In the preface to Infancy and History, Agamben writes that the question ‘which defines the motivum’ of his thought – the single problem he has pursued in all his works, both written and unwritten – is the following: ‘[W]hat is the meaning of “there is language”; what is the meaning of “I speak”?’ While the philosophy of language is a significant sub-field in contemporary philosophy, Agamben's way of posing his question shows how far his concerns are from those of most professional philosophers, including not only analytic but also many ‘continental’ thinkers. His question is not about the nature of meaning, or problems of truth and reference; nor is it necessarily about hermeneutics, semiotics, différance or discourse ethics. It is about the fact that language exists: the fact that one speaks and writes at all. If this strikes as a strange point of departure for an entire philosophy, it is probably because it seems relatively unremarkable – after all, we presuppose it as soon as we say ‘philosophy of language’, as soon as we say we are interested in language as a philosophical problem (indeed, we presuppose it as soon as we say anything). Surely the truly interesting philosophical questions have to do with how language works, with how meaning and communication are possible.