Potentiality, forms of life, and politics

The meaning of potentiality and the relationship between potentiality and form of life recur in multiple ways throughout Agamben’s work, from his interpretation of Aristotle to the political turn in his Homo Sacer series. If the object of the Homo Sacer series is to disclose and criticise the ways ‘potenti- ality’ and ‘actuality’ have been conceived and employed in political thought, and subsequently to provide an alternative approach to potentiality that heralds an alternative politics, the question at the heart of this essay is whether Agamben’s proposal of an inoperative ‘form-of-life’ adequately responds to today’s political upheavals. By ignoring the concrete manifesta- tions of capitalism in their historical context, Agamben risks missing the emancipatory opportunities specific power-relations hold.