On Friendship Author: [Italy] Giorgio Agamben Translator: Liu Yaohui/ Wei Guangji Publisher: Peking University Press

This book is composed of three articles: "What is a Device?", "On Fraternity" and "The Church and the Kingdom"

1. In What is an Apparatus?, Agamben explains the concept of an apparatus: an apparatus is the intersection of power relations and knowledge relations.

2. In On Friendship, Agamben explains love: 1. There is a pure sense of existence, a sense of being [aisthēsis]. 2. This sense of existence itself is sweet (hēdys). 3. There is a certain equivalence between being and living, between feeling someone's presence and feeling someone's life. Such a statement must be a preparation for Nietzsche's thesis: existence - we have no other way to imagine it except "living".

3. In The Church and the Kingdom, theological thinking is added to discuss the issue of power relations.

Giorgio Agamben (1942- )

A famous contemporary Italian philosopher and thinker. He has taught at many colleges and universities, including the University of Macerata, the University of Verona, the Venice School of Architecture, the International Institute of Philosophy in Paris, and the European Graduate School. His research fields are extensive and far-reaching, and he enjoys a high reputation in the international academic community. He has written many books, including "Nude", "Blasphemy", "What is a Device", "On Friendship", "Church and Kingdom", "State of Exception", "The Sacrament of Language" and other works involving philosophy, politics, literature and art.