What is the relationship between persons and things? And how does the body transform this relationship? In this highly original new book, Roberto Esposito - one of Italy's leading political philosophers - considers these questions and shows that starting from the body, rather than from the thing or the person, can help us to reconsider the status of both.Ever since its beginnings, our civilization has been based on a strict, unequivocal distinction between persons and things, founded on the instrumental domination of persons over things. This opposition arose out of ancient Roman law and persisted throughout modernity, to take its place in our current global market, where it continues to generate growing contradictions. Although the distinction seems to appear clear and necessary to us, what we are continually witnessing in legal, economic, and technological practice is a reversal of perspectives: some categories of persons are becoming assimilated with things, while some types of things are taking on a personal profile.With his customary rigour, Roberto Esposito argues that there exists an escape route out of this paradox, constituted by a new point of view founded in the body. Neither a person nor a thing, the human body becomes the decisive element in rethinking the concepts and values that govern our philosophical, legal, and political lexicons.

Title Third PersonAuthor Roberto EspositoISBN 978-0745643984Publisher Polity PressPublication date 16/07/2012Price $22.95Page count 200Trim size 6 x 9 inchesSalesPositives Esposito pursues his strikingly original and innovative philosophical inquiry by inviting reflection on the category of the impersonalNegatives Does not view from the point of view of the body.Title CommunitasAuthor Roberto EspositoISBN 978-0804746472Publisher Stanford University PressPublication date 29/10/2009Price $14.93Page count 192Trim size 8.9 x 6 x 0.6 inchesSalesPositives A radical overturning of contemporary interpretations of communityNegatives Does not view from the point of view of the body.Title BiosAuthor Roberto EspositoISBN 978-0816649907Publisher Univ Of Minnesota PressPublication date 17/04/2008Price $22.50Page count 304Trim size 8.9 x 6.1 x 0.7 inchesSalesPositives A comprehensive, illuminating, and highly original treatment of a critically important topic.Negatives Does not view from the point of view of the body.