Includes index.

This book, which collects fifteen essays in philosophy written over a period of more than twenty years, constitutes the largest and most significant collection of writings by the Italian philosopher Giorgio Agamben to be published in any language." "The volume opens with an introduction in which the editor situates Agamben's work with respect to both the history of philosophy and contemporary European thought. The essays that follow articulate a series of theoretical confrontations with privileged figures in the history of philosophy, politics, and criticism, from Plato to Spinoza, Aristotle to Deleuze, Carl Schmitt to Benjamin, Hegel to Aby Warburg, and Heidegger to Derrida.