Persons and Things

What is the relationship between persons and things? And how
does the body transform this relationship? In this highly original
new book, Roberto Esposito - one of Italy's leading political
philosophers - considers these questions and shows that starting
from the body, rather than from the thing or the person, can help
us to reconsider the status of both.

Ever since its beginnings, our civilization has been based on a
strict, unequivocal distinction between persons and things, founded
on the instrumental domination of persons over things. This
opposition arose out of ancient Roman law and persisted throughout
modernity, to take its place in our current global market, where it
continues to generate growing contradictions. Although the
distinction seems to appear clear and necessary to us, what we are
continually witnessing in legal, economic, and technological
practice is a reversal of perspectives: some categories of persons
are becoming assimilated with things, while some types of things
are taking on a personal profile.

With his customary rigour, Roberto Esposito argues that there
exists an escape route out of this paradox, constituted by a new
point of view founded in the body. Neither a person nor a thing,
the human body becomes the decisive element in rethinking the
concepts and values that govern our philosophical, legal, and
political lexicons.

Auteur
Roberto Esposito is Professor of the History of Political Thought at the University of Naples

Résumé

What is the relationship between persons and things? And how does the body transform this relationship? In this highly original new book, Roberto Esposito - one of Italy's leading political philosophers - considers these questions and shows that starting from the body, rather than from the thing or the person, can help us to reconsider the status of both.

Ever since its beginnings, our civilization has been based on a strict, unequivocal distinction between persons and things, founded on the instrumental domination of persons over things. This opposition arose out of ancient Roman law and persisted throughout modernity, to take its place in our current global market, where it continues to generate growing contradictions. Although the distinction seems to appear clear and necessary to us, what we are continually witnessing in legal, economic, and technological practice is a reversal of perspectives: some categories of persons are becoming assimilated with things, while some types of things are taking on a personal profile.

With his customary rigour, Roberto Esposito argues that there exists an escape route out of this paradox, constituted by a new point of view founded in the body. Neither a person nor a thing, the human body becomes the decisive element in rethinking the concepts and values that govern our philosophical, legal, and political lexicons.

Contenu

Introduction

I. Persons

Possession

The Great Division

Two in One

Use and Abuse

Non-persons

II. Things

The Nothing of the Thing

Res

Words and Things

The Value of Things

Das Ding

III. Bodies

The Status of the Body

The Power of the Body

To Exist the Body

The Soul of Things

Political Bodies