AGAMBEN’İN EGEMEN İSTİSNASI ÜZERİNE: EGEMENLİĞİN POLİTİK ONTOLOJİSİ

Year 2025, Issue: 41, 263 - 279, 15.09.2025

Özlem Ünlü

https://doi.org/10.53844/flsf.1731386

Abstract

On Agamben’s account of the exception, the question of what it is to be exceptional can only be clarified by going back to the history of political philosophy. For Agamben, one of the most important figures in that history is Carl Schmitt whose definition of the sovereign gives occasion to the paradoxical emergence of sovereignty. Schmitt’s sovereign is located either inside or outside of the legal order. Agamben proposes the neither/nor, instead of the either/or, to explain the relation of sovereign to naked live through the exception at the ontological level by demonstrating that Schmitt’s sovereign is indeed located inside or outside of the legal order at once. In this study, I examine how Agamben’s proposed ontological logic of the sovereign exception inserts inside and outside of the law into a functional paradigmatic totality. From the perspective of Agamben’s new political ontology, all legal and political theories, as well as regimes, based on the presupposed duality of inside and outside of the law, whether they are liberal democracies or authoritarian, will inevitably find themselves in the same vicious circle of inside/outside. Thus, emergency situations ought not to be understood as a form of contemporary political crises to be governed and regulated by the law. Quite the opposite, the ontology of sovereign exception is destined to reproduce the exception to the point it becomes regular.

Keywords

Agamben , Schmitt , politik ontoloji , egemen , istisna

ON AGAMBEN’S SOVEREIGN EXCEPTION: THE POLITICAL ONTOLOGY OF SOVEREIGNTY

Abstract

ON AGAMBEN’S SOVEREIGN EXCEPTION: THE POLITICAL ONTOLOGY OF SOVEREIGNTY
Özlem ÜNLÜ
ABSTRACT
On Agamben’s account of the exception, the question of what it is to be exceptional can only be clarified by going back to the history of political philosophy. For Agamben, one of the most important figures in that history is Carl Schmitt whose definition of the sovereign gives occasion to the paradoxical emergence of sovereignty. Schmitt’s sovereign is located either inside or outside of the legal order. Agamben proposes the neither/nor, instead of the either/or, to explain the relation of sovereign to naked live through the exception at the ontological level by demonstrating that Schmitt’s sovereign is indeed located inside or outside of the legal order at once. In this study, I examine how Agamben’s proposed ontological logic of the sovereign exception inserts inside and outside of the law into a functional paradigmatic totality. From the perspective of Agamben’s new political ontology, all legal and political theories, as well as regimes, based on the presupposed duality of inside and outside of the law, whether they are liberal democracies or authoritarian, will inevitably find themselves in the same vicious circle of inside/outside. Thus, emergency situations ought not to be understood as a form of contemporary political crises to be governed and regulated by the law. Quite the opposite, the ontology of sovereign exception is destined to reproduce the exception to the point it becomes regular.
Anahtar Sözcükler: Agamben, Schmitt, political ontology, sovereign, exception
AGAMBEN’İN EGEMEN İSTİSNASI ÜZERİNE: EGEMENLİĞİN POLİTİK ONTOLOJİSİ
ÖZ
Agamben’in istisna durumu açıklamasında, istisnai olmanın ne olduğu ancak politik felsefe tarihine geri dönülerek açıklığa kavuşturulabilir. Agamben için bu tarihin en önemli figürlerinden biri olan Carl Schmitt’in egemen tanımı, egemenliğin paradoksal bir şekilde ortaya çıkışına yol veren bir tanımdır. .Schmitt’in egemeni, yasal düzenin ya içinde ya da dışında yer alır. Agamben, Schmitt’in egemeninin gerçekten de yasal düzenin aynı anda hem içinde hem de dışında yer aldığını göstererek, egemenin çıplak hayatla ilişkisini ontolojik düzeyde istisna yoluyla açıklamak için ya/ya da yerine ne/ne de’yi önerir. Bu çalışmada, Agamben’in egemen istisnasının önerdiği ontolojik mantığının, hukukun içini ve dışını işlevsel paradigmatik bir bütünlüğe nasıl yerleştirdiğini inceliyorum. Agamben’in yeni politik ontolojisinin perspektifinden bakıldığında, hukukun içini ve dışını varsayılan ikiliğine dayanan tüm yasal ve politik teoriler ve rejimler ister liberal demokrasi ister otoriter rejimler olsun, kaçınılmaz olarak kendilerini aynı iç/dış kısır döngüsünde bulacaklardır. Bu nedenle, acil durumlar hukuk tarafından yönetilecek ve düzenlenecek bir tür çağdaş politik kriz olarak anlaşılmamalıdır. Tersine, egemen istisnanın ontolojisi, istisnayı düzenli hale gelene kadar yeniden üretmeye mahkûmdur.
Keywords: Agamben, Schmitt, politik ontoloji, egemen, istisna

Keywords

Agamben , Schmitt , political ontology , exception , sovereign

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