The French philosopher Jean-Luc Nancy, one of the most important and original figures of contemporary philosophical thought and one of the leading exponents of deconstructionism along with Jacques Derrida, died on Monday evening in Strasbourg at the age of 81. The news of the disappearance was given by his publisher to the Parisian newspaper “Le Monde”, confirming the information of the regional newspaper “Dernières nouvelles d’Alsace”.
He was professor emeritus of philosophy at the University of Strasbourg, a member of the International College of Philosophy and the author of numerous and influential essays. Born in Bordeaux on July 26, 1940, Nancy graduated in philosophy in Paris under the guidance of Derrida in 1962, earning her doctorate with a work on Immanuel Kant with Paul Ricoeur and soon after publishing works on Karl Marx and Friedrich Nitzsche. In 1968 he became an assistant at the ‘Marc Bloch’ University of Strasbourg where he subsequently obtained the chair at the Institute of Philosophy. He has also taught at the universities of Berkeley, Berlin, Irvine and San Diego.
The main philosophical topics that he has addressed concern the political and social problems, the ways of development and construction of society and the coexistence of individuals in modern society. He has also dealt with aesthetics and art, collaborating with internationally renowned directors and artists, including Abbas Kiarostami, Claire Denis, Claudio Parmiggiani, Mathilde Monnier and Simon Hantaï.
His thinking was articulated on several levels. From the more strictly political reflection (of particular importance is his research on the community, on the limits of democracy and the most recent on the deconstruction of Christianity) to the more extensive one on art and aesthetics (the text “The Muses” is significant in this direction. , Diabasis, 2006). His autobiographical books on the condition of heart transplant have aroused much interest (“Corpus”, Cronopio, 1992, and “L’intruso”, Cronopio, 2006).
Among his many books translated into Italian by Einaudi are “The experience of freedom” (2000), “Being singular plural” (2001 and new edition 2021) and “The creation of the world or globalization” (2003). Also published in Italian: “A thought finished” (Marcos y Marcos, 1992), “The inactive community” (Cronopio, 1992), “The Nazi myth” (Il Melangolo, 1992), “Corpus” (Cronopio, 1995) , “The sense of the world” (1997), “The experience of freedom” (2000), “Being singular plural” (2001), “The portrait and its gaze” (Raffaello Cortina, 2002), “On acting “(Cronopio, 2004),” Of the book and the library. The trade of ideas “(Raffaele Cortina, 2006),” Three essays on the image “(Cronopio, 2007),” The just and the unjust “(Feltrinelli, 2007), “Truth of democracy” (Cronopio, 2008), “The weight of a thought” (Mimesis, 2009), “On love” (Bollati Boringhieri, 2009), “The weight of a thought, the approach” (Mimesis, 2009), “Body theater” (Cronopio, 2010), “The body of art” (Mimesis, 2014), “Of sex” (Cronopio, 2016), “The disavowed community” (Mimesis, 2016), “What remains of the gratuity?” (Mimesis, 2018), “Suffering is animal” (Mimesis, 2019), “Excluding the Jew in us” (Mimesis, 2019), “Deconstruction of Christianity. The disclosure” (Cronopio, 2021).