The Invisible Committee as a Pauline Gesture: Anarchic Politics from Tiqqun to Tarnac
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Ward Blanton
Abstract
This essay discusses a striking dimension of the political implications of the turn to Saint Paul by telling the story of the French collective Tiqqun, or the Invisible Committee, and its political manifestos, such as Introduction to Civil War, This is Not a Program, and The Coming Insurrection. As is shown, these manifestos demonstrate strong affinities with recent philosophical work on Pauline messianism. The call to a radical politics that speaks from these manifestos, as this essay argues, is marked by a strong Pauline legacy, especially as read through the lens of Agamben’s The Time that Remains. The author does not only inform the reader about the Tarnac events and the particular political response to this French collective, but also explains in which sense the thought of this collective is Pauline as well as inspired by Francis of Assisi―much like the work of Agamben, such as developed in The Highest Poverty. Finally, Blanton shows how these Pauline resonances are first and foremost concerned with retrieving Paul’s πίστις because the struggle that we can encounter in these movements is in fact a struggle to invent a contemporary Paulinist gesture in which the preservation or recuperation of a messianic πίστις is at stake.
Abstract
This essay discusses a striking dimension of the political implications of the turn to Saint Paul by telling the story of the French collective Tiqqun, or the Invisible Committee, and its political manifestos, such as Introduction to Civil War, This is Not a Program, and The Coming Insurrection. As is shown, these manifestos demonstrate strong affinities with recent philosophical work on Pauline messianism. The call to a radical politics that speaks from these manifestos, as this essay argues, is marked by a strong Pauline legacy, especially as read through the lens of Agamben’s The Time that Remains. The author does not only inform the reader about the Tarnac events and the particular political response to this French collective, but also explains in which sense the thought of this collective is Pauline as well as inspired by Francis of Assisi―much like the work of Agamben, such as developed in The Highest Poverty. Finally, Blanton shows how these Pauline resonances are first and foremost concerned with retrieving Paul’s πίστις because the struggle that we can encounter in these movements is in fact a struggle to invent a contemporary Paulinist gesture in which the preservation or recuperation of a messianic πίστις is at stake.
Chapters in this book
- Frontmatter I
- Acknowledgments V
- Table of Contents VII
- List of Abbreviations 1
- Introduction: On the Philosophical Affiliations of Paul and Πίστις 3
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Part I. Philosophical Portraits of Paul and Πίστις
- Reading, Seeing and the Logic of Abandonment: Rembrandt’s Self-Portrait as the Apostle Paul 21
- The Invention of Christianity: Preambles to a Philosophical Reading of Paul 47
- Heidegger’s Hermeneutics of Paul 67
- The Philosophers’ Paul: A Radically Subversive Thinker 81
- Disillusioning Reason—Rethinking Faith: Paul, Performative Speech Acts and the Political History of the Occident in Agamben and Foucault 95
- On What Remains: Paul’s Proclamation of Contingency 115
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Part II. Paul and Πίστις in the Greco-Roman World
- Paul’s Stoic Onto-Theology and Ethics of Good, Evil and “Indifferents”: A Response to Anti-Metaphysical and Nihilistic Readings of Paul in Modern Philosophy 133
- Narratives of Πίστις in Paul and Deutero-Paul 165
- Returning to “Religious” Πίστις: Platonism and Piety in Plutarch and Neoplatonism 189
- The Metahistory of Δίκη and Πίστις: A Greco-Roman Reading of Paul’s “Justification by Faith” Axiom 209
- Paul’s Use of Πίστις/Πιστεύειν as Epitome of Axial Age Religion 231
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Part III. The Political Theologies of Paul
- The Management of Distinctions: Jacob Taubes on Paul’s Political Theology 251
- Paul as Political Theologian: How the “New Perspective” Is Reshaping Philosophical and Theological Discourse 269
- Church, Commonwealth, and Toleration: John Locke as a Reader of Paul 283
- Europe and Paul of Tarsus: Giorgio Agamben on the Overcoming of Europe’s Crisis 297
- The Invisible Committee as a Pauline Gesture: Anarchic Politics from Tiqqun to Tarnac 309
- Epilogue: Saint Paul and Philosophy—The Consonance of Ancient and Modern Thought 325
- Index of Ancient Sources 351
- Index of Names and Subjects 361
Chapters in this book
- Frontmatter I
- Acknowledgments V
- Table of Contents VII
- List of Abbreviations 1
- Introduction: On the Philosophical Affiliations of Paul and Πίστις 3
-
Part I. Philosophical Portraits of Paul and Πίστις
- Reading, Seeing and the Logic of Abandonment: Rembrandt’s Self-Portrait as the Apostle Paul 21
- The Invention of Christianity: Preambles to a Philosophical Reading of Paul 47
- Heidegger’s Hermeneutics of Paul 67
- The Philosophers’ Paul: A Radically Subversive Thinker 81
- Disillusioning Reason—Rethinking Faith: Paul, Performative Speech Acts and the Political History of the Occident in Agamben and Foucault 95
- On What Remains: Paul’s Proclamation of Contingency 115
-
Part II. Paul and Πίστις in the Greco-Roman World
- Paul’s Stoic Onto-Theology and Ethics of Good, Evil and “Indifferents”: A Response to Anti-Metaphysical and Nihilistic Readings of Paul in Modern Philosophy 133
- Narratives of Πίστις in Paul and Deutero-Paul 165
- Returning to “Religious” Πίστις: Platonism and Piety in Plutarch and Neoplatonism 189
- The Metahistory of Δίκη and Πίστις: A Greco-Roman Reading of Paul’s “Justification by Faith” Axiom 209
- Paul’s Use of Πίστις/Πιστεύειν as Epitome of Axial Age Religion 231
-
Part III. The Political Theologies of Paul
- The Management of Distinctions: Jacob Taubes on Paul’s Political Theology 251
- Paul as Political Theologian: How the “New Perspective” Is Reshaping Philosophical and Theological Discourse 269
- Church, Commonwealth, and Toleration: John Locke as a Reader of Paul 283
- Europe and Paul of Tarsus: Giorgio Agamben on the Overcoming of Europe’s Crisis 297
- The Invisible Committee as a Pauline Gesture: Anarchic Politics from Tiqqun to Tarnac 309
- Epilogue: Saint Paul and Philosophy—The Consonance of Ancient and Modern Thought 325
- Index of Ancient Sources 351
- Index of Names and Subjects 361
