Esposito's Political Ontology: Difference, Conflict and Community

Abstract:Esposito distinguishes between three different and paradigmatic ways in which contemporary political thinkers from Heidegger to Agamben, through Deleuze and Lefort, have conceived the postmetaphysical assemblage of politics, being, and difference. First, the article discusses the concept of difference and negation that is employed by Esposito in his reconstruction of the positions of Heidegger and Deleuze. Second, it questions Esposito's political ontology of conflict by discussing it in relation to the views of Schmitt and of proponents of agonistic politics, which may appear to be closely related to it. The study concludes by asking about the place of biopolitics in this account of political ontology and tries to address this peculiar absence of biopolitics in a text written by one of its main theorists.