“If human beings were or had to be this or that substance, this or that destiny, no ethical experience would be possible… This does not mean, however, that humans are not, and do not have to be, something, that they are simply consigned to nothingness and therefore can freely decide whether to be or not to be, to adopt or not to adopt this or that destiny (nihilism and decisionism coincide at this point). There is in effect something that humans are and have to be, but this is not an essence nor properly a thing: It is the simple fact of one's own existence as possibility or potentiality.”

— Giorgio Agamben

Source: The Coming Community (1993), Ch. 11 : Ethics

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

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Giorgio Agamben6

Italian philosopher 1942

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