Giorgio Agamben. The Archaeology of Commandment. 2011

Giorgio Agamben talking about the results of his investigation into the archaeology of commandment. In this lecture he discusses the Greek word arko, the arkon, the beginning of the bible as commandment, beginning and commanding according to Martin Heidegger, the Anfang and Geschichte, the split between origin and commandment in Post Heideggerian philosophy, Reiner Schürmann’s Le Principe d’anarchie, Jacques Derrida and the origin, the imperative, apophantic and non-apophantic discourse, is and ought, not sein but sollen, Hans Kelsen’s theory of law, the linguistic work of Antoine Meilet and Emile Benveniste, J.L. Austin’s speech acts, the commandment as non-apophantic logos, the ontology of assertion - the esti (be) - and the ontology of commandment - the esto (being), performative speech acts, the ontology of commandment vs ontology of assertion, the concept of will (Christian theology), potentiality (Greek theology), modal verbs, and Bartleby the Scrivener.