The article analyzes Giorgio Agamben’s methodological tool of regression against the back-ground of Jewish messianism. Although the term is obviously borrowed from Freudian psychoanalysis, Agamben’s reading of regression has a distinct messianic spin: it means a movement toward prelinguistic existence (infancy), prior to the ontological split within the subject generated by language. This quasi-Edenic narrative might be called a ‘Heideggerian moment’ of Agamben’s thought but I argue – with reference to Infancy and History and Signature of All Things – that it is actually deeply rooted in Jewish tradition. The aim of the article is to 1) demonstrate the crypto-theological background of regression to infancy and 2) critically analyze Agamben’s idea of ‘regressive’ subjectivity beyond the principle of signification.
