Biopolitics and pandemia: a philosophical vision of the health crisis in the perspective of Michel Foucault and Roberto Esposito

Abstract

This investigation conducts a philosophical analysis of some of the main social phenomena that have taken place during the COVID-19 pandemic. Hand in hand with the theories of Michel Foucault and Roberto Esposito about “biopolitics”, an attempt is made to unravel some of the fundamental conditions for the functioning of power and social organization in modern times. These general reflections allow us to study from a deeper perspective some of the central trends that, both politically and socially, have become visible during the health crisis. Two phenomena are particularly developed, in general terms. Firstly, the reduction of the concept of human life to a series of representations that border on the biological and the statistical. Secondly, the reduction of the concept of community to that of a simple game or conflict of individual or private dispersed interests. From these phenomena, the potential dangers that the naturalization of such concepts may have for future crises and collective problems are highlighted.