A Sacrament of Intellectual Self-Gratification

Abstract

Agamben claimed that the experience of language, as it is manifested in the oath, precedes and gives rise to religion, law and politics, and therefore should be seen as a crucial element of the human process. It is my contention to argue here that a particular aspect of Agamben's own language suffers from substantial and conceptual flaws and self-assertive opinions on language and oath. They may put in question his own engagement with the textual evidence and philosophical literature, which makes his own text self-recommending and self-gratifying. In addition, he relied on obscure authors and obsolete interpretations and he failed to engage the relevant issues in the relevant literature that are crucial to his argument. More importantly, Agamben's argument on a certain impotence of language offers little suggestion, except calling upon philosophical obfuscation, to break down the state of exception in the current post-modern condition and avoid the technical apparatuses of the sacrament of power that led first to oath, and then to religion, law and politics.