On Impotence

Life in an Age of Frenetic Paralysis

Häftad, Engelska, 2026

279 kr

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An incisive and urgent book that explores the hidden roots of our contemporary powerlessness.Contemporary life is marked by a paradoxical form of impotence. Whether in love, labor, or political struggle, we often find ourselves locked in a state of frenetic paralysis—unable to act as we wish or to endure what confronts us. This impotence is not born of lack, but of excess: an abundance of skills, capacities, and opportunities that, instead of taking form as coherent actions or speech, stagnate and turn in on themselves. In this thought-provoking meditation, philosopher Paolo Virno examines this strange impotence through the lens of classical thought, drawing especially on Aristotle and Marx. To overcome this troubling state, Virno calls for a collective search for a shared spiritual and practical exercise aimed at reclaiming agency. He argues that only by learning to renounce renunciation can we cultivate deliberate words and timely decisions.

Produktinformation

Utgivningsdatum2026-05-08
Mått152 x 229 x 13 mm
Vikt172 g
FormatHäftad
SpråkEngelska
SerieItalian List
Antal sidor160
FörlagSeagull Books London Ltd
ISBN9781803096452
ÖversättareArianna Bove

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Paolo Virno is an Italian philosopher, semiologist, and activist. A prominent figure in the tradition of Italian workerist thought, he teaches at the University of Rome and is the author of An Essay on Negation, The Idea of World, and numerous other works. Arianna Bove is an independent philosophy researcher and translator, and cofounder of generation-online.org. She has translated works by Althusser, Foucault, Negri, Bifo, and Virno, among others.

1. The Trouble with Abundance1.1 A Surplus of Potential1.2 Aristotle vs the School of Megara1.3 To have ‘dynamis’1.4 Misunderstandings1.5 Genealogy of impotence2. The Art of Suffering2.1 How to Weather the Winds of Fate2.2 The Actions of Sufferers2.3 Welcoming, Withdrawing, Adhering, Resisting2.4 The Collapse of Reception2.5 A menage a trois3. Omissions and Renunciations3.1 Negative Actions3.2. Proclaiming a State of Impotence3.3 The Faculty to Suspend3.4 On Limit3.5 Omitting Omissions, Renouncing Renunciations3.6 Political-theological Note4. Two Kinds of Habit4.1 Modes of Possession4.2 The ever-present in-between4.3 Managing or Using Potential4.4 Civil War5. An Incumbent Infinity5.1. Archaic Representations5.2. The Misadventures of Use Grappling with Boundlessness5.3 The Primacy of Relation5.4. Action comes last5.5. From Task to Performance5.6. Physiognomic Gloss6. Institutions6.1 Provisional Moral (of the Story)6.2 The Good Government of Infinity6.3 The Ambivalence of the Institution: an Exercise of Use and a Usable Thing6.4 Techniques, Experiments, Ideas6.5 The Subversion of Hexis-management6.6 On the Institutional Meaning of Renunciation6.7 Endgame