What is a Paradigm?

Below is Giorgio Agamben - in a free public open philosophy and politics lecture for the students of the European Graduate School EGS, in Saas-Fee, Switzerland, Europe, 2002 - asking ‘what is a paradigm?’:



Giorgio Agamben (1942) is an Italian philosopher who teaches mostly in Paris, France. He has held visiting appointments at several American universities and the European Graduate School. Agamben is best known for his work on the notion of ‘state of exception’ and ‘homo sacer’. In the 1960s Agamben participated in seminars with Martin Heidegger, and has worked on issues in linguistics, philology, poetics, and medievalist topics.

Agamben's political thought draws on Michel Foucault and on Italian neo-Marxist thought. In his published writings and interviews he represents himself as a public thinker interested in language and social conflicts on a global scale.