The Unrealizable

Towards a Politics of Ontology

Giorgio Agamben, Alberto Toscano

$47.95

Hardback

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English

Seagull Books London Ltd
13 May 2025

Philosophy: metaphysics & ontology

Series: The Italian List

A patient, genealogical investigation of the dichotomies that are foundational to the Western philosophical tradition.

We are so used to distinguishing between the possible and the real, between essence and existence that we do not realize that these distinctions, which seem so obvious to us, are the result of a long and laborious process that has led to the splitting of being—the ""matter"" of thought—into two fragments that are both conflicting and intimately intertwined.

This book argues that the ontological-political machine of the West is based on the splitting of this ""matter,"" without which neither science nor politics would be possible. Without the partition of reality into essence and existence and into possibility and actuality, neither scientific knowledge nor the ability to control human action—which characterizes the historical power of the West—would have been possible.

If we could not suspend the exclusive concentration of our attention on what immediately exists (as animals seem to do), to think and define its essence, Western science and technology would not have experienced the advances that characterize them. And if the dimension of possibility disappeared entirely, neither plans nor projects would be thinkable, and human actions could be neither directed nor controlled. The incomparable power of the West has one of its essential presuppositions in this ontological machine.

By: Giorgio Agamben
Translated by: Alberto Toscano
Imprint: Seagull Books London Ltd
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Dimensions: Height: 197mm, Width: 140mm, Spine: 30mm
Weight: 454g
ISBN: 9781803094670
ISBN 10: 1803094672
Series: The Italian List
Pages: 283
Publication Date: 13 May 2025
Audience: General/trade , ELT Advanced
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active

Giorgio Agamben is one of Italy’s foremost contemporary thinkers. Seagull Books’s Italian List includes several of Agamben’s recent works. Alberto Toscano teaches at the School of Communication at Simon Fraser University in Burnaby, British Columbia. He is the author of Fanaticism and Late Fascism and coeditor of The SAGE Handbook of Marxism.

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The Unrealizable

Towards a Politics of Ontology

Giorgio Agamben, Alberto Toscano

$47.95

Hardback

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