Why is it important to consider the human today? Exploring this question John Lechte takes inspiration from the interplay of two of Giorgio Agamben-s concepts: -ways of life- and -bare life-.Stateless people, those who do not have a political community, such as asylum seekers and refugees, are no less human. However the European tradition, represented most clearly in Hannah Arendt-s thinking of the opposition between the oikos, as the satisfaction of basic needs, and the polis, as the realm of freedom and glory, proposes the opposite of this. Arendt-s famous phrase, -the right to have rights-, means that freedom and full human potential can only be realised in the context of civil society; in short, that only citizens can be fully human. Because Arendt-s view is so influential, yet often not acknowledged, it is necessary to undertake a full investigation of the nature and meaning of the human to establish that it is not reducible to the citizen, but is always characterise
