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A Completely New Politics, or, Excluding the Political? Agamben's Critique of Sovereignty

Abstract The paradox of the excluded middle - namely, that the proposition »All propositions are either true or false« can itself be proven neither true nor false - is presented as the logical figure for the exception or self-exemption at the heart of the political principle of sovereignty. Whereas Carl Schmitt maintains the necessity of the sovereign exception to the rule, Giorgio Agamben wishes us to push beyond the logic of exclusion that defines the political within the Western metaphysical tradition. Contrasting Schmitt with Walter Benjamin and thus the Messiah with the katychon, Agamben seeks a »completely new politics« that would release us from guilt and return us to a »natural innocence.« Conversely, this paper argues that the katychon, with its consequent infinite deferral of the parousia, is indeed the appropriate model for the political in the terrestrial City that can never aspire to the status of the City of God.