Abstract

Starting with an analysis of Michel Foucault’s notion of biopower as defining feature of modernity, the present essay moves on to discuss different interpretations of “life” in the political theories of Giorgio Agamben and Hanna Arendt. The aim is to understand what transformations biopower has undergone since Foucault’s first studies. According to Jürgen Habermas biopower today has turned into liberal eugenics and bioengineering is replacing the natural origin of man causing a crisis of subjectivity, whereas from a Heideggerian point of view, the attempt to redesign human nature by means of biotechnology marks the summit of reifying subjectivism.#