
Contents
8 Third Person And Fourth Person: Esposito And Blanchot
Get access-
Published:September 2021
Cite
Abstract
In several books, Roberto Esposito draws heavily on Maurice Blanchot’s work to develop the notion of a “third person,” a figure of impersonality or neutrality that would escape the binary of personhood/depersonalization that structures the law and philosophical concepts of selfhood. Blanchot often viewed impersonality or the neutral as a feature of literary characters in limit-extreme or “last human” situations. I provide a close reading of passages from Blanchot’s The Last Man (1957) to reflect on what happens at the limit-experience of characterization itself. However, these literary examples from Blanchot do not translate evidently into guidelines for an everyday liveable “third” or impersonal personhood that Esposito estimates would follow from an “affirmative biopolitics.” Instead, I discuss what might be instances of “fourth personhood,” where personification is extended to objects or used in situations where the limits of personhood are not clear. These cases of “fourth” personhood point towards a more ecological sense of how personifications can be distributed across landscapes, taking up Esposito’s challenge to imagine a future sense of person and politics that is not subordinated to the logic of a controlling biopolitics.
Sign in
Personal account
- Sign in with email/username & password
- Get email alerts
- Save searches
- Purchase content
- Activate your purchase/trial code
- Add your ORCID iD
Purchase
Our books are available by subscription or purchase to libraries and institutions.
Purchasing informationMonth: | Total Views: |
---|---|
August 2024 | 1 |
Get help with access
Institutional access
Access to content on Oxford Academic is often provided through institutional subscriptions and purchases. If you are a member of an institution with an active account, you may be able to access content in one of the following ways:
IP based access
Typically, access is provided across an institutional network to a range of IP addresses. This authentication occurs automatically, and it is not possible to sign out of an IP authenticated account.
Sign in through your institution
Choose this option to get remote access when outside your institution. Shibboleth/Open Athens technology is used to provide single sign-on between your institution’s website and Oxford Academic.
If your institution is not listed or you cannot sign in to your institution’s website, please contact your librarian or administrator.
Sign in with a library card
Enter your library card number to sign in. If you cannot sign in, please contact your librarian.
Society Members
Society member access to a journal is achieved in one of the following ways:
Sign in through society site
Many societies offer single sign-on between the society website and Oxford Academic. If you see ‘Sign in through society site’ in the sign in pane within a journal:
If you do not have a society account or have forgotten your username or password, please contact your society.
Sign in using a personal account
Some societies use Oxford Academic personal accounts to provide access to their members. See below.
Personal account
A personal account can be used to get email alerts, save searches, purchase content, and activate subscriptions.
Some societies use Oxford Academic personal accounts to provide access to their members.
Viewing your signed in accounts
Click the account icon in the top right to:
Signed in but can't access content
Oxford Academic is home to a wide variety of products. The institutional subscription may not cover the content that you are trying to access. If you believe you should have access to that content, please contact your librarian.
Institutional account management
For librarians and administrators, your personal account also provides access to institutional account management. Here you will find options to view and activate subscriptions, manage institutional settings and access options, access usage statistics, and more.