Abstract
The purpose of this article is to develop a reasoned criticism of the way G. Agamben and T. Negri use the concept of �biopolitics' in their arguments. It will try to show how these authors turn this notion into the key concept of a totalizing philosophy of history. In this respect the concept undergoes a process of hypostasis, whereby it is divested of the critical potential it still keeps in M. Foucault's original proposals. The article presents, to this end, a synthesis of the general thesis posed by Agamben and Negri. Then, these theories are contrasted against the concepts of �critique� and �history� which Foucault himself derived from his own genealogical approach. The article concludes considering the way the authors in question obstruct any possibility of a social critique aimed at praxis.