Agamben and Platonic Communism: An Interpretation of The Coming Community

Abstract

One of Agamben’s significant works, which plays an essential role in his ‘coming politics’, is The Coming Community. In this short book, Agamben expresses his thoughts on a liberated community, which he believes would also be a truly human community. In this article, I argue that there is a form of Platonic communism in Agamben’s thought, particularly in The Coming Community. By examining Agamben’s unique interpretation of Plato’s theory of ideas, I suggest that the coming community can be seen as the idea (eidos) of any liberating community, just as whatever being is the idea of man, or man as an idea (eidos). Here, the idea is not a distinct or transcendent entity, but a sensible thing placed in a paradigmatic relationship with itself, representing its intelligibility and universality.

To know how to grasp the stars that fall from the never dreamt-of firmament of humanity is the task of communism. (Agamben, Idea of Prose)

Introduction

Ever since Homo Sacer: Sovereign Power and Bare Life (1998) became known in the English academic world, Agamben’s political thought has been the subject of many debates. After the initial harsh criticisms raised about his ideas (see, for example, Elliott, 2011; Finlayson, 2010; Franchi, 2004; Healy, 2016; Laclau, 2007; Negri, 2007; Sharpe, 2009), now again, amidst the atmosphere of war and unrest in Europe and the Middle East, as well as after the experience of the pandemic, many have reconsidered Agamben’s thoughts from a different perspective – an attempt to reread and rethink the social and political issues of the day, based on both Agamben’s critical and positive views. ¹ However, it remains evident from these readings and discussions that Agamben’s thoughts are often less systematically examined, with most criticisms and praises primarily focusing on his political views. With the publication of The Use of Bodies (2016) as the last volume of the Homo Sacer project, it is now possible to better address the entirety of Agamben’s philosophy. First published 35 years ago, The Coming Community (2007b [1990]) is a work that should be interpreted in relation to Agamben’s other thoughts, particularly his more recent works. In this book, Agamben briefly expresses his ideas about the coming community or ‘true human community’ as the result of human potentiality. As Agamben states, the coming community will consist of ‘whatever beings’; and whatever being is that singular existence that does not have any pre-determined identity. Such a community lacks any social class and, as a result, any condition of belonging. In this community, people, while being singular, belong together in a kind of ‘co-belonging’ and form a kind of ‘togetherness’.

Some scholars consider this book to be the result of discussions at the time of its writing and related to the discourse on community, especially in relation to Nancy’s (1991 [1986]) work The Inoperative Community (see, for example, Lopez, 2011, 2021), and some interpret it in a theological context (Sharpe, 2009; ten Bos, 2005). What I present here, however, is a different interpretation, an ontological or more Agambenian one. This interpretation is based on the two main concepts of ‘whatever being’ and ‘coming community’, and Agamben’s reading of Plato’s theory of ideas. In my opinion, the key to understanding and interpreting this work should be found in Agamben’s other thoughts, especially his reading of Plato’s theory of ideas. Therefore, in this article, I will try to present an interpretation that is more compatible with this theory and the entirety of Agamben’s thought, and at the same time will attempt to reduce ambiguities and distortions regarding this book. Thus, this article first seeks to fill a kind of interpretative gap in the philosophical-political discourse around Agamben’s thoughts and, at the same time, put forward a kind of Agambenian theory about the possibility of being-together or community, which has a Platonic character. But it should be noted that the Platonic attribute does not mean that such a community is based on Plato’s political ideas, as we see for example in Republic, but its Platonic character is in Agamben’s special reading of Plato’s theory of ideas. Agamben believes that Platonic ideas are not transcendental beings independent of sensible things, but the intelligible and linguistic aspect of them. In this way, he places Plato in the middle of a kind of realism and idealism. Such an understanding of Platonic ontology is the key to understanding ‘whatever being’ as the idea of man and ‘the coming community’ as the idea of a redemptive community.

I will try to address a few important questions that are usually left unasked in many works on Agamben. These include questions such as how such a community can be realized, what its relation is to current political realities, and whether it is possible to recognize a kind of communism in Agamben’s thought. I will attempt to show that the relationship of Agamben’s ‘coming community’ to real communities is the same as the relationship of Plato’s ideas to sensible things. This community is not a kind of utopia or a situation and new structure that is supposed to be created one day as a result of class struggle or any kind of civil war. Rather, it is a community that potentially exists in every society (as an idea/eidos) and can be realized with every co-existence of human beings beyond any condition and identity. The members of this community, the ‘whatever beings’, are also the ideas of humans, as potentiality or ‘being-such’, that cannot be reduced to any given and presupposed identity.

Such interpretation helps us understand the important role of this work in Agamben’s project. Moreover, it allows us to better comprehend the meaning of ‘being whatever’ and the ‘coming’ in the ‘coming community’, providing a hermeneutical key to decipher the ambiguities of this work. Additionally, this article may prompt us to consider the common and communism from a new perspective, an aspect that Agamben has less frequently explored in his works. In this way, we may be able to answer critics like Žižek, who suggests that Agamben is passively waiting for a ‘revolutionary god’ to save us (Žižek, 2008: 338, cited in McLoughlin, 2016: 4). Whether we accept that Agamben’s concept of coming politics is redemptive or not, or whether we believe that using his ideas can help us make a fundamental change, my interpretation suggests that Agamben is not waiting for any god, or savior power. Agamben’s ‘coming’ community is an idea that already exists in human societies, and at the very least, we can say that he is not utopian in the conventional sense of seeking a predetermined political-social order.

Agamben’s Reading of Plato’s Theory of Ideas

Agamben has interpreted the Platonic theory of idea (eidos) in various works, especially during the first decade of his intellectual activity. These interpretations have developed over the years, gaining methodological importance crucial for our discussion. To understand the coming community, we must first explain Agamben’s interpretation of Plato’s theory of ideas. His initial discussion appears in his essays on language in Potentialities (1999). In The Thing Itself, he interprets Plato’s Seventh Letter and the problem of knowledge and ideas. Agamben’s main issue is determining the true subject of thinking, or ‘the thing itself’, which he believes can only be understood within the theory of ideas (Agamben, 1999a: 29–30). ²

In the Seventh Letter, Plato discusses five things through which true knowledge becomes possible: name (onoma), definition (logos), image (eidolon), knowledge (episteme) and ‘the thing itself’(to pragma auto) (342a8–343a3). ³ Agamben believes that the fifth element that Plato adds to these conditions of knowledge is not something transcendent and unrelated to language, but the ‘intelligibility’ and ‘sayability’ of things. ‘The thing itself’ is not a mysterious and inaccessible entity, which is the idea of the thing, that is, its linguistic existence, something that makes knowledge possible. From Agamben’s point of view, this point is determined by Plato’s explanations about the conditionality of the understanding of the first four things to the fifth. But in addition, according to Agamben, modern editors have followed an editing error. That is, instead of ‘by which’ (di’ ho), they used ‘which’ (dei ho) – the thing that makes everything intelligible – and this thing is the idea or linguistic aspect of things. Therefore, in Agamben’s interpretation, Plato says that language is what makes things intelligible and, as a result, makes the episteme possible. Thus, the thing itself is not one thing – it is the sayability, the openness of the world in language, which we always pre-suppose and forget- the thing itself is the result of the presuppositional feature of human language. In Agamben’s language: ‘The thing itself is not a thing; it is the very sayability, the very openness at issue in language, which, in language, we always presuppose and forget, perhaps because it is at bottom its own oblivion and abandonment’ (Agamben, 1999a: 35); and ‘because language supposes and hides what it brings to light, in the very act in which it brings it to light’ (Agamben, 1999a: 33). ⁴

In his essay The Idea of Language, Agamben argues that revelation’s content is not beyond understanding but is language itself. The mysterious content of revelation is the existence of language, which humans use to see the world but do not see the language iteself. Agamben asserts that the true subject of thought is the existence of language. While contemporary philosophy has focused on language, it has not sufficiently addressed its existence. Philosophical thought, according to Agamben, can only address this by considering the theory of ideas, with the idea being the essence of language or the linguistic aspect (intelligibility) of things (Agamben, 1999a: 46–7). Therefore, the real subject of thinking is not ‘the thing itself’ as an inexpressible being, but ‘expressibility’ itself. In the same way, what makes a true human community or ‘community without presupposition’ possible, is not a specific feature such as identity, nationality, language, etc., but ‘the vision of language itself‘ (or being-in-the language) and therefore the experience of its boundaries and its ‘end’ (Agamben, 1999a: 47). ⁵

Agamben (2018a) once again, in a detailed article (‘On the Sayable and the Idea’, published in the book What is Philosophy?), tried to think more about the theory of ideas. This is Agamben’s most detailed discussion about this topic and shows its importance in his thought. Of course, its content is the same as what is stated in the articles mentioned, but Agamben tries here to provide more details and reasons for his interpretation. Agamben shows that while Aristotle removes the idea (eidos) from his list in On Interpretation (16a3–7), the Stoics replace it with the lekton or ‘the sayable’:

The λεκτόν is neither the thing nor the word: it is the thing in its sayability, in its being at stake [essere in causa] in the word, just as in the Seventh Letter the idea is not simply the thing, but the ‘thing itself’ in its being knowable (γνωστόν, knowable, corresponds here exactly to λεκτόν, sayable). (Agamben, 2018a: 44)

Agamben elaborates that the idea, or the thing itself, is the intelligibility of the object or its ability to be-named-in-language. While the idea cannot be reduced to a name, it cannot exist without language. The idea represents the expressible existence or linguistic character of the object, enabling it to be named. It is not a name but the linguistic essence of things, the possibility of being named in language. Thus, the idea exists only within the realm of language. Additionally, the idea stands beside the sensible thing, making it possible to be named and, consequently, intelligible:

In this sense, what is enlightening is the Stoics’ use of the verb παρυϕίστασθαι with reference to the sayables: they do not exist but ‘subsist beside’ (this is the literal meaning of the verb) thought or logical representation, just as the idea is the paradigm, that which shows itself beside (παρά-δειγμα) things. (Agamben, 2018a: 43–4)

Therefore, the idea is neither particular nor universal but negates this opposition as a third entity (Agamben, 2018a: 55). The idea is the paradigm, meaning the relationship between the idea and the tangible thing is paradigmatic; the idea is possible through the sensible thing: ‘The taking place of a body is that which, distinct from the body, somehow relates it to the intelligible: for this reason, the idea – the intelligibility or sayability of every entity – takes place in the taking place of the sensible’ (Agamben, 2018a 76).

This discussion is elaborated in Agamben’s thoughts on the methodological aspects of the theory of ideas and the concept of paradigm. In What Is a Paradigm?, referring to Victor Goldschmidt’s interpretation of the paradigm or example in Plato’s dialogues, Agamben explores the methodological function of the idea. He notes that in Plato’s dialogues, sometimes the idea is the paradigm of the sensible thing, and sometimes the sensible thing is the paradigm of the idea. But how does Plato define paradigm? In Statesman, Plato says:

A paradigm is generated when an entity, which is found in something other and separated [diespasmenoi; a Greek term meaning ‘torn’ or ‘lacerated’] in another entity, is judged correctly and recognized as the same, and having been reconnected together generates a true and unique opinion concerning each and both. (278c, in Agamben, 2009a: 23) ⁶

Goldschmidt finds a contradiction in the relationship between the sensible and the mental, as it seems the sensible thing includes the idea or what needs defining. However, Agamben believes this contradiction is resolved through the paradigmatic relationship. A paradigm is not just a sensible element in two places but a relationship between the sensible and the mental. This relationship is not a recognizable similarity but a similarity produced by a function:

For this reason, the paradigm is never already given, but is generated and produced by ‘placing alongside’, ‘conjoining together,’ and above all by ‘showing’ and ‘exposing’. The paradigmatic relation does not merely occur between sensible objects or between these objects and a general rule; it occurs instead between a singularity (which thus becomes a paradigm) and its exposition (its intelligibility). (Agamben, 2009a: 23–4)

In the same way, the problem of the relationship between ideas and sensible things is resolved. The relationship between these two is a paradigmatic relationship. It means that the idea is not a distinct thing and an independent entity, but ‘it is the sensible considered as a paradigm – that is, in the medium of its intelligibility’ (Agamben, 2009a: 26). Therefore, here too, Agamben defines the idea as intelligibility, or the linguistic existence of things. Or maybe it can be said that here the previous discussions about the idea are completed and understood by considering the paradigmatic relation. The idea – the thing itself – is the intelligible or the linguistic aspect of things that is revealed to the speaking being when the object is placed in a paradigmatic relationship, that is, as a paradigm it is separated from its usual function and shows its universality. From this point of view, the idea-paradigm is both universal and particular, both tangible and intelligible, and at the same time, it cannot be reduced to any of them.

Therefore, the thing itself, which is the subject of philosophical thinking, is the idea; and the idea is the linguistic existence, or the intelligibility and comprehensibility of things, which is formed by establishing a paradigmatic relationship between the object and itself. From this perspective, the idea is the tangible object that stands next to itself, or it is a singular object that shows its common and general character by suspending its usual function. Idea (eidos) is both singular and universal, idea is beyond this opposition. Moreover, idea is possible only in language, or by and for a linguistic presence. If the idea is a communicable feature of things, and language is pure communication, then the idea becomes comprehensible only in the context of language and for a being-in-language. The idea is the openness-intelligibility of things for human beings. As we will see, the same characteristics can be found regarding the existence of whatever beings and coming community.

Coming Community and Whatever Beings

Before demonstrating how the ‘coming community’ should be understood on the basis of this interpretation of the theory of ideas, we must first examine what this community is.

According to Agamben, the subject of coming politics or liberating politics will be ‘whatever beings’. But what does Agamben mean by ‘whatever’ and how this characteristic can make a being ‘singular’? The first point about ‘whatever being’ is that such a being is devoid of any identity. In fact, the first characteristic of ‘being whatever’ is the negation of any predetermined identity. The special feature of whatever being or its thisness is its being-thus. But this does not mean that the identity and the content of it is unimportant; on the contrary, whatever being is ‘being such that it always matters’ (Agamben, 2007b: 1).

To understand ‘whatever’ we need to explore its relationship with ‘singularity’. Whatever being in being-thus is connected with singularity, ‘not in its indifference with respect to a common property . . . but only in its being such as it is’ (Agamben, 2007b: 2). The relationship between ‘whatever’ and ‘singularity’ is best explained in the context of the universal and the particular. Agamben argues that whatever being transcends this duality, meaning it is neither completely particular nor completely universal. In Platonic terms, it is the intelligibility (universality) of the particular and the particularity of the universal; a kind of idea (eidos). Whatever being is free from any identity, meaning no identity can define it or classify it, but in this lack of identity lies the condition of belonging that connects whatever beings. Thus, while whatever being is singular, it belongs to a set. Agamben believes the intelligible is ‘a singularity insofar as it is whatever singularity’. It cannot be defined by any specific feature; it is simply being-such. This being-such is the condition of belonging in the singular. The intelligibility of the particular becomes meaningful in the paradox of simultaneously belonging to and being separate from the whole (Agamben, 2007b: 2).

Singularity and universality of whatever being can be also analyzed based on the place of an ‘example’. An example is a particular case that belongs to a collection, but as an example, it neutralizes its own particularity to represent the universality (or the logic) of the collection. For example, the sentence ‘I love you’ as a linguistic example no longer has its usual function, but it is a reflection of its linguistic features: ‘Neither particular nor universal, the example is a singular object that presents itself as such, that shows its singularity’ (Agamben, 2007b: 9). As an example has a paradigmatic relation with itself and the set to which it belongs, ‘whatever beings’ also have a paradigmatic relation with themselves. That is, each of them is at the same time singular and universal: ‘The pure singularities communicate only in the empty space of the example, without being tied by any common property, by any identity. They are expropriated of all identity, so as to appropriate belonging itself’ (Agamben, 2007b: 10). Therefore, whatever being is a particular thing that returns to its universality, or by standing beside itself (para-digma), it reveals its universality and its belonging to a group.

Nonetheless, the relationship between singularity and being whatever is still unclear. In fact, it is not clear how whatever being can be ‘distinct’ without having any specific essence and nature. Or in other words, we should ask how the relationship between ‘individuality’ or ‘this-ness’ and commonality among whatever beings can be understood. According to Agamben, ‘whatever’ is constructed based on the indifference of ‘the common’ and ‘the proper’, genus and species, essential and accidental. It can be said that here we are dealing with a kind of ‘inessential commonality’. That is, what is common between whatever beings does not make any essence, but simply gives them objectivity or disseminates them in existence: ‘Whatever is the thing with all its properties, none of which, however, constitutes difference. In-difference with respect to properties is what individuates and disseminates singularities, makes them lovable (quodlibetable)’ (Agamben, 2007b: 18, emphasis in the original).

In other words, taking the place of a singularity is the same as the transition from the potentiality (the common) to the actuality (singularity), an event that is not realized once and forever, but continuously and sequentially happens (Agamben, 2007b). Whatever beings are completely common in their being-thus, that is, their potentiality, and they become unique in every taking place. But this uniqueness does not mean having a specific and fixed essence. The potentiality of whatever being does not end in its realization and individuality, but returns to its potentiality every time. From this point of view, whatever being cannot be reduced to in-difference and sameness, nor pure identity and differentiation. It is as if taking the place of whatever being is the event of Spinoza’s substance, which multiplies and has unity (see Agamben, 2007b: 18). In Agamben’s language, whatever being is neither the realization of an essence nor existence, but ‘a manner of rising forth’ (Agamben, 2007b: 27). And rising forth is the principle of individuality of whatever being. The concept of rising forth is very important here. As previously stated, even though whatever beings lack a definite and fixed essence, their existence is their potential. They are intimated to each other in this potentiality and the common, yet they differ in singularity, that is, in the act of rising forth. This distinction is not a substantial difference, but a mode of common being. Therefore, intimacy resides in the realm of commonality and potentiality, while differentiation manifests in the act of rising forth and singularity.

From this perspective, man as a whatever being lacks a specific essence and nature defined by action and actuality. Man is a ‘mode’ of Being, constantly moving between potentiality and actuality, the common and the proper; this movement is humanity’s ethos. ⁷ Agamben insists we should stop defining man based on ‘will’ and ‘action’ (the metaphysics of the will). ⁸ The special characteristic of man as ‘whatever being’ is preserving potentiality, which does not end in actuality. This preservation makes ethical experience possible. Man is ethical because he can act and not act, maintaining his potentiality (returning to being-whatever) (see Agamben, 2007b: 42–4). The coming community is also the result of the co-existence or co-belonging of these beings and these potentialities; the realization of this community and the condition of its belonging is nothing but the potentiality itself.

Agamben believes that today there is no social class, only a ‘global petty bourgeoisie’ that denies any social identity. This global petty bourgeoisie is the heir of nihilism (Agamben, 2007b: 62), rooted in the negation of any identifiable social identity and originality, based on extreme individualism. However, Agamben sees this lack of identity as an opportunity. He believes these conditions allow man to recognize himself as a singularity without identity, free from capitalism and the state. This is an opportunity to build a community without presuppositions and subjects. ⁹

Since Agamben considers the essential condition of belonging to be ‘whatever’, he sees the depletion of identities in the society of spectacle as an opportunity for man to be devoid of any essence. For Agamben, human liberation from power and consumerism requires transcending any predetermined identity. As Jessica Whyte says, the petty bourgeoisie does not act as a ‘transitional class’ as it did for Marx but offers a chance to understand and reclaim human potential. This provides an opportunity to escape the mechanism of inclusive-exclusion of power, which seeks identification and substantivization (see Whyte, 2010: 3–4). For Agamben, this petty bourgeoisie enables man to realize that his existence cannot be reduced to any identity. As Agamben says: ‘then they would for the first time enter into a community without presuppositions and without subjects, into a communication without the incommunicable’ (Agamben, 2007b: 64).

Such a community, whose members are whatever beings, that is, beings that are free from any given identity and live in their potentiality, is a community without any class and is thus distinguished from a society: ‘Whatever singularities cannot form a societas because they do not possess any identity to vindicate nor any bond of belonging for which to seek recognition’ (Agamben, 2007b: 85). If a society is based on the ‘relationship’ between people, and between them there is a war of recognition, in Hegel’s language, in the community of whatever being there is neither relationship nor war for recognition. Rather, by suspending any given identity, and by reclaiming potentiality, the members of this community make the anthropological machine – that is, the condition for the survival of the state/sovereignty – inoperative; and in this way, they free the human being from the bondage of nihilism. Perhaps it can be said that this is a community among friends, ¹⁰ a community in which there is not ‘relationship’ but ‘intimacy’ among its members. ¹¹ A friendly community where people feel each other without seeking to confirm their identity, and at the same time things are released from the category of ‘ownership’ and ‘consumption’ and are returned to human ‘free use’ – the end of the capitalism of spectacle. ¹²

Agamben defines intimacy as ‘the use-of-oneself as relation with an inappropriable’ (Agamben, 2017: 1110). In this sense, intimacy is one’s experience of oneself that is beyond any identity, subjectivity, and appropriation. But if intimacy is an experience in relation to the self, how can we talk about intimacy between whatever beings? First, using Aristotle’s concepts, there is a kind of friendship among whatever beings, and a friend is an other self (heteros autos). In this way, whatever beings in their co-existence experience the common in a friendly way; it is a kind of sharing and experiencing the self beyond subjectivity and ownership. This is why Agamben considers the sharing of the inappropriable to be possible through love: ‘The sharing of this inappropriable is love’ (Agamben, 2017: 1112). As in love, a kind of crossing of subjectivity is experienced, when the lover and the beloved reach a kind of self-sacrifice and unity. On the other hand, the common, that is, what whatever beings experience, or the potentiality and being whatever, is itself inappropriable: ‘What is common is never a property but only the inappropriable’ (Agamben, 2017: 1111–12, emphasis in the original). That is, whatever beings experience the common in the experience of intimacy with themselves and others. Therefore, intimacy is a kind of experience of the common in being whatever, when subjectivity and power relations are inoperative (see also Fusco, 2023: 157ff.).

Therefore, the politics established in such a community has only one enemy, and that is the State. This politics is the result of a community whose members have been freed from the war of recognition in pursuit of the salvation of humanity itself, or its being-whatever:

The novelty of the coming politics is that it will no longer be a struggle for the conquest or control of the State, but a struggle between the State and the non-State (humanity), an insurmountable disjunction between whatever singularity and the State organization. (Agamben, 2007b: 84, emphasis in the original)

In Agamben’s view, the state always seeks to give identity to people; the state is ready to recognize even completely opposite identities for its survival, but what it cannot tolerate, or what always escapes its control, is the lack of any identity. Thus, by returning to potentiality, or by living in being whatever, man is fundamentally freed from the control of the state (see Agamben, 2007b: 85.). In such a situation, when man regains his potential and forms the coming community in a kind of co-belonging, the true face of the sovereignty/state can also be seen: tanks (Agamben, 2007b: 86)!

So, coming community is that community in which: 1) its members are human beings as whatever beings, and ‘whatever’ means potentiality (or the ability to do and not do) or the humanity that cannot be reduced to any identity; 2) these members possess both singularity and universality; they cannot be reduced to indifference, their nature and what they are is very important because it is exactly the emergence of being-whatever; 3) the politics formed in this community has only one enemy: the state as the inhuman, or that apparatus which tries to reduce humanity to a controllable identity (subjectivity).

Towards a Platonic Communism

Now we can address how the community of ‘whatever beings’, or the ‘coming community’, can be understood based on Agamben’s interpretation of the theory of ideas. In other words, we will examine the relationship between Agamben’s coming community and real communities, and how it can be considered a form of Platonic communism.

Since the people who make up the coming community are ‘whatever beings’, our interpretation here also begins with this concept. As we have seen, whatever being is a being that does not have any pre-given identity; that is, its nature is being-thus. But this does not mean that whatever being is simply indifferent or does not have individuality. This being is universal and proper at the same time. Is not this the same characteristic that Agamben attributes to paradigm and idea? Just as an idea is a sensible thing that is placed in a paradigmatic relationship with itself and in this way, by suspending its normal function, represents its universality and intelligibility, whatever being is the idea of the human being; man as potentiality and ability to do and not do. ¹³ For this reason, Agamben explains the existence of whatever beings with ‘examples’ or ‘paradigms’ and believes that the coming community consists of ‘paradigmatic’ relationships. That is, it is a set of the co-existence of paradigms. As we have seen, the paradigmatic relationship is beyond the opposition of the particular and the universal; an idea or paradigm is both general and proper. But at the same time, it cannot be reduced to one of them. Though whatever being (man) is individualized in passing from potentiality to action, it cannot be reduced to this individuality and essence – it is the paradigm of man. Whatever being is a human being who has freed themselves from the control of any pre-given identity. They have stood next to themselves (para-digma) and thus are both proper and general. They present their universality and intelligibility or their linguistic character (to-be-named): not this or that specific identity, but being-called this or that, and this is the characteristic that makes all belonging possible, that is, it is the condition for the realization of any human community: ‘Exemplary is what is not defined by any property, except by being-called. Not being-red, but being-called-red; not being-Jakob, but being-called-Jakob defines the example [. . .] Being-called-the property that establishes all possible belongings’ (Agamben, 2007b: 9, emphasis in the original).

Therefore, as the idea is based on the paradigmatic relationship between the sensible thing and itself, and a paradigm is an example that shows its comprehensibility by suspending its usual function, whatever being, in reappropriating its being whatever (potentiality), represents the communicability and co-belonging of human beings:

Whatever is singularity insofar as it relates not (only) to the concept, but (also) to the idea. This relation does not find a new class, but is, in each class, that which draws singularity from its synonymy, from its belonging to a class, not toward any absence of name or belonging, but toward the name itself, toward a pure and anonymous homonym. What remains without name here is the being-named, the name itself (nomen innominabile); only being-in-language is subtracted from the authority of language. According to a Platonic tautology, which we are still far from understanding, the idea of a thing is the thing itself; the name, insofar as it names a thing, is nothing but the thing insofar as it is named by the name. (Agamben, 2007b: 75–6, emphasis in the original)

As a result, the community formed from these ‘singular whatever beings’ is not a society (societas) consisting of people with predetermined identities that can be reduced to a class and between them there is a war of recognition and interests, which is a kind of co-existence, representing the true belonging of humans, that is, pure potentialities. The coming community is a collection of singular whatever beings, that is, beings as ideas and paradigms, and it is the idea of any liberating community or any true human community. The key question is the relationship between this community and real communities. Is it an ideal that can never be realized and should always be aspired to? This can be answered by considering the relationship between the idea and the sensible. If the coming community is the idea or paradigm of any human community, it is not mysterious and inaccessible but the tangible human community elevated to a paradigm. The coming community is the universality-idea-intelligibility hidden in every society. When humans are freed from societal conditions, regain their potentiality, and recognize themselves as whatever beings, a co-belonging forms, creating a liberating community. Therefore, the coming community is already-here – not everything is supposed to change to be created; the coming community is always possible. ¹⁴ For this reason, Agamben presents Tiananmen as an example of the coming community – that is, a social protest by the Chinese people that lacked any clear identity. In this gathering, people from different occupations, with different demands, were united and their community could not be reduced to any particular demand or identity. Therefore, the government quickly grasped the first demand so that it could control it by reducing it to a specific identity (see Agamben, 2007b: 84).

Nonetheless, it is important to note that, as Agamben stated, a sensible thing can be understood as an idea only when it establishes a paradigmatic relationship with itself. And this relation is not predetermined – it is a relation that should be created. In the same way, Tiananmen is a concrete example of the community of whatever beings that Agamben takes as a paradigm. But can every community be defined with the power of interpretation as a type of coming community? The answer is no. Only a community that possesses the previously mentioned characteristics can be an example of the coming community. Or, in Plato’s language, it must have a fundamental similarity, a similarity that results from the participation of a particular in the universal. Therefore, the coming community is the idea (eidos) of any human or liberating community, and what Agamben proposes in The Coming Community is also an explanation of the characteristics of this idea.

While we have examined Agamben’s account of the characteristics of a coming community, an important question remains: How can man establish a paradigmatic relationship with themselves or regain their potentialities to become ‘whatever’ and embody the idea of man? This involves one of Agamben’s key political ideas. He argues that establishing a paradigmatic relationship is possible only in the field of language. Since the idea and the paradigmatic relationship are linguistic, or the idea is the linguistic being and being-called (‘the thing itself’ is being-in-language), establishing and understanding such a relationship is only possible for a being with language, requiring a linguistic experience (experimentum linguae). Similarly, any true human community becomes possible through this experience. The commonality for humans is to-be-in-language, enabling communication, belonging, and community. Thus, establishing a paradigmatic relationship results from being in language. However, the question remains: How can a person establish such a relationship with themselves? This is where Agamben discusses ‘thought’, a concept connected with form-of-life.

Agamben asserts that what transforms a life into a form-of-life ¹⁵ is the power of thought. It is the thought that makes reappropriating potentiality possible. Thought is not a mental and psychological ability but a kind of experience (experimentum) of the potential of human life and human intelligence. For Agamben, thought is not a faculty or just being affected by things; rather, ‘experience of one’s own receptivity’ is a kind of experience of the possibility and potentiality of thinking. Thought is a kind of experience in connection with self and the body, or it is ‘in this sense, always use of oneself, always entails the affection that one receives insofar as one is in contact with a determinate body’ (Agamben, 2017: 1217, see also Dickinson, 2022). From this point of view, through thought, human beings establish a new relationship with themselves; thought is a type of experience of the common, an experience of potentiality that also makes human co-existence possible:

The experience of thought that is here in question is always an experience of a potential and of a common use. Community and potential are identified without remainder, because the inherence of a communitarian principle in every potential is a function of the necessarily potential character of every community. [. . .] We can communicate with others only through what in us, as in others, has remained in potential. (Agamben, 2017: 1217)

In other words, we should ‘use’ our-selves. Agamben contrasts use with consumption. He believes that in the final stage of capitalism, the capitalism of spectacle, things have become mere commodities or sacred, ‘separated’ from human life (see Agamben, 2007c: 82ff.). As a form of resistance, Agamben advocates for ‘use’, which involves returning things to human life and making them ‘profane’. Similarly, in contemporary society, humans have been reduced to subjectivity, a means to identify and subjugate them. Agamben suggests establishing a new relationship with the self or creating a new use for it. This use involves discarding identities and subjectivity through the power of thought. Thought is the only experience and ability that can bring a person back to themselves. In this context, thought can return a person to what they are, enabling them to create a paradigmatic relationship with them-selves and embody the idea of a human being. ¹⁶

In form-of-life, humanity is not a one-time event but an ongoing process, as whatever being is continually transferred from potentiality to action, from common to unique, and back: ‘This means that what we call form-of-life is a life in which the event of anthropogenesis – the becoming human of the human being – is still happening’ (Agamben, 2007c: 124–5). Each time a person establishes a new relationship with themselves, freeing themselves from subjectivity and consumption to appear as a whatever being (human), they embody the idea of humanity. From this perspective, the coming community is a community in which form-of-life is established; form-of-life is a possibility hidden in human life that can appear through the power of thought.

Similarly, establishing a paradigmatic relationship or understanding an object as an idea is the result of thought (as for Plato understanding ideas requires a dialectical process of thought). Since humans are thinking beings, by freeing themselves from any pre-given identity, they can reveal their humanity-potentiality – or being whatever – and become a paradigm. The co-existence of these individuals forms a community based on a paradigmatic relationship, embodying the idea of a liberating community. At the level of philosophical thought, which, according to Agamben, should deal with being-in-language or the idea (the thing itself), it is the power of thought that makes philosophical work possible and allows philosophy ‘to come with speech to help speech’ (Agamben, 1999a: 35) and establish itself as a thought about thought. Thus, philosophy is the thought of thought or ontology of ontology. Therefore, Agamben’s coming politics relies on the power of thought (see Jamali, 2024).

Finally, it seems fair to assert that there is a kind of communism in Agamben’s thought, which means that he seeks a community fundamentally different from existing societies, but this community is not the result of any class struggle, it is not a kind of utopia. It is not a new political-economic structure that should be created by changing institutions, but it is a community that is present within the people themselves and within the current societies, and it needs the return of people to themselves, it needs creating a new relationship with self and things – that is, it needs the power of thought to be revealed. This community is the idea of any liberating community and it is a kind of Platonic communism.

Agamben seeks to profane law, man, and society, avoiding any specific alternative that would fall under the logic of inclusive-exclusion of sovereign power (see Whyte, 2010: 3ff.). However, does this not suggest a kind of individualism, emphasizing inner liberation? Although Agamben focuses on the ‘self’, this does not imply liberal individualism that atomizes society. Instead, individuality here is singularity understood in connection with universality or community. Singularity, in its uniqueness, manifests the group it belongs to. Thus, while Agamben’s basis for liberation is the individual, individuality gains meaning through participation in the collective, with thought being the main experience of this participation. Thought, from Agamben’s view, is a common potential shared through individual thinking. Though thought becomes real through individual participation, it cannot be reduced to a single thinking (see Agamben, 2017: 1217ff.). Therefore, the coming community, as the idea (eidos) of human community, is not a specific political or social structure but the co-existence of human beings, the experience of being human as potential. This community has a Platonic character, meaning it is the idea of every liberating community and is already present, as eidos is present in any sensible thing as its intelligibility.

Agamben’s idea of human co-existence beyond subjectivity and recognition wars resembles revolutionary gatherings, where people unite against a common enemy beyond personal benefit. He suggests that the co-existence of ‘whatever beings’ realizes the idea of being human. However, such a community is always temporary and transitory, as people soon return to their identities or find new ones. Agamben argues that humanity is a continuous transition from identity and subjectivity to ‘whatever being’ and vice versa, moving from potentiality to action while maintaining potential. This perspective seems like political stoicism, believing thought is powerful enough to always bring a person back to their potential, making human freedom a kind of inner freedom. But is not such a community a form of idealism? Can this strategy and communism fundamentally change the existing social situation? Social and political realities suggest otherwise.

I think, while Agamben tries to find a way of political action beyond subjectivity and sovereign power by relying on the power of thought and self-awareness, the current political facts show that even thought cannot be free from power relations. In fact, firstly, thought itself finds its content and concepts from discourses, from the language that is the result of human relations and knowledge (in the Foucauldian sense). Secondly, even if people can relieve themselves from identities and presuppositions, even if they regain an inner freedom, that does not necessarily lead to a free and humane community, as the power of institutions, the power of the state, and the power of economy cannot be ignored. ¹⁷ Nevertheless, the way Agamben has opened for thinking about man and society calls us to think more deeply.

Agamben and Communism

To conclude, it is important to briefly connect Agamben with current discussions on communism. The idea of communism has been explored in various ways, notably in three conferences titled ‘The Idea of Communism’ (London, 2009; New York, 2011; Seoul, 2013). Agamben’s writings are absent from these discussions. How can we integrate Agamben into the current discourse on communism? Among these thinkers, we see Alain Badiou, who also talks about ‘the idea of communism’. There are some similarities and some differences between Badiou and Agamben. While for Agamben, the coming community is based on the power of thought and being whatever as an idea beyond any subjectivity, for Badiou, the process of ‘ideation’ and becoming a Subject is the result of an ‘event’. According to Badiou, we should distinguish between the ‘human animal’ as an ‘individual’ and the human as a Subject. By encountering an event, an individual makes a decision to be faithful to it, and by that, they will incorporate into a universal Subject. In fact, for Badiou, humanity is nothing except this movement from individuality to universality. Thus, while for Agamben it is the inner power of thought that leads a person to be whatever or in-common, the cause of ideation and subjectivity for Badiou is an outside event (see Badiou, 2010, 2011, 2015). Nonetheless, both emphasize this being-in-common and surpassing individuality as the origin of community.

From another perspective, Negri and Hardt (see Hardt, 2010; Negri, 2010) attempt to find a liberating community in new biopolitical production and economy. As Hardt says, capitalism today increasingly reveals ‘the common’ in production, presenting an opportunity to think and move towards communism. In this context, Agamben also sees potential in the current situation for appropriating human potentiality beyond any identity and subjectivity. However, while Hardt and Negri view biopolitics as a positive economic-political phenomenon, Agamben considers biopolitics to be nothing more than thanatopolitics. Thus, for Hardt and Negri, the common element in communism is rooted in positive biopolitics, whereas for Agamben, the coming community is possible only by making it inoperative.

By reading Agamben’s The Coming Community through his interpretation of the Platonic theory of ideas, we can find a different type of communism. This communism is based on human potentiality and the power of thought, rather than praxis and production or waiting for a significant event. This being-in-common finds its root and power in the power of thought as the greatest human potentiality, surpassing any kind of subjectivity, class struggle, or recognition war. Therefore, communism for Agamben is not a ‘ghost’, as Vattimo (2010) says, unless by ghost we mean an ‘idea’ that is nothing except the intelligibility and communality present in any real society.

Conclusion

How should we understand the coming community or being-in-common according to Agamben? In this article, I have illustrated how Agamben’s concept of the ‘coming community’ can be interpreted through his reading of Plato’s theory of ideas. The notion of ‘being whatever’ occupies the place of the idea (eidos), which humans can achieve by making new use of themselves and the power of thought. This paradigmatic relation mirrors the connection between ideas and sensible things in the Platonic context. Consequently, the coming community is a community of whatever beings that, through such a paradigmatic relation, surpass subjectivity and identity to actualize the idea of a liberating community.

Accepting this interpretation allows us to view Agamben’s coming community as a significant contribution to the ongoing theoretical efforts to redefine communism and find new meaning and function for being-in-common. While there are similarities between Agamben and philosophers such as Badiou and Negri-Hardt, fundamental differences exist, particularly Agamben’s emphasis on transcending subjectivity and the biopolitical apparatus. Agamben’s vision of communism represents a new Platonic understanding of ideas, language, and human potentiality, rooted in the communality of thought. Whether this vision and political philosophy can lead to a more humane political and social situation is a question that requires further contemplation.