Description
Book Synopsis* Roberto Esposito is one of leading figures in a new generation of Italian philosophers. * This book criticizes the notion of the person and develops an original account of the concept of the impersonal - what he calls the third person.
Trade Review"In this slim and powerful volume, Roberto Esposito not only diagnoses how this dispositif undermines attempts to secure human rights, but he also provides humankind a means of moving forward, past the person, into the life-validating realm of the impersonal."
Marx and Philosophy
"Is there a term that dominates thought today more than person? From biotechnology and social networking to corporations, person increasingly appears as the dark heart of contemporary life. In this compelling and at times troubling reflection, Roberto Esposito measures the biopolitical costs of our obsession with everything personal in a failed project of the common. In place of the person, Esposito counsels the impersonal perspective of the 'third person.' Part genealogy, part philosophical guide-book, this book is a bold reflection on life and politics that continues in unexpected ways Esposito's previous readings of biopolitics."
Timothy Campbell, Cornell University
"Beyond the horizon of Western subjectivity, behind the sacralization of the person, lies Esposito's impersonal life. Deconstructing the 'human' and its juridical-biological constitution, Third Person casts incisive light on the perilous region which silently encircles it - the event, its anonymity and uncanniness."
Andrea Rossi, Lancaster University
Table of ContentsIntroduction
i. The double life (The machine of the human sciences)
ii. Person, man, thing
iii. Third person
1. Non-person
2. The animal
3. The Other (Autrui)
4. He/She
5. The neuter
6. The outside
7. The event
