Inoperativity as Category: Mathematising the Analogous, Habitual, Useful Life in Agamben’s The Kingdom and the Glory, The Signature of All Things and The Use of Bodies

Abstract

This paper investigates the frontiers of contemporary thought by considering inoperativity in the later volumes of Agamben’s Homo Sacer sequence in relation to Badiou’s work on category theory. Specifically, it suggests that elements of Agamben’s method, for example analogy and signatures, can be mapped onto Badiou’s philosophical category theory. It then moves to suggest that some of the paradoxes that concern Agamben can be resolved by categories, before arguing that a post-differential philosophy of habitual use-of-bodies can best be broached through a reconsideration of habitual use in terms of categorical functions.