is not impossible is possible). they specify, rather, the condition into which potentiality - which can both be and not be - can realize itself. what is potential can pass over into actuality only at the point at which it sets aside its own potential not to be. to set im-potentiality aside is not to destroy it but, on the contrary, to fulfill it, to turn potentiality back upon itself in order to give itself to itself."

"the sovereign ban, which applies to the exception in no longer applying, corresponds to the structure of potentiality, which maintains itself in relation to actuality precisely through its ability not to be. potentiality (in its double appearance as potentiality to and as potentiality not to) is that through which being founds itself sovereignly, which is to say, without anything preceding or determining it other than its own ability not to be. and an act is sovereign when it realizes itself by simply taking away its own potentiality not to be, letting itself be, giving itself to itself."

"sovereignty is always double because being, as potentiality, suspends itself, maintaining itself in a relation of ban (or abandonment) with itself in order to realize itself as absolute actuality (which thus presupposes nothing other than its own potentiality). at the limit, pure potentiality and pure actuality are indistinguishable, and the sovereign is precisely this zone of indistinction."

"it has already been noted that a principle of potentiality is inherent in every definition of sovereignty. in this sense, gerard mairet observed that the sovereign state is founded on an 'ideology of potentiality' that consists in 'leading the two elements of every power back to a unity . . . the principle of potentiality and the form of its exercise'. the central idea here is that 'potentiality already exists before it is exercised, and that obedience precedes the institutions that make it possible'. that this ideology truly has a mythological character is suggested by the same author: 'it is a question of a real myth whose secrets we still do not know, but which constitutes, perhaps, the secret of every power.' it is the structure of this mystery [arcano] that we have undertaken to bring to light in the figure of abandonment and the 'potentiality not to'. but here we run up against not a mythologeme in the strict sense but, rather, the ontological root of every political power. (potentiality and actuality are, for aristotle, first of all categories of being, two ways 'in which being is said.')

in modern thought, there are rare but significant attempts to conceive of being beyond the principle of sovereignty. . . in the late nietzsche, the eternal return of the same gives form to the impossibility of distinguishing between potentiality and actuality, even as the amor fati gives shape to the impossibility of distinguishing between contingency and necessity. . . but the strongest objection against the principle of sovereignty is contained in melville's bartleby, the scrivener who, with his, 'i would prefer not to,' resists every possibility of deciding between potentiality and the potentiality not to. these figures push the aporia of sovereignty to the limit but still do not completely free themselves from its ban. they show that the dissolution of the ban, like the cutting of the gordian knot, resembles less the solution of a logical or mathematical problem than the solution of an enigma. here the metaphysical aporia shows its political nature."