I. THE DESTRUCTION OF ÁESTHETICS 1. THE MAN WITHOUT CONTENT The Most Uncanny Thing Agamben’s first book is The Man Without Content,’ which was first published in 1970. Even its title is puzzling, for it refers to the title of a famous novel (Robert Musil’s The Man Without Qualities) instead of anything from the philosophical tradition. The first chapter, entitled ,The Most Unsettling Thing”, talks about the need for the destruction of aesthetics. But why is such a radical gesture needed in the first place? In Agamben’s view, aesthetics has become distanced from art and the latter’s original intentions, with dire consequences. Aesthetics has lost contact with the subversive, dangerous potential of art. The distance between the two areas has become so vast that this loss is hardly even registered. During the course of the history of the aesthetic discipline (beginning with Kant’s theory of aesthetic judgment, according to which beauty implies pleasure without purpose), it can be observed how the work of art itself has become ever less connected to notions of interest, while finally becoming all but irrelevant to aesthetics. The subject of the aesthetic discipline transforms into a „man without content,’ which could serve as a motto of sorts for the modern artist. At this point, Agamben connects to Part Three of Nietzsche’s Genealogy of Morals (,What Is the Meaning of Ascetic Ideals?”), which we cite below: » That is beautiful,’ said Kant, ‘which gives us pleasure without interest.’ Without interest! Compare with this definition one framed by a genuine ’spectator’ and artist-Stendhal, who once called the beautiful une promesse de bonheur. At any rate he rejected and repudiated the one point about the aesthetic condition which Kant hadstressed: le désinterrésement. Who is right, Kant or Stendhal? If our aestheticians never weary of asserting in Kant’s favor that, under the spell of beauty, one can even view undraped female statues ’without interest, one may laugh a little at their expense: the experiences of artists on this ticklish point are more ‘interesting, and Pygmalion was in any event not necessarily an ‘unaesthetic man.’ Let us think the more highly of the innocence of our aestheticians which is reflected in such arguments; let us, for example, credit it to the honor of Kant Giorgio Agamben: The Man Without Content. trans. Georgia Albert. Stanford University Press, Stanford, 1999.