Life, Immanence and Spinozian Democracy

Abstract

In this paper we will explain, first, the biopolitical conceptions of three contemporary thinkers "•Hannah Arendt, Michel Foucault and Giorgio Agamben"• with the purpose of defining the biopolitical notion of "life". Then we will try to regain "•following Deleuze"• a concept of "life" that allows us a relation to politics opposite of that of the biopolitics. This alternative conception of "life", crossed by the idea of immanence, will find its fullest expression in the work of Spinoza. Finally, we will try to determine what kind of politics is possible from such a conception. Such a politics should not be limited to bare life management, but it should consist in a composition of the multitude powers that we could call, following Spinoza, "democracy".