The ontological apparatus and the potency of gestures in Giorgio Agamben's Homo Sacer project

Abstract

Giorgio Agamben’s Homo Sacer project examines how apparatuses capture and delimit human existence. Within this framework, the ontological apparatus functions as the mechanism that defines modes of being, structuring subjectivity through language, law, and politics. Agamben proposes a critical alternative to this capture through the concept of gesture. Unlike action, which is determined by an end goal, gesture is a means without an end, an activity that does not exhaust itself in its realization. Drawing on Varro and the Aristotelian tradition, Agamben views gesture as an inoperative potential that resists the teleological logic imposed by law and Western metaphysics. Gesture, by not being subordinated to a specific function, enables a reappropriation of existence beyond established normativity. Thus, his politics of gesture advocates for the subject’s liberation through the interruption of capturing apparatuses. This vision has been criticized by scholars such as José Luis Villacañas and Giovanni Maddalena, who question its practical effectiveness. Nevertheless, Agamben suggests that gesture, by deactivating the logic of action, opens possibilities for a post-metaphysical politics.