Abstract

Drawing on Rancière, Nancy, Blanchot, Agamben, Esposito, Bhabha and Seligman, the author reconstructs their ideas a) that the individual subject's agency can dispense with a unifying center of intentionality and b) that community consists of individuals and their differences, united by a common vulnerability. Against a) the author argues that without a volitional center that unifies the self 1) no imputability is possible; 2) the self cannot establish a practical relation with itself and direct its life; 3) the moral sentiments of pride, humility, love and hate become unintelligible. Against b) it is objected that community as theorized by decostructionists cannot be distinguished from the human condition as such or from randomly assembled groupings such as the passengers gathered at Gate 22.