At the Limits of the Political

The question of the limits of politics has been at the forefront of debates in critical theory for decades, especially in the French and Italian contexts. This book argues that the question of the real or radical outside of politics has been lost in the midst of post-War critiques of politics. The notion of ‘the political’ has grown into a totality of a new kind, one which refuses both to complete itself and to let go of its totalizing ambition. Inna Viriasova addresses this question by offering a critical introduction to the philosophical debate on the concept of the political and its outside, as well as an intervention into the debate framed by the Italian notion of the impolitical, suggesting several ways in which we may think the real limits of politics beyond this notion. The book explores such recent developments in continental philosophy as radical phenomenology of life, speculative realism, and non-Western ontological models. The book makes a vital contribution to the emerging body of literature in contemporary political philosophy and shifts the debate on the outside of politics from the impolitical to a realist framework.

Inna Viriasova is a lecturer in the Department of Politics at Acadia University, Canada. She is the co-editor (with Antonio Calcagno) of Roberto Esposito: Biopolitics and Philosophy (Forthcoming) and the author of articles published in various journals, including the Journal of Global Ethics, Telos, Parrhesia and diacritics.