The Un‐figured and the True Judgement of History

This text proposes a reinterpretation of history (and of the world) based on the perspective of those who live on its margins: we have called them the ‘un‐figured’. It seems to us that their living flesh is the truth of history, thereby constituting a genuine apocalyptic space. Starting from the inadequacy that history itself reveals, we have sought to show that the authentic movement of human action is that of liturgy, understood in a broad sense as a form of action that experiences temporality in an open manner. Thus, by challenging the primacy of a certain idea of history, founded on human practice, we have highlighted how the un‐figured represent the other voice—unheard at first—of those who live liturgically. In contrast to the post‐historical figures of Kojève or Agamben, these living beings suffer transcendence in their bodies and find their most precise form in the Christian saint. In conclusion, we have shown in what sense, from their concrete suffering, the authentic judgement upon the world arises.