Abstract

The book’s main focus revolves around the foundation of politics. It contributes to an ongoing and significant debate by exploring the distinctions between what politics is (and/or may become) and what it is not (and/or cannot become). The book adopts an ontological approach and, through its chapters, delves into the inherent ramifications and implications of ethical order. The concept of poverty–specifically, political poverty—serves as a crucial connection between ‘the being of politics’ and ‘the duty of being in politics.’ In this context, poverty is posited as a fundamental element in shaping the foundation of politics. To further enrich the ontological and ethical discourse on this topic, the initial question guiding this investigation is: what, if any, is the relationship between politics and poverty? Considering the above ontological intent, it is, first, a matter of understanding whether there is a link between politics and poverty—and, if any, of what nature. Provided the possibility of assuming the existence of an entity called politics, it is crucial to investigate its properties. These, by definition, are supposed to indicate what politics has, given that the term property per se indicates the faculty and condition of having. However, Aristotelian logic teaches that every property also corresponds to opposite poverty. The investigation of what politics has, or its property, thus presupposes the parallel investigation of what politics lacks or its poverty. Nevertheless, insights from political theory and political philosophy, whose main authors, such as Jacques Derrida, Giorgio Agamben, Emmanuel Levinas, and Carl Schmitt, influence and are broadly referred to within the book, lead to adopting a theoretical approach aware of the ontological aporia of politics. This aporetic dimension of politics relates to its onto-topo-logical conditions. In other words, is politics a space encompassing humanity or that the humans have still and ever to enter? The book affirms ‘both’ as the only logical answer by putting some deconstructionist pressure on those opposed alternatives. This leads to conceptualising the political foundation of politics as an evolutionary movement that conjugates and merges the political being and becoming without making them collapse. Based on this approach, the book first specifically investigates the foundational link between politics and poverty by defining political poverty. It will then be possible to distinguish between two forms of political poverty: ontological and theoretical poverty. Although both these forms of poverty relate to politics, only the latter can and must be the object of alleviation. The former constitutes the (negative) foundation of politics. At the same time, the second represents the risk of (positive) groundlessness of politics and, as such, ultimately, it alone can jeopardise the very presence and possible actuation of the political being. The distinction between ontological and theoretical poverty of politics makes it possible to distinguish between the limits to which politics cannot escape, on the one hand, and the epistemological (and ethical) challenges to which it may have difficulty responding, on the other. Following the investigation of political poverty introduced in Chap. 2, Chap. 3 delves into the concrete origins and phenomenology of the human experience of politics through an Aristotelian interpretation of Kafka’s ‘Before the Law’. This analysis reveals the concept of politics as an evolutionary movement that serves as a trait-d’union, connecting the Aristotelian animal-man who alone is and can continue to be political. This investigation engages with a range of critical readings by thinkers such as Martin Heidegger, Emmanuel Levinas, Gilles Deleuze, Jacques Derrida, and Giorgio Agamben. Chapter 4 further explores the evolutionary processes intrinsic to politics and their implications, introducing a crucial distinction between absolute and relative sovereignty. This distinction is vital for understanding how the political movement towards politics is unavoidable for humans in the pain of not being political anymore. Chapter 5 further explores the political concepts of absolute and relative sovereignty, establishing a foundational relationship between political property and poverty. It introduces a crucial distinction between ontological and theoretical poverty, emphasising that only the latter can result in political impoverishment characterised by a loss of its relational property. From this, Chap. 6 discusses the dilemma confronting those who want to enter/remain in politics while contending with the inherent costs associated with the evolutionary political movement and the urgent risk of political impoverishment. The definition of political poverty linked to men’s re-action to the cost of the movement towards politics and its implications serves as both the conclusion of this book and the starting point for the discussion about the possible solution to this impoverishment and the alleviation of political poverty, which will be the matter of the second volume, namely The Alleviation of Political Poverty.