homo sacer
E662549
Homo sacer is Giorgio Agamben’s key philosophical figure describing a person reduced to “bare life,” excluded from legal and political protections yet still subject to sovereign power.
All labels observed (1)
| Label | Occurrences |
|---|---|
| homo sacer canonical | 1 |
How this entity was disambiguated
This entity first appeared as the object of triple T7390335 — resolving that mention is where its identity was fixed. The disambiguator weighed these candidate entities and picked the highlighted one (or “None”, minting a new entity). This is how homonymy is resolved: the same surface form can point to different entities.
NED1
Entity disambiguation (via context triple)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: homo sacer Context triple: [Giorgio Agamben, notableConcept, homo sacer]
-
A.
The Nomos of the Earth
The Nomos of the Earth is a seminal work of political and legal theory by Carl Schmitt that analyzes the historical foundations and transformations of the international legal order and the concept of global spatial order (nomos).
-
B.
Eikonoklastes
Eikonoklastes is a 1649 prose work by John Milton that fiercely attacks the royalist image of King Charles I and defends the execution of the king.
-
C.
De officio hominis et civis
De officio hominis et civis is a 17th-century treatise on natural law and moral-political duties that became a foundational text in early modern political philosophy and legal theory.
-
D.
Humanum Genus
Humanum Genus is an 1884 encyclical by Pope Leo XIII that condemns Freemasonry and outlines the Catholic Church’s opposition to its principles and influence.
-
E.
Sovereign Virtue
Sovereign Virtue is a major work of political philosophy by Ronald Dworkin that develops and defends a theory of equality as the central value of a just society.
- F. None of above. chosen
- G. Unsure - the case is ambiguous/there is not enough information to decide.
NED2
Entity disambiguation (via description)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: homo sacer Target entity description: Homo sacer is Giorgio Agamben’s key philosophical figure describing a person reduced to “bare life,” excluded from legal and political protections yet still subject to sovereign power.
-
A.
The Nomos of the Earth
The Nomos of the Earth is a seminal work of political and legal theory by Carl Schmitt that analyzes the historical foundations and transformations of the international legal order and the concept of global spatial order (nomos).
-
B.
Eikonoklastes
Eikonoklastes is a 1649 prose work by John Milton that fiercely attacks the royalist image of King Charles I and defends the execution of the king.
-
C.
De officio hominis et civis
De officio hominis et civis is a 17th-century treatise on natural law and moral-political duties that became a foundational text in early modern political philosophy and legal theory.
-
D.
Humanum Genus
Humanum Genus is an 1884 encyclical by Pope Leo XIII that condemns Freemasonry and outlines the Catholic Church’s opposition to its principles and influence.
-
E.
Sovereign Virtue
Sovereign Virtue is a major work of political philosophy by Ronald Dworkin that develops and defends a theory of equality as the central value of a just society.
- F. None of above. chosen
Statements (47)
| Predicate | Object |
|---|---|
| instanceOf |
key concept in Giorgio Agamben's philosophy
ⓘ
legal-philosophical figure ⓘ philosophical concept ⓘ |
| alsoInterpretedAs | accursed man ⓘ |
| associatedWith |
bare life
ⓘ
biopolitics ⓘ political theology ⓘ sovereign power ⓘ state of exception ⓘ |
| centralWork | Homo Sacer: Sovereign Power and Bare Life NERFINISHED ⓘ |
| characterizedBy |
continued subjection to sovereign power
ⓘ
exclusion from the juridical order ⓘ exposure to violence without legal recourse ⓘ indistinction between public and private life ⓘ |
| definedAs |
a life that can be killed but not sacrificed
ⓘ
a person excluded from legal and political protections ⓘ a person reduced to bare life ⓘ |
| describedBy | Giorgio Agamben NERFINISHED ⓘ |
| developedIn | Homo Sacer project NERFINISHED ⓘ |
| epistemicStatus | theoretical construct rather than empirical category ⓘ |
| field |
contemporary continental philosophy
ⓘ
critical theory ⓘ legal theory ⓘ political philosophy ⓘ |
| hasTheoreticalRole |
exemplifies the logic of the state of exception
ⓘ
marks the threshold between life and law ⓘ reveals the structure of sovereign power ⓘ shows how political life can be reduced to biological existence ⓘ |
| historicalReference | figure in archaic Roman law who could be killed without legal penalty ⓘ |
| influencedBy |
Carl Schmitt
NERFINISHED
ⓘ
Michel Foucault NERFINISHED ⓘ |
| languageOfOrigin | Latin NERFINISHED ⓘ |
| literalMeaning | sacred man ⓘ |
| originatesIn | ancient Roman law ⓘ |
| partOf | Agamben's theory of biopolitics ⓘ |
| relatedConcept |
Muselmann
ⓘ
bios ⓘ camp ⓘ inclusive exclusion ⓘ sovereign ban ⓘ zoe ⓘ |
| usedToAnalyze |
concentration camps
ⓘ
emergency legislation ⓘ human rights regimes ⓘ modern forms of sovereignty ⓘ refugees ⓘ stateless persons ⓘ |
How these facts were elicited
The pipeline generated the facts above by prompting gpt-5.1 with this entity's name + description and the instruction below.
Instruction
You are a knowledge base construction expert. Given a subject entity and a description of it, return factual statements that you know for the subject as a JSON list of dictionaries(triples), where keys must be "subject", "predicate" and "object". The number of facts may be very high, between 25 to 50 or more, for very popular subjects. For less popular subjects, the number of facts can be very low, like 5 or 10. # Requirements - If you don't know the subject at all, return an empty list. - If the subject is not a named entity, return an empty list. - Include at least one triple where predicate is "instanceOf". - Do not get too wordy. - Separate several objects into multiple triples with one object.
Input
Subject: homo sacer Description of subject: Homo sacer is Giorgio Agamben’s key philosophical figure describing a person reduced to “bare life,” excluded from legal and political protections yet still subject to sovereign power.
Referenced by (1)
Full triples — surface form annotated when it differs from this entity's canonical label.