The Mystery of Return: Agamben and Bloch on St. Paul’s Parousia and Messianic Temporality

• Authors: Federico Filauri

Title variants

PL

Tajemnica Powrotu: Agamben i Bloch o Paruzji św. Pawła i czasie mesjańskim

• Languages of publication: EN

Abstracts

EN

During the last two decades, a sharp re-reading of St. Paul’s letters allowed several thinkers to embed a messianic element in their political philosophy. In these readings, the messianic refusal of the world and its laws is understood through the suspensive act of “subtraction” – a movement of withdrawal which nonetheless too often proved ineffective when translated into political practice. After analysing Agamben’s interpretation of subtraction in terms of “inoperativity”, this article focuses on the notion of Parousia as a key element to understanding his anti-utopian account of messianic time. In contrast to Agamben’s reading,Bloch’s interpretation of the Pauline Parousia envisages the messianic event as infra-historical, but at the same time opened to ultimate (meta-historical) purposes. Bloch’s messianic call – I argue – takes the form of mediation, a correction of subtraction towards the direction of a more committed political engagement. I conclude by suggesting that the concrete implementations of this mediation perform their emancipatory function in so far as they assume the character of practical ethics, with the attention directed to the underprivileged and marginalised.

PL

W ciągu ostatnich dwóch dziesięcioleci nowe, radykalne odczytania listów św. Pawła pozwoliły licznym myślicielom zawrzeć w ich filozofii politycznej mesjanistyczny element. W odczytaniach tych mesjanistyczne odrzucenie świata i jego praw jest rozumiane poprzez zawieszający akt „subtrakcji” – ruch wycofania, którego przekład n a polityczną praktykę zbyt często jednak okazywał się nieskuteczny.Po przeanalizowaniu Agambenowskiej interpretacji subtrakcji przez pryzmat „nieoperacyjności”, artykuł koncentruje się na pojęciu Paruzji jako elementu kluczowego dla zrozumienia jego antyutopijnego ujęcia mesjańskiego czasu. W przeciwieństwie do odczytania Agambena, Blochowska intepretacja Pawłowej Paruzji przedstawia wydarzenie mesjańskie jako wewnątrzhistoryczne, ale równocześnie otwarte wobec celów ostatecznych (metahistorycznych). Jak przekonuję, mesjańskie wezwanie Blocha przyjmuje formę zapośredniczenia, skorygowania subtrakcji tak, by umożliwiała większe zaangażowanie polityczne. W zakończeniu tekstu sugeruję, że konkretne zastosowania tego zapośredniczenia pełnią swą funkcję emancypacyjną tylko o tyle, o ile przyjmują charakter praktycznej etyki, w której uwaga skierowana jest na nieuprzywilejowanych i marginalizowanych.

Keywords

EN

Messianic time; parousia; subtraction; Bloch; Agamben; Messianic time; parousia; subtraction; Bloch; Agamben

PL

czas mesjański; paruzja; subtrakcja; Bloch; Agamben

• Publisher: Uniwersytet im. Adama Mickiewicza w Poznaniu
• Journal: Praktyka Teoretyczna
• Year: 2020
• Volume: 35
• Issue: 1
• Pages: 121-147

Dates

published

2020-03-15

Contributors

author

Federico Filauri

• Ernst Bloch Centre for German Thought - IMLR, School of Advanced Study University of London

• https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8128-1155

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Identifiers

DOI

10.14746/prt2020.1.7