Nancy taught at the Lycée Bartholdi in Colmar from 1964 to 1968, and he then became an assistant at the Institute of Philosophy at the University of Strasbourg. From 1973 to 2002, he taught as professor of philosophy at the University of Strasbourg. He was also the Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel Chair and professor of philosophy at The European Graduate School. He underwent a heart transplant in 1991 and later developed lymphoma as a result of immunosuppressive therapy. His essay L’intrus (2000, The Intruder, 2002) was a reflection on his experience as a heart transplant survivor, and it inspired a film of the same name, directed by Claire Denis in 2004.
Nancy had a very close longtime friendship with the philosopher and literary critic Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe (1940-2007), whom he met in 1967, and with whom he co-authored several books and essays.
His many books included Le titre de la lettre: Une lecture de Lacan (co-authored with Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe, The Title of the Letter: A Reading of Lacan, 1972), L’absolu littéraire: Théorie de la littérature du romantisme allemand (co-authored with Lacoue-Labarthe, 1978, The Literary Absolute: The Theory of Literature in German Romanticism, 1978), La communauté désoeuvrée (1983, The Inoperative Community, 1991), Le sens du monde (1993, The Sense of the World, 1998), Être singulier pluriel (1996, Being Singular Plural, 2000), Déclosion: Déconstruction du christianisme, Volume 1 (2005, Dis-Enclosure: The Deconstruction of Christianity, 2008), L’Adoration: Déconstruction du christianisme, volume 2 (2010, Adoration: The Deconstruction of Christianity, 2012), La Communauté désavouée (2014, The Disavowed Community, 2016), and Sexistence (2017, Sexistence, 2021).
Être singulier pluriel (Being Singular Plural) considers the question, "What is the meaning of Being?" by starting from Heidegger's claim that Being is constituted by being-with. Nancy looks at how being-with constitutes Being, and how the original singularity of Being is not "one," but rather a plurality of modes of being-with.
Heidegger, in Sein und Zeit (1927, Being and Time, 1962), says that Being is always the being of a being, and that Dasein (being-there) is the kind of being that belongs to human beings. Dasein is essentially constituted by Mitsein (being-with). Mit-anderen-sein (being with others) and Mit-einander-sein (being-with-one-another) also belong to the being of Dasein. Alleinsein (being alone) is a deficient mode of Mitsein (being-with) and wouldn't be possible unless there were being-with.1 Being-with is an essential constituent of being-in-the-world (In-der-Welt-sein), and only through understanding our own being-with can we come to understand our own being-in-the-world.
Nancy thus considers how the meaning of Being is put into play as being-with. All being is determined in its Being as being-with-one-another, he says.2 If Being is being-with, then it is the "with" that constitutes Being.3 Being as being-with is Being whose essence is "with."4 The "with" of Being, of the singular and plural, is the essence (and also co-essence) of Being.
Nancy's project is therefore to extend the existential analytic of Mitsein (being-with) begun by Heidegger, by introducing a co-existential analytic, in order to show that the co-essentiality of being-with is also the co-originarity of meaning, which can only take place through a sharing of being-with.
Some key concepts in his analytic include
Meaning (Le sens), which, according to Nancy, isn't something we can lose, because we ourselves are meaning--not in the sense that we're the content of meaning, but in the sense that we're the element in which meaning is produced and circulates.5 "Meaning is its own communication or its own circulation," he says.6 If we ask then, as Heidegger did, "What is the meaning of Being?", we must keep in mind that if Being is being-with, then the meaning of Being is to found in this "with," and our understanding of ourselves is to be found though our relations with others. Meaning is the sharing of Being with others.7 We can find "the meaning of Being not only as the meaning of "with,"" but also as "the "with" of meaning."8
The creation of the world (La création du monde) is not the creation of something from nothing. It's the space where meaning begins, and where presence explodes in the original multiplicity of its division.9 It's the origin of each presence as originally shared. Thus, it signifies the death of God insofar as God is seen as the creator, first cause, or prime mover.10 The world comes into being wherever presence is shared in its multiplicity. Since presence can only exist as co-presence, creation also means existence and co-existence. Whatever exists co-exists, and "the co-implication of existing is the sharing of the world."11
The origin (L'origine) is not that from which the world comes, but rather the coming of each presence into the world, each time singular.12 If the world is its own origin, then it occurs at each moment, each time we share the meaning of being-with. It forestalls direct access to itself by concealing itself in its multiplicity, but we have access to its truth as often as we are in one another's presence.13 It's also irreducibly plural, and it's "the indefinitely unfolding and variously multiplied intimacy of the world."14 Indeed, the world has no other origin than this singular multiplicity of origins.
Intimacy (Intimité) is a relation in which Being coincides with Being. It's a relation to ourselves, rather than a relation to others. It's also a co-existence of origins in which our own being-with (étre-avec) is a being-many (être-à-plusieurs). It's a relation in which we see in our own existence the originary coexistence of others.
Being singular plural (Être singulier pluriel) is Being as being-with or being-with-one-another. It's therefore plurally singular and singularly plural.15 The terms "Being," "singular," and "plural" can be rearranged in any order, and none of them precedes or grounds the other. Each of them designates the co-essence of the others.16
Community (Communauté) is constituted by the "with" of our being-with. It's our being-with (étre-avec) or being-together (être-ensemble). It's also our co-appearing (comparution) with one another. It's also our having-in-common something or being-in-common in some way. But it's not a matter of being "one," because our being-with is both singular and plural.
In his essay, Eulogy for the Mêlée (2000), Nancy asks "What is a community?", and he answers, "What we have in common is also what distinguishes and differentiates us. What I have in common with another Frenchman is the fact of not being the same Frenchman as him, and the fact that our "Frenchness" is never, nowhere, in no essence, in no figure, brought to completion.".17
In his book The Inoperative Community (2001), Nancy also says that when we think we have lost our sense of community, our community may not actually have taken place. We ourselves may be lost, rather than our community. "Community is always what takes place through others and for others."18
Critique (La Critique) may be social, political, aesthetic, or philosophical. It may also be revolutionary or reformist, but it presupposes the possibility of unveiling the intelligibility of the real.19 It's an activity whose theory and practice, according to Nancy, must be supported not by an ontology of the Other and the Same, but by an ontology of being-with-one-another.20 "The subject of ontology first of all entails the critical examination of the conditions of critique."21
Thus, the study of those conditions is what constitutes "first philosophy."
First Philosophy (Philosophie Première) is a way of thinking about the meaning of Being without presupposing anything. "The most formal and fundamental requirement [of ontology]," says Nancy, "is that "Being" cannot be assumed to be the simple singular that the name seems to indicate. Its being singular is plural."22 Thus, the singular plural essence of Being is the foundation of first philosophy.
Language (Le langage) is the exposing of plural singularity. It's not inside the world, but is the outside of the world in the world.23 In it, being is exposed as meaning, that is, as the originary sharing according to which beings relate to one another.24
Touch (Le Toucher) is the contact that human beings have with one another. But contact is beyond connection or separation. Contiguity or proximity may occur between a singular being and another, but not continuity, in the sense that contiguity or proximity reveal the separation that opens up. "All of being is in touch with all of being," says Nancy, "but the law of touching is separation.25 A touch of meaning brings singularity into play, but it also brings into play the plurality of other touches of meaning. Touching is both singular and plural, and thus it takes place as being-with.
In his book Noli me tangere: On the raising of the Body (2008), Nancy refers to what Jesus said to Mary Magdalene after he had risen from the dead, "Touch me not." But Nancy says that in a certain sense, nothing and no one is untouchable in Christianity. Even the body and blood of Christ are given to be eaten and drunk. In a certain sense, then, Christianity is a "religion of touch, of the sensible, of presence that is immediate to the body and heart."26
The deconstruction of Christianity (La déconstruction du Christianisme) reveals that the commandment to "love your neighbor as yourself" privileges love for oneself as a model for loving others. We're told to love others by imitating the love we have for ourselves. But this kind of love is not some possible kind of relation, says Nancy, because it designates the relation of one to another as the infinite relation of the same to the same as originarily other than itself.
Nancy also says that the "Self" is not a relation of a "me" to itself (""Soi" n'est pas in rapport d'un "moi" à soi-meme"27). The Self is more originary than "me" and "you."28 It's primarily the "as such" of Being in general. "Prior to "me" and "you," "the "Self" is like a "we" that is neither a collective subject nor "intersubjectivity," but rather...the plural fold of the origin."29
He also explains that "we" always expresses a plurality. But even if it's not articulated as such, "we" is the condition for the possibility of every "I." Thus, "From the very start, the structure of the "Self," even considered as a kind of unique and solitary "self," is the structure of the "with.""30
FOOTNOTES
1Martin Heidegger, Being and Time, translated by Joan Stambaugh (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1996), p. 113.
2Jean-Luc Nancy, Being Singular Plural, translated by Robert D. Richardson and Anne E. O'Byrne (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2000), p. 32.
3Ibid., p. 30.
4Ibid., p. 33.
5Ibid., pp. 1-2.
6Ibid., p. 2.
7Ibid., p. 2.
8Ibid., p. 37
9Ibid., p. 3.
10Ibid., p. 15.
11Ibid., p. 29.
12Ibid., p. 12.
13Ibid., p. 13
14Ibid., p. 12.
15Ibid., p. 28.
16Ibid., p. 37.
17Jean-Luc Nancy, "Eulogy for the Mêlée," in Being Singular Plural, p. 154.
18Nancy, The Inoperative Community, translated by Peter Connor, Lisa Garbus, Michael Holland, and Simona Sawhney (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1991), p. 15.
19Being Singular Plural, p. 54.
20Ibid., p. 53
21Ibid., p. 57.
22Ibid., p. 56.
23Ibid., p. 108.
24Ibid., p. 84.
25Ibid., p. 5.
26Jean-Luc Nancy, Noli me tangere: On the raising of the Body, translated by Sarah Clift, Pascale-Anne Brault, and Michael Naas (New York: Fordham University Press, 2008), p. 14.
27Nancy, Être singulier pluriel (Paris: Éditions Galilée, 1996), p. 118.
28Nancy, Being SIngular Plural, p. 94.
29Ibid., p. 94
30Ibid, p. 96.
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