First published in 1979 but never available in English until now, Ego Sum challenges, through a careful and unprecedented reading of Descartes's writings, the picture of Descartes as the father of modern philosophy: the thinker who founded the edifice of knowledge on the absolute self-certainty of a Subject fully transparent to itself. While other theoretical discourses, such as psychoanalysis, have also attempted to subvert this Subject, Nancy shows how they always inadvertently reconstituted the Subject they were trying to leave behind. Nancy's wager is that, at the moment of modern subjectivity's founding, a foundation that always already included all the possibilities of its own exhaustion, another thought of "the subject" is possible. By paying attention to the mode of presentation of Descartes's subject, to the masks, portraits, feints, and fables that populate his writings, Jean-Luc Nancy shows how Descartes's ego is not the Subject of metaphysics but a mouth that spaces itself out and distinguishes itself.

This volume focuses on the relational aspect of Jean-Luc Nancy’s thinking. As Nancy himself showed, thinking might be a solitary activity but it is never singular in its dimension. Building on or breaking away from other thoughts, especially those by thinkers who had come before, thinking is always plural, relational. This “singular plural” dimension of thought in Nancy’s philosophical writings demands explication. In this book, some of today’s leading scholars in the theoretical humanities shed light on how Nancy’s thought both shares with and departs from Descartes, Hegel, Marx, Heidegger, Weil, Lacan, Merleau-Ponty, and Lyotard, elucidating “the sharing of voices,” in Nancy’s phrase, between Nancy and these thinkers. Contributors: Georges Van Den Abbeele, Emily Apter, Rodolphe Gasché, Werner Hamacher, Eleanor Kaufman, Marie-Eve Morin, Timothy Murray, Jean-Luc Nancy, and John H. Smith

This volume focuses on the relational aspect of Jean-Luc Nancy's thinking. As Nancy himself showed, thinking might be a solitary activity but it is never singular in its dimension. Building on or breaking away from other thoughts, especially those by thinkers who had come before, thinking is always plural, relational. This "singular plural" dimension of thought in Nancy's philosophical writings demands explication. In this book, some of today's leading scholars in the theoretical humanities shed light on how Nancy's thought both shares with and departs from Descartes, Hegel, Marx, Heidegger, Weil, Lacan, Merleau-Ponty, and Lyotard, elucidating "the sharing of voices," in Nancy's phrase, between Nancy and these thinkers. Contributors: Georges Van Den Abbeele, Emily Apter, Rodolphe Gasche, Werner Hamacher, Eleanor Kaufman, Marie-Eve Morin, Timothy Murray, Jean-Luc Nancy, and John H. Smith

This book explains and contextualises the key concepts in Jean Luc Nancy's entire body of work. Jean Luc Nancy (1940), Professor of Political Philosophy and Media Aesthetics at the European Graduate School, is an influential French philosopher, most famous for his work The Inoperative Community. This dictionary equips students and scholars alike with insights into the philosophical and theoretical background to his work. Drawing on the internationally recognised expertise of a multidisciplinary team of contributors, the entries explain all of Nancy's main concepts, in particular his focus on community and aesthetics, contextualising these within his work as a whole and relating him to his contemporaries. It is the first dictionary dedicated to the work of Jean Luc Nancy. 70 entries explain all of Nancy's concepts and terms, from sense to experience and from community to globalisation. Contributors include Jane Hiddleston, Ian James, Oliver Marchart and Todd May. It includes an extensive list of secondary reading.

Marie-Eve Morin proposes a reinterpretation of the philosophy of Merleau-Ponty and Nancy from the perspective of realist and object-oriented tendencies in contemporary philosophy. The realist critique of subject-centred anthropocentric thinking indicates the danger, inherent in the phenomenological approach, of reducing being to sense. Morin demonstrates how Merleau-Ponty and Nancy avoid this pitfall through the development of ontologies that respect the materiality and exteriority of what exists without reaffirming the Cartesian divide between mind and world.Morin lays out the parameters of this philosophical approach which operates outside of Cartesian dualism. She orients her analysis around three ideas where Merleau-Ponty's and Nancy's thinking intersect: Body, Thing, Being. Each time, she tracks the role of difference or spacing within sensing and sense-making and concludes that their respective conceptions as encroachment and promiscuity or as unpassable limit may provide counterweights to each other.

Brings a new dimension to thinking about philosophical materialism and realism in the wake of phenomenology and deconstruction Challenges speculative realism's critique of contemporary Continental philosophy as correlationism Uses Merleau-Ponty and Nancy to develop an ontology that respects the materiality and exteriority of what exists without reinstating the mind world divide Shows how Merleau-Ponty and Nancy overcome the Cartesian presupposition at work in current realist appeal to step out of our own thoughts to reach the 'great outdoors' Provides an alternative to the phenomenological reduction of being to sense Defends anthropomorphism as a way of overcoming the Cartesian Sartrian ontology of the object Marie-Eve Morin proposes a reinterpretation of the philosophy of Merleau-Ponty and Nancy from the perspective of realist and object-oriented tendencies in contemporary philosophy. The realist critique of subject-centred anthropocentric thinking indicates the danger, inherent in the phenomenological approach, of reducing being to sense. Morin demonstrates how Merleau-Ponty and Nancy avoid this pitfall through the development of ontologies that respect the materiality and exteriority of what exists without reaffirming the Cartesian divide between mind and world. Morin orients her analysis around three ideas where Merleau-Ponty's and Nancy's thinking intersect: Body, Thing, Being. Each time, she tracks the role of difference or spacing within sensing and sense-making. She concludes that their respective conceptions as encroachment and promiscuity or as unpassable limit may provide counterweights to each other.

Speculative realism challenges philosophical approaches and traditions for supposedly failing to do justice to the real world. Taking this realist challenge seriously, Continental Realism and Its Discontents refuses to discard the philosophical contributions of Kant, Schelling, Merleau-Ponty, Derrida and Nancy without closer scrutiny. Instead, the contributors turn to these thinkers to meet the challenge of realism in contemporary philosophy.

Speculative realism challenges philosophical approaches and traditions for supposedly failing to do justice to the real world. Taking this realist challenge seriously, Continental Realism and Its Discontents refuses to discard the philosophical contributions of Kant, Schelling, Merleau-Ponty, Derrida and Nancy without closer scrutiny. Instead, the contributors turn to these thinkers to meet the challenge of realism in contemporary philosophy.

Explains and contextualises the key concepts in Jean-Luc Nancy's entire body of work This dictionary equips students and scholars alike with insights into the philosophical and theoretical background to Nancy's work. Drawing on the internationally recognised expertise of a multidisciplinary team of contributors, the entries explain all of his main concepts, in particular his focus on community and aesthetics, contextualising these within his work as a whole and relating him to his contemporaries. Contributors include: Jane Hiddleston, Ian James, Oliver Marchart and Todd May