Abstract

The present article delineates how the Roman and Christian dispositif of the person has increasingly brought about a neat division between persons and things. This has had devastating effects for both. On the one hand, things are reduced not only to servile objects but also to disposable commodities. On the other, the process of derealization of things is paralleled by that of depersonalization of persons; different typologies of persons emerge, historically reproduced by the distinction between real persons and those that are declared non-persons, almost-persons, temporary persons or anti-persons. It is, however, possible to develop a new anti-hierarchical conception of things and persons by focusing on the human body and by taking into account the findings of anthropology as well as the works of philosophers such as Spinoza, Simondon and Latour.