Abstract

In the English translation of Giorgio Agamben's Homo Sacer, the concepts of the "norm" and "normal" are ambiguously replaced by "rule" and "regular." Important distinctions, inherited directly from Carl Schmitt are thereby obscured. Kurt Hildebrandt, whose work on the norm is more explicitly biopolitical, provides further contextualization for Schmitt's legal theory; likewise, Georges Canguilhem has analyzed the biological metaphors latent within the concept of the juridical norm. In conclusion I argue that it also makes sense to read Agamben's work in the context of the normative discourse