The state of emergency and the limits of the concept of the political: socio-philosophical analysis

Abstract

The article is aimed at the analysis of “the state of emergency” phenomenon, its essence and influence on the order of political world and determination of the political limits. The author investigates the problem of permanence as a feature of the state of emergency that is singled out by modern political philosophers, such as W. Benjamin, H. Marcuse, G. Agamben, M. Hardt and A. Negri et al. Such understanding of the state of emergency is the manifestation of the political world’s crisis and the crisis of political philosophy. The socio-philosophical analysis of these problems can be the precondition for re-interpretation of categories used for politics understanding. The state of emergency is examined in the article in different aspects of its manifestations and conceptual comprehensions. From the anthropological point of view, the author tries to define this phenomenon as a way of “cosmogonical” overcoming of the chaos, the strengthening of world order, and means of returning to the usual symbolic and imaginary order. From the phenomenological point of view the state of emergency manifests itself as “chinks” and “cracks” of political world. The author pays attention to the questions of legitimacy of Sovereign in the situation of the state of emergency and abnormal sociality created by such situation; he believes that the analysis of these questions gives a possibility to understand the essence of state of emergency better.