This article contributes to debates concerning the influence of ancient Greek political thought on contemporary biopolitics and antipolitical resistance. Building on the work of Michel Foucault and Giorgio Agamben, I first investigate the ancient roots of biopolitics in the writings of Aristotle. Innovatively combining Foucault's late lectures, Agamben's theory of form-of-life, and the critical concept of antipolitics, I next consider two paradigmatic cases of ancient resistance to biopolitics: Socrates and Diogenes the Cynic. In choosing death rather than ceasing to philosophise, I argue that Socrates affirmed the inseparability of his biological life from its (anti)political and philosophical form. While this model resists biopolitical logics, I demonstrate its limitations through a comparison between Socrates and Bartleby the Scrivener. I further argue that Diogenes’ antipolitical form-of-life more effectively evades and undermines the ontological presuppositions of biopolitics and can therefore serve as a fruitful model for resistance to biopolitics’ contemporary manifestations.
AgambenG. (1997). Homo Sacer: Sovereign power and bare life (Trans. Daniel Heller-Roazen). Stanford University Press.
2.
AgambenG. (2004). The open: Man and animal (Trans. Kevin Attell). Stanford University Press.
3.
AgambenG. (2005). State of exception (Trans. Kevin Attell). Chicago University Press.
4.
AgambenG. (2009a). The signature of all things: On method (Trans. Luca D’Insanto with Kevin Attell). Zone Books.
5.
AgambenG. (2009b). What is an apparatus? And other essays (Trans. David Kishik and Stefan Pedatella). Stanford University Press.
6.
AgambenG. (2011). The kingdom and the glory: For a theological genealogy of economy and government (Trans. Lorenzo Chiesa, with Matteo Mandarini). Stanford University Press.
7.
AgambenG. (2015). Stasis: Civil war as paradigm (Trans. Nicholas Heron). Edinburgh University Press.
8.
AgambenG. (2016). The use of bodies (Trans. Adam Kotsko). Stanford University Press.
9.
Aristotle. (1958). The politics (Trans. Ernest Barker). Oxford University Press.
10.
Aristotle (2017). De Anima (Trans. C. D. C. Reeve). Hackett.
11.
BirdG.LynchH. (2019). Introduction to the politics of life: A biopolitical mess. European Journal of Social Theory, 22(3), 301–316. https://doi.org/10.1177/1368431019838455
12.
DanewidI. (2023). Resisting racial capitalism: An antipolitical theory of refusal. Cambridge University Press.
13.
EspositoR. (2008). Bios: Biopolitics and philosophy (Trans. Timothy Campbell). University of Minnesota Press.
FoucaultM. (1969). The archaeology of knowledge (Trans. A. M. Sheridan Smith). Routledge.
17.
FoucaultM. (1998). The will to knowledge: The history of sexuality, volume 1 (Trans. Robert Hurley). Penguin.
18.
FoucaultM. (2002). The subject and power. In FaubionJ. D. (Ed.), Power: Essential works of Michel Foucault, volume three (pp. 326–348). Penguin.
19.
FoucaultM. (2010). The government of self and others: Lectures at the Collège de France, 1982–1983 (Trans. Graham Burchell). Palgrave Macmillan.
20.
FoucaultM. (2011). The courage of truth: Lectures at the Collège de France, 1983–1984 (Trans. Graham Burchell). Palgrave Macmillan.
21.
HardtM.NegriA. (2000). Empire. Harvard University Press.
22.
HarneyS.MotenF. (2013). The undercommons: Fugitive planning and black study. Minor Compositions.
23.
JamaliA. (2025). Agamben and platonic communism: An interpretation of the coming community, theory. Culture & Society, 42(4), 61–79. https://doi.org/10.1177/02632764251317496
24.
KotskoA. (2020). Agamben’s philosophical trajectory. Edinburgh University Press.
25.
LemmV. (2014). The embodiment of truth and the politics of community: Foucault and the cynics. In LemmV.VatterM. (Eds.), The government of life: Foucault, biopolitics, and neoliberalism (pp. 208–223). Fordham University Press.
26.
LemmV. (2024). Community and animality in the ancient cynics. In CimattiF.SalzaniC. (Eds.), The biopolitical animal (pp. 40–57). Edinburgh University Press.
MotenF. (2018a). Stolen life: Consent not to be a single being, Vol. 2. Duke University Press.
29.
MotenF. (2018b). The universal machine: Consent not to be a single being, Vol. 3. Duke University Press.
30.
OjakangasM. (2016). Biopolitics in the political thought of classical Greece. In ProzorovS.RenteaS. (Eds.), The Routledge handbook of biopolitics (pp. 23–35). Routledge.
31.
OjakangasM. (2017). Plato. In KotskoA.SalzaniC. (Eds.), Agamben’s philosophical lineage (pp. 178–185). Edinburgh University Press.
32.
OjakangasM. (2022). Plato and the biopolitical purge of the city-state. In BlackmanJ.CiminoA. (Eds.), Biopolitics and ancient thought (pp. 38–58). Oxford University Press.
33.
OswellD. (2009). Infancy and experience: Voice, politics, and bare life. European Journal of Social Theory, 12(1), 135–154. https://doi.org/10.1177/1368431009102426
34.
Plato. (2002). Five dialogues: Euthyphro, apology, crito, meno, phaedo (Trans. G. M. A. Grube). Hackett.
35.
ProzorovS. (2017a). Foucault’s affirmative biopolitics: Cynic parrhesia and the biopower of the powerless. Political Theory, 45(6), 801–823. https://doi.org/10.1177/0090591715609963
36.
ProzorovS. (2017b). Living à la mode: Form-of-life and democratic biopolitics in Giorgi Agamben’s the use of bodies. Political Theory, 43(2), 144–163. https://doi.org/10.1177/0191453716662500
37.
ProzorovS. (2022). When did biopolitics begin? Actuality and potentiality in historical events. European Journal of Social Theory, 25(4), 539–558. https://doi.org/10.1177/13684310221077198
38.
RoubineauJ.-M. (2023). The dangerous life and ideas of Diogenes the cynic (Trans. Malcolm DeBevoise). Oxford University Press.
Van der HeidenG.-J. (2020). Exile, use, and form-of-life: On the conclusion of Agamben’s Homo Sacer series. Theory, Culture & Society, 37(2), 61–78. https://doi.org/10.1177/0263276419867749
42.
WhyteJ. (2013). Catastrophe and redemption: The political thought of Giorgio Agamben. SUNY Press.
43.
ZelinskyD. (2020). Becoming Socrates: Five elements in the consecration process and the case of Jan Patocka. European Journal of Social Theory, 23(3), 370–388. https://doi.org/10.1177/1368431019852690
