HOMO SACER PART ONE – CHAPTER 3 « Irene's Food for Thought

HOMO SACER

PART ONE: The Logic of Sovereignty

3. Potentiality and Law

3.1

Keywords: constituted power, constituting power

Constituting power VS Constituted power: the first is outside the state and the second is inside the state.
Constituting power is more and more reduced to the power of revision that is foreseen in the constitution.
Sovereign power presumes itself as the power of the state of nature (is that the same as the natural state???), which is maintained in a relationship of being banned from the state of law. In the same way, it also divides itself into constituting and constituted power all the while maintaining a relation to both by positioning itself precisely at their point of indistintion.

3.2

Keywords: alterity

During the French Revolution when sovereignty was demanded it resulted in a vicious cycle.
The problem was how to clearly differentiate constituting from constituted power.
The fact, however, that constituting power is neither derived from nor limited to instituting the constituted order still fails to provide any real information the alterity of the constituting power in relation to sovereign power…

3.3

Keywords: dynamis, energeia, potentiality.

If constituting power stands for what Aristotle called “dynamis”(potential) and constituted power for what he called “energeia”(action) then the relationship between the two depends on how we perceive the existence and autonomy of potentiality.
According to Aristotle, potentiality proceeds actuality and conditions it, while at the same time remaining subordinate to it.
In order for potentiality to have an autonomous existence it needs to have the option of NOT passing into actuality, it needs to maintain the possibility of im-potentiality.
Potentiality sustains itself in relation to actuality in the form of its suspension. It is capable of an act but in not realizing that act it is sovereignly capable of its own im-potentiality.
Something is potential when it has the capability of both of being and of not being realized.

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Potentiality, preschool graduation

Timon Beyes 8/8 – Creative Potentiality of Urban Space – Leuphana Digital School

Ο Αριστοτέλης και η ψυχή

Μια Ανάγνωση της Μοναδολογίας του Leibniz, Γ