Signature

Tinalakay ni Agamben sa akdang ito ang ilang konseptong naunang napatingkad ng mga pag-aaral ni Michel Foucault: episteme, archaeology, at paradigm (na kadalasang iniuugnay rin sa klasikong pag-aaral ni Thomas Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions). Mas binigyang-diin dito ni Agamben ang paglilinaw hindi lang sa radikal na pagkakaiba ng konseptong paradigm ni Foucault at Kuhn kundi—sa mas interesanteng punto—sa pagkakaiba ng istilo ng pag-alam sa paraang analohikal kumpara sa kasalukuyang namamayaning pag-isip na ang matatag, maka-agham na pag-alam (kahit pa sa agham-panlipunan) ay laging usapin ng tensyong induktibo/deduktibong paraan. Narito ang anim na puntong binigyang-diin ni Agamben sa bahaging “What is a paradigm”:

1. A paradigm is a form of knowledge that is neither inductive nor deductive but analogical. It moves from singularity to singularity.
2. By neutralizing the dichotomy between the general and the particular, it replaces a dichotomous logic with a bipolar analogical model.
3. The paradigmatic case becomes such by suspending and, at the same time, exposing its belonging to the group, so that it is never possible to separate its exemplarity from its singularity.
4. The paradigmatic group is never presupposed by the paradigms; rather, it is immanent in them.
5. In the paradigm, there is no origin or archei every phenomenon is the origin, every image archaic.
6. The historicity of the paradigm lies neither in diachrony nor in synchrony but in a crossing of the two.

Magandang pagmunihan ang sinabing ito ni Agamben: ang pagkakaiba ng ‘analohikal na lohika’ kumpara sa ‘lohika ng metaporikal na paglilipat (kahulugan o ideya)’:

Paradigms obey not the logic of the metaphorical transfer of meaning but the analogical logic of the example. Here we are not dealing with a signifier that is extended to designate heterogeneous phenomena by virtue of the same semantic structure; more akin to allegory than to metaphor, the paradigm is a singular case that is isolated from its context only insofar as, by exhibiting its own singularity, it makes intelligible a new ensemble, whose homogeneity it itself constitutes. That is to say, to give an example is a complex act which supposes that the term functioning as a paradigm is deactivated from its normal use, not in order to be moved into another context but, on the contrary, to present the canon-the rule-of that use, which can not be shown in any other way.

Masasabing pagtatangka rin ang akdang ito na bigyang pagkakaiba ang metodong ginagamit ni Agamben sa metodo ng isa sa kanyang mga intelektwal na bayani na si Foucualt. Mahalagang sipi para sa puntong ito ang kanyang sinabi sa pambungad ng akda tungkol sa pangangailangang isa-tema ang mga nakabaon, di-na-pinag-uusapan ngunit pundamental na mga batayan ng isang kaisipan:

Moreover, every inquiry in the human sciences—including the present reflection on method—should entail an archaeological vigilance. In other words, it must retrace its own trajectory back to the point where something remains obscure and unthematized. Only a thought that does not conceal its own unsaid—but consantly takes it up and elaborates it—may eventually lay claim to originality.