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The Signature of All Things: On Method
The Signature of All Things is Giorgio Agamben's sustained reflection on method. To reflect on method implies for Agamben an archaeological vigilance: a persistent form of thinking in order to expose, examine, and elaborate what is obscure, unanalyzed, even unsaid, in an author's thought. To be archaeologically vigilant, then, is to return to, even invent, a method attuned to a "world supported by a thick weave of resemblances and sympathies, analogies and correspondences." Collecting a wide range of authors and topics in a slim but richly argued volume, Agamben enacts the search to create a science of signatures that exceeds the attempts of semiology and hermeneutics to determine the pure and unmarked signs that signify univocally, neutrally, and eternally.
Three conceptual figures organize Agamben's argument and the advent of his new method: the paradigm, the signature, and archaeology. Each chapter is devoted to an investigation of one of these concepts and Agamben carefully constructs its genealogy transhistorically and from an interdisciplinary perspective. And at each moment of the text, Agamben pays tribute to Michel Foucault, whose methods he rethinks and effectively uses to reformulate the logic of the concepts he isolates. The Signature of All Things reveals once again why Agamben is one of the most innovative thinkers writing today.
Three conceptual figures organize Agamben's argument and the advent of his new method: the paradigm, the signature, and archaeology. Each chapter is devoted to an investigation of one of these concepts and Agamben carefully constructs its genealogy transhistorically and from an interdisciplinary perspective. And at each moment of the text, Agamben pays tribute to Michel Foucault, whose methods he rethinks and effectively uses to reformulate the logic of the concepts he isolates. The Signature of All Things reveals once again why Agamben is one of the most innovative thinkers writing today.
124 pages, Hardcover
First published May 20, 2008
About the author
Giorgio Agamben
260 books1,013 followersGiorgio Agamben is one of the leading figures in Italian and contemporary continental philosophy. He is the author of Homo Sacer: Sovereign Power and Bare Life; Remnants of Auschwitz: The Witness and the Archive; Profanations; The Signature of All Things: On Method, and other books. Through the 1970s, 1980s, and early 1990s he treated a wide range of topics, including aesthetics, literature, language, ontology, nihilism, and radical political thought.
In recent years, his work has had a deep impact on contemporary scholarship in a number of disciplines in the Anglo-American intellectual world. Born in Rome in 1942, Agamben completed studies in Law and Philosophy with a doctoral thesis on the political thought of Simone Weil, and participated in Martin Heidegger’s seminars on Hegel and Heraclitus as a postdoctoral scholar.
He rose to international prominence after the publication of Homo Sacer in 1995. Translated into English in 1998, the book’s analyses of law, life, and state power appeared uncannily prescient after the attacks on New York City and Washington, DC in September 2001, and the resultant shifts in the geopolitical landscape. Provoking a wave of scholarly interest in the philosopher’s work, the book also marked the beginning of a 20-year research project, which represents Agamben’s most important contribution to political philosophy.
In recent years, his work has had a deep impact on contemporary scholarship in a number of disciplines in the Anglo-American intellectual world. Born in Rome in 1942, Agamben completed studies in Law and Philosophy with a doctoral thesis on the political thought of Simone Weil, and participated in Martin Heidegger’s seminars on Hegel and Heraclitus as a postdoctoral scholar.
He rose to international prominence after the publication of Homo Sacer in 1995. Translated into English in 1998, the book’s analyses of law, life, and state power appeared uncannily prescient after the attacks on New York City and Washington, DC in September 2001, and the resultant shifts in the geopolitical landscape. Provoking a wave of scholarly interest in the philosopher’s work, the book also marked the beginning of a 20-year research project, which represents Agamben’s most important contribution to political philosophy.
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Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews
March 26, 2015
It’s no big secret that ‘method’ has been limping under the sign of a bad star in continental philosophy for a while now. Unsurprising perhaps, since the tradition burnt its fingers early with Edmund Husserl and Henri Bergson, each being the first and last to speak of method (Husserl’s phenomenological method, Bergson’s method of intuition) without a trace of self-consciousness. Having since become easy-pickings for generations of philosophers following however, the question of method has remained a vexed one. As such, it’s with a certain strategic - if nonetheless academic - audacity that Agamben can unblinkingly subtitle his little book “On Method.”
Consider, for example, Theodor Adorno’s polemics against the ‘intolerance’ and ‘arbitrariness' of method, whereby method is charged with ‘doing violence to unfamiliar things’ insofar as it can only 'model the world after itself’ and ‘substitute itself for things’ (see Adorno’s brilliant tract Against Epistemology, another suitable title of which could have been “Against Method”). The argument being that insofar as method can only presuppose the sorts of things that will fall under its purview, anything that does not fit will invariably get tossed to the side. This is what Agamben calls the problem of relating the universal to the particular, whereby what is 'left out’ is precisely the singular: that which is unique and unsubstitutable.
In the face of these problems, Agamben proposes a alternative way of thinking method: as that which, rather than moving from the universal to the particular, moves instead from ‘singularity to singularity.’ In trying to elaborate just what this move entails, Agamben embarks on an investigation of three exemplary methodological approaches: that of the paradigm, the signature, and philosophical archeology. Those who have been following Agamben’s work till now will be more or less familiar with the first and the last of these, which have found expression in Agamben’s other works, but are for the first time explicitly taken on as themes of their own. The 'theory of signatures’ however, the longest and most elaborate of the investigations here, has made its appearance in Agamben’s writings relatively recently, so it’s nice to see it treated in such great detail here.
Although it’s been billed as something like a ‘reply to critics’, The Signature of All Things stands very much on its own as a work of philosophy. Particularly great is the extended mediation on sacraments (as an example of a ’signature’ at work), a discussion of which felt oddly waylaid in Agamben’s ‘The Sacrament of Language’. In terms of contemporary reference points, it’s the work of Michel Foucault here which gets the most attention, particularly and unsurprisingly his more ‘methodological’ works, The Order of Things and The Archeology of Knowledge which Agamben treats with great respect and delicacy. As Agamben himself remarks, where Foucault ends and where Agamben himself begins is a little hard to parse, but that’s part of the fun. There’s also a little jab at Derrida here, which continues Agamben’s career-spanning pokes at deconstruction.
One missed encounter I feel worth mentioning in closing is with the work of Ludwig Wittgenstein. Agamben’s reflections on rules and singularities bare an uncanny resemblance to Wittgentein’s own mediations on the the question of whether or not the standard meter in Paris is in fact, a meter long. When Agamben speaks, for example, of ‘the total abandonment of the particular-general couple as the model of logical inference’, and of ‘the exhibition of the paradigmatic case that constitutes a rule… which cannot be applied or stated,” is this not the same logic the governs Wittgenstein’s declaration that the meter rule in Paris is neither a meter long, nor not a meter long? In any case, something to explore! (see Paul Livingston’s work here on the politics of paradox…).
Consider, for example, Theodor Adorno’s polemics against the ‘intolerance’ and ‘arbitrariness' of method, whereby method is charged with ‘doing violence to unfamiliar things’ insofar as it can only 'model the world after itself’ and ‘substitute itself for things’ (see Adorno’s brilliant tract Against Epistemology, another suitable title of which could have been “Against Method”). The argument being that insofar as method can only presuppose the sorts of things that will fall under its purview, anything that does not fit will invariably get tossed to the side. This is what Agamben calls the problem of relating the universal to the particular, whereby what is 'left out’ is precisely the singular: that which is unique and unsubstitutable.
In the face of these problems, Agamben proposes a alternative way of thinking method: as that which, rather than moving from the universal to the particular, moves instead from ‘singularity to singularity.’ In trying to elaborate just what this move entails, Agamben embarks on an investigation of three exemplary methodological approaches: that of the paradigm, the signature, and philosophical archeology. Those who have been following Agamben’s work till now will be more or less familiar with the first and the last of these, which have found expression in Agamben’s other works, but are for the first time explicitly taken on as themes of their own. The 'theory of signatures’ however, the longest and most elaborate of the investigations here, has made its appearance in Agamben’s writings relatively recently, so it’s nice to see it treated in such great detail here.
Although it’s been billed as something like a ‘reply to critics’, The Signature of All Things stands very much on its own as a work of philosophy. Particularly great is the extended mediation on sacraments (as an example of a ’signature’ at work), a discussion of which felt oddly waylaid in Agamben’s ‘The Sacrament of Language’. In terms of contemporary reference points, it’s the work of Michel Foucault here which gets the most attention, particularly and unsurprisingly his more ‘methodological’ works, The Order of Things and The Archeology of Knowledge which Agamben treats with great respect and delicacy. As Agamben himself remarks, where Foucault ends and where Agamben himself begins is a little hard to parse, but that’s part of the fun. There’s also a little jab at Derrida here, which continues Agamben’s career-spanning pokes at deconstruction.
One missed encounter I feel worth mentioning in closing is with the work of Ludwig Wittgenstein. Agamben’s reflections on rules and singularities bare an uncanny resemblance to Wittgentein’s own mediations on the the question of whether or not the standard meter in Paris is in fact, a meter long. When Agamben speaks, for example, of ‘the total abandonment of the particular-general couple as the model of logical inference’, and of ‘the exhibition of the paradigmatic case that constitutes a rule… which cannot be applied or stated,” is this not the same logic the governs Wittgenstein’s declaration that the meter rule in Paris is neither a meter long, nor not a meter long? In any case, something to explore! (see Paul Livingston’s work here on the politics of paradox…).
June 3, 2010
Nothing terribly new here: Benjamin's angel of history, Foucault, philology, etc. This reads almost as a defense of the work Agamben's done over the past 15 years, so I guess it's good that it's pretty short. There are some bright moments but it's nothing groundbreaking on the first read (I always reserve the right to change my mind after digesting one of Agamben's books). Recommended to only Agamben completists.
January 27, 2011
Not impressed. This reads like a really good grad student's dissertation.
The most interesting thing in the book is when Agameben starts talking about ontology, but he stops after one paragraph and never builds on the idea. He should write a book about ontology/signatures and avoid the endless Foucault exegesis.
The most interesting thing in the book is when Agameben starts talking about ontology, but he stops after one paragraph and never builds on the idea. He should write a book about ontology/signatures and avoid the endless Foucault exegesis.
May 28, 2013
Agamben is a rigorous thinking who, while steeped in a paradigm, presents ideas that are new and unthought of yet.
December 8, 2019
Sludder, pladder, hul intellektuel onani
April 9, 2020
..a teoria das assinaturas (dos enunciados) intervém para retificar a ideia abstrata e falaciosa de que existem signos, por assim dizer, puros e não marcados, de que o signans significa o signatum de forma neutra, univocamente e de uma vez por todas. O signo significa porque traz uma assinatura, mas esta predetermina necessariamente sua interpretação e distribui seu uso e eficácia segundo regras, práticas e preceitos que devem ser reconhecidos. A arqueologia é, nesse sentido, a ciência das assinaturas.
...a esfera do direito é a de uma palavra eficaz, de um 'dizer' que é sempre indicere (proclamar, declarar solenemente), ius dicere (dizer o que é conforme ao direito) e vim dicere (dizer a palavra eficaz). Se isso for verdade, o direito é então, por excelência, a esfera das assinaturas, em que a eficácia da palavra prevalece sobre seu significado (ou o realiza).
Qualquer pesquisa nas ciências humanas - e, em particular, em âmbito histórico - tem necessariamente a ver com as assinaturas….Deleuze certa vez escreveu que uma pesquisa filosófica implica pelo menos dois elementos: a identificação do problema e a escolha dos conceitos adequados para abordá-lo.
...a esfera do direito é a de uma palavra eficaz, de um 'dizer' que é sempre indicere (proclamar, declarar solenemente), ius dicere (dizer o que é conforme ao direito) e vim dicere (dizer a palavra eficaz). Se isso for verdade, o direito é então, por excelência, a esfera das assinaturas, em que a eficácia da palavra prevalece sobre seu significado (ou o realiza).
Qualquer pesquisa nas ciências humanas - e, em particular, em âmbito histórico - tem necessariamente a ver com as assinaturas….Deleuze certa vez escreveu que uma pesquisa filosófica implica pelo menos dois elementos: a identificação do problema e a escolha dos conceitos adequados para abordá-lo.
December 15, 2024
In short, one could say that Agamben's purpose with this book is to argue that our understanding of being is constantly in motion and therefore cannot be determined or fixed 100%. Meaning and being are always in flux.
Paradigms represent a way of thinking that is characterized by its circularity, moving from the particular to the general without transforming one into the other. The particular and the general, so to speak, mirror each other.
Signatures determine how we perceive being, as the signature itself influences our understanding of being. They are not neutral signs but actively shape our perception of being.
The philosophical archaeology must be seen in this light: history cannot simply be divided into past and present; they are dependent on one another. Archaeology must be understood as regression, in the sense that it seeks to go back in time without rationalizing what it uncovers. It attempts to free the past so it can be seen as it is, without external influences.
Paradigms represent a way of thinking that is characterized by its circularity, moving from the particular to the general without transforming one into the other. The particular and the general, so to speak, mirror each other.
Signatures determine how we perceive being, as the signature itself influences our understanding of being. They are not neutral signs but actively shape our perception of being.
The philosophical archaeology must be seen in this light: history cannot simply be divided into past and present; they are dependent on one another. Archaeology must be understood as regression, in the sense that it seeks to go back in time without rationalizing what it uncovers. It attempts to free the past so it can be seen as it is, without external influences.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
October 17, 2026
He escogido mal para empezar a leer a Agamben y para empezar a leer no ficción. El segundo ensayo es lo que, desde mi lectura, ha salvado el libro, porque recuerdo tener que releer y releer las páginas del primero sin enterarme de nada.
July 25, 2017
มีอะไรให้ประทับใจตลอดเวลาในหนังสือเล่มนี้
April 16, 2020
Hvis man kan tilgive Agambens selvfede spidsfindigheder, gemmer der sig en masse skatte i den her bog.
January 27, 2021
Giorgio Agamben'den bir başucu kitabı.
July 28, 2015
The comparison of Foucault and Kuhn, juxtaposed to Plato's Republic, along with the panopticon and Benjamin's analysis of the arcades project -- method always requires context, logic requires hermeneutics. Daniel Milo, Victor Goldschmidt, Aby Warburg, Carlo Ginzburg, Enzo Melandri, and Cathy Caruth (among others) provide an additional background to an argument concerning method starting from paradigm, signatures, and philosophical archaeology.
January 15, 2014
This is a wonderful book, and the historical context - the lead up to the theory of evolution - is fascinatingly drawn. I haven't read 'Eat etc' because it sounded a bit New Age, but this is wondeerful.
September 15, 2010
esp. chapter 3. his revisit on Foucauldian archaeology verses genealogy
March 2, 2013
The ideas ar clear and sometimes profound but they sometimes get lost gain in Agamben's discussion.
October 15, 2016
I found this a rather interesting and compelling series of essays on the philosophical method of Agamben.
Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews