To believe that will has power over potentiality, that the passage to actuality is the result of a decision that puts an end to the ambiguity of potentiality (which is always potentiality to do and not to do) — this is the perpetual illusion of morality.
Interpretation
This quote explores the illusion that human will can decisively transform potential choices into reality, emphasizing the inherent ambiguity of potentiality.
Giorgio Agamben's quote delves into the complex relationship between will and potentiality, suggesting that our belief in the power of will to transform potential outcomes into actual decisions is a mirage. He points out that potentiality inherently involves uncertainty and the possibility of action or inaction, and he critiques the moral implications of assuming that will can simply overcome this ambiguity to create definitive realities.
In practice
In a philosophy class discussing the nature of reality and choice.
Modern totalitarianism can be defined as the establishment, by means of the state of exception, of a legal civil war that allows for the physical elimination not only of political adversaries but of entire categories of citizens who for some reason cannot be integrated into the political system
Remembrance restores possibility to the past, making what happened incomplete and completing what never was. Remembrance is neither what happened nor what did not happen but, rather, their potentialization, their becoming possible once again.
One day humanity will play with law just as children play with disused objects, not in order to restore them to their canonical use but to free them from it for good.
Every little bit, every atom inside the universe, is in a constant state of change and motion, but the universe as a whole is unchangeable, because motion or change is a relative thing; we can only think of something in motion in comparison with something which is not moving.
We believe in the dignity of man as an individual, whatever his race, colour or creed, and his right to better, fuller, and richer life.
We have not reached ethical perfection in hunting. One never achieves perfection in anything, and perhaps it exists precisely so that one can never achieve it. Its purpose is to orient our conduct and to allow us to measure the progress accomplished. In this sense, the advancement achieved in the ethics of hunting is undeniable.
You can study God through everything and everyone in the universe, because God is not confined in a mosque, synagogue or church. But if you are still in need of knowing where exactly His abode is, there is only one place to look for Him: in the heart of a true lover.
Liberty, then, is the sovereignty of the individual, and never shall man know liberty until each and every individual is acknowledged to be the only legitimate sovereign of his or her person, time, and property, each living and acting at his own cost.
Judaism boasts of no exclusive revelation of eternal truths that are indispensable to salvation, of no revealed religion in the sense in which that term is usually understood.
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