In his "De Signatura Rerum" Giorgio Agamben makes an original connection between Aby Warburg’s historical science of images and Foucault’s “Archaeology of Knowledge”, stating that his position lies between the two. Warburg’s epistemology prompts Agamben to set out an approach that he calls “Philosophical Archaeology”. With this concept, Agamben describes a historical investigation which does not so much delve into a phenomenon’s origin as look at the “soil” in which it first “arose”. This leads to engaging sources and tradition anew, as well as their “conscious” and “unconscious” sides. Taking as its starting point Nietzsche’s "Second Untimely Meditation", a direct influence on Warburg’s method, this article (1) establishes Warburg’s legacy within Agamben’s epistemology, which significantly states that the science of history is a mnemotechnique; (2) it then uses his legacy as a foundation to explain the analogies and differences that separate Agamben’s research approach from Foucault’s genealogical method, which Agamben, referring to Foucault’s first writings on dreams in his introduction to Ludwig Binswanger’s "Traum und Existenz", attempts to correct by restoring an ontological foundation.

Un progetto terapeutico. La "scienza senza nome" di Warburg e l'archeologia filosofica di Agamben.

Pelloni
2020-01-01

Abstract

In his "De Signatura Rerum" Giorgio Agamben makes an original connection between Aby Warburg’s historical science of images and Foucault’s “Archaeology of Knowledge”, stating that his position lies between the two. Warburg’s epistemology prompts Agamben to set out an approach that he calls “Philosophical Archaeology”. With this concept, Agamben describes a historical investigation which does not so much delve into a phenomenon’s origin as look at the “soil” in which it first “arose”. This leads to engaging sources and tradition anew, as well as their “conscious” and “unconscious” sides. Taking as its starting point Nietzsche’s "Second Untimely Meditation", a direct influence on Warburg’s method, this article (1) establishes Warburg’s legacy within Agamben’s epistemology, which significantly states that the science of history is a mnemotechnique; (2) it then uses his legacy as a foundation to explain the analogies and differences that separate Agamben’s research approach from Foucault’s genealogical method, which Agamben, referring to Foucault’s first writings on dreams in his introduction to Ludwig Binswanger’s "Traum und Existenz", attempts to correct by restoring an ontological foundation.
2020
Agamben, Warburg, Foucault, Nietzsche, Philosophical Archeology, Genealogy, Pathosformel, Symbol, Signature, Critical History, Memory
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Utilizza questo identificativo per citare o creare un link a questo documento: https://hdl.handle.net/11562/1024420
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