ABSTRACT
The unpolitical of Categories de l'Impolitique, as a position for reflection external to political philosophy, is thereby relinquished, in Communitas, for a genealogical reflection on the expression of this 'guilt'. It is possible to consider Esposito's choice of the concept of communitas as an assertion, following Volpi, of the distinctive importance of this Latin term. The originary character of community is then situated within a genealogy of the common, which describes the initial erasure of this origin and the subsequent traces of its reappearance. This 'guilt', as the trace of the experience of the originary character of community, remains within, and shapes, the subsequent development of modern political philosophy. The genealogical path of Communitas concludes with a conception of community whose elaboration requires that a 'post-philosophical' thought proceed, beyond the limits of Bataille. The reorientation provides the impetus for the renewed reflection, in Immunitas and Bios, on the notions of community, law and the political.
