"Potentiality is effectively that which both is and is not. For ‘potentiality’ to be, it must also contain the thought of that which it is not. Agamben takes very seriously two of Aristotle's propositions from the Metaphysics which state that: ‘“impotence” and “impotent” stand for the privation which is contrary to potency of this sort, so that every potency belongs to the same subject and refers to the same process as a corresponding impotence’ (Aristotle 

Citation2001, Book IX, 1046a 25–32, p. 821) and also, ‘everything that is capable of being may possibly not be actual. That which is capable of being may either be or not be, the same thing then, is capable of being and not‐being’ (Aristotle Citation2001, Book IX, 1050b, p. 830). The significance of this is that there must always reside, in the relation of potentiality and actuality, an impotentiality that elides the split between potentiality and actuality. Thus, actuality and potentiality reside beside themselves, eliding the split between potentiality and actuality. Thus, all actuality contains the potentiality not to be (adynamia). Agamben concludes that for Aristotle, there is thus ‘truly potentiality’ only where the potentiality to not be does not lag behind actuality, but passes fully into it as such. For Agamben, following Aristotle, a thing is said to be potential if, when the act of which it said to be potential is realized, there will be nothing impotential (Agamben Citation1999, p. 183). See Aristotle (Citation2001, Book IX, 1047a 24–26, p. 821). This valorization of impotentiality, which can be considered both actively and passively, signifies the central singularity which guides much of Agamben's thought. The core of messianism belongs and does not belong, it is and is not. It is a generic region of being not affiliated with the actualization of particular commonalities. The messianic core of existential life salves the metaphysical distinction between being and not being, human and non‐human, time and eternity, and activity and passivity".

Patrick O'Connor