In the late 1960s, Giorgio Agamben participated in Martin Heidegger's seminars in Le Thor, southern France. It was during this time that he wrote his first book, "L'uomo senza contenuto," which was first published in 1970. Confident and radical, he tackles classical positions of aesthetics and confronts Plato, Kant, and Hegel with artists and authors of the Classical Modern period. At a time when art no longer serves to bring the essence of reality to appearance, it becomes a self-destructive force, with the artist, according to Agamben, being a "man without content." Agamben's first book is now finally available in German. "Agamben has taken the vacant place of the master thinker." - Die Welt.