Agamben and Platonic Communism: An Interpretation of <i>The Coming Community</i>

One of Agamben’s significant works, which plays an essential role in his ‘coming politics’, is The Coming Community . In this short book, Agamben expresses his thoughts on a liberated community, which he believes would also be a truly human community. In this article, I argue that there is a form of Platonic communism in Agamben’s thought, particularly in The Coming Community . By examining Agamben’s unique interpretation of Plato’s theory of ideas, I suggest that the coming community can be seen as the idea ( eidos ) of any liberating community, just as whatever being is the idea of man, or man as an idea ( eidos ). Here, the idea is not a distinct or transcendent entity, but a sensible thing placed in a paradigmatic relationship with itself, representing its intelligibility and universality.