ABSTRACT As Derrida points out in his famous polemic against Agamben in The Beast and the Sovereign I, the latter’s conceptual frivolity and historical reductionism point to the essential claim to sovereignty inherent in theory itself, driven by “our irrepressible desire for the threshold.” This article responds to Derrida’s call for a rethinking of the figure of the threshold as a way of conceptualizing our position vis-à-vis the past. The article explores how a certain highly potent and reductive version of the concept ended up in the theory toolbox. At the same time, it suggests how other meanings in the term’s history can lead us towards a humbler threshold, one that includes a sense of stumbling, failure, and creaturely entanglement. Mobilizing a popular folk etymology of the word, these two conceptual strands might be labeled “threshing” (referring to the utilitarian, outcome-oriented movement of the threshold as deployed within a muscular narrative of radical change), and “holding” (for a less muscular mode of inquiry predicated on slowing down and lingering at the threshold, which is no longer a foundation). In fact, the article proposes, theory in the mode of “holding” is increasingly the “way we do theory now.”

中文翻译：

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“ Notreirrépressabledésirdu seuil”：阈值理论，现在

摘要正如德里达在《野兽与主权一号》中针对阿甘本的著名论战中指出的那样，后者的概念轻浮和历史还原论指出了理论本身固有的主权主张，这是由“我们对门槛的不可抑制的渴望”驱动的。本文回应了德里达的呼吁，即重新思考门槛数字，以此来概念化我们相对于过去的立场。本文探讨了该概念的某些高度有效和简化的版本是如何在理论工具箱中最终实现的。同时，它暗示了术语历史中的其他含义如何使我们迈向一个谦卑的门槛，其中包括绊脚，失败和人为纠缠的感觉。调动一个流行的民间词源词，这两个概念链可能被标记为“脱粒”（指的是在激进变化的肌肉叙事中部署的阈值的功利主义，以结果为导向的运动）和“持有”（针对以减慢速度为基础的较弱的探究模式）并徘徊在门槛之上，而这不再是基础。实际上，该文章提出，以“持有”模式进行的理论越来越成为“我们现在进行理论的方式”。