Secularization as Signature

Secularization is not for Carl Schmitt, a Weberian disenchantment or “detheologization.” Rather, Agamben says (p. 4), “theology continues to be present and active in an eminent way.” The substance of theology and modernity may not be identical; instead, secularization “concerns a particular strategic relation that marks political concepts and refers them back to their theological origin.”

Citing Foucault and Enzo Melandri, Agamben calls this a “signature”: something that in a sign or concept marks and exceeds such a sign or concept referring it back to a determinate interpretation or field, without for this reason leaving the semiotic to constitute a new meaning or a new concept. Signatures move and displace concepts and signs from one field to another . . . without redefining them semantically. Many pseudoconcepts belonging to the philosophical tradition are, in this sense, signatures that, like the ‘secret indexes’ of which Benjamin speaks, carry out a vital and determinate strategic function, giving a lasting orientation to the interpretation of signs.” Much recent philosophy (Foucault, Derrida, Benjamin) is a “science of signatures,” parallel to and different from the history of ideas and concepts.