In this review of Persons and Things, recently translated into English and published by Polity Press, we discuss how this text investigates some of the most important themes of Roberto Esposito’s thought. Specifically, the book continues the process of constructing an idea of community intended as lack, gift and impropriety that the Italian philosopher has been developing since the publication of Communitas. In this case, it is the notion of body that demolishes the metaphysical apparatus that has conditioned the moulding (...) of the philosophical-legal lexicon of the Western tradition. Doomed to constant submission to the rational sphere of the person, hence assimilated to the materiality of a mere thing, the body can win back its full dignity if it is considered as a ‘living body’. Only in this way, according to Esposito, is it possible to move past the ‘proprietary’ and subjectivistic notion that, in philosophy as well as in law, has determined a clear-cut separation between persons and things, as well as between ‘superior’ and ‘inferior’ persons. Thus, in Persons and Things, the body becomes an actual vector for a trans-individualization of the individual, for an opening to the common, public, and communitarian dimension. According to Esposito, this process is favoured by the changes brought about by biotechnologies and science in general, not only in medical practices, but also in the legal formulations that follow from them. (shrink)

The purpose of this paper is to show how the interaction between Kantian ethics and some aspects of Heideggerian philosophy can lead to the model of a subject in immediate relationship with others and with his or her community. The positions of Jean-Luc Nancy and Jacques Derrida on this question are presented in contrast with those of Alain Renaut and Emmanuel Lévinas to elucidate their differing ways of interpreting the relationship between Kant and Heidegger with regard to ethics, apriorism, and (...) subjectivity. (shrink)