Author: ZHAO Jing, Assistant Professor, School of Liberal Arts, Renmin University of China
Abstract:
This essay explores on the concept of “religion” in Giorgio Agamben. The Latin term religio (whence our “religion”) can be understood as “to bind again” (re-ligare) or “to read again” (re-legere). Based upon the meaning “to bind again”, that is, from a religion-sociological perspective, we can deduce Walter Benjamin’s influence on Agamben, in that the former offers a trenchant analysis of the religiousness of capitalism that is continued by the latter. Based upon the meaning “to read again”, that is, from a psychological perspective, we find that religious-related figures abound in Agamben’s works, which may shed hermeneutical light on the concept “form-of-life.” Among such works, Agamben’s re-interpretation of Plato’s “Myth of Er” is exemplary. Religion, if put into question, inevitably causes another question: how to live a life, what is the usus vitae? Religious attitudes, in their extremity, also touch upon the question of contingency. On this point, philosophers like Plato, Lucretius, Gilles Deleuze and Agamben converge. The essay concludes with a return to the topic of “capitalist religion”, in which Agamben fuses these two questions.
Keywords:
religion; capitalism; form-of-life; contingency
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