Do we have anything to say?

A volume on Nancy and the Political presupposes a relationship between these two signifiers. Nancy scholars, it seems, would be left behind with one final question: what kind of relationship? Naturally, the only true philosophical stance is to refuse this presupposition and start thinking it: does the oeuvre of Nancy have any relationship with the political at all? Only once this question has been unravelled, we can start thinking about ‘Nancy and the Political’. My central thesis is that, though interesting and fascinating, Nancy's social ontology does not lead to a breakthrough in thinking the political. Moreover, his gesture away from the political to the social, results into a conceptual vacuum when it comes down to the political. More than Nancy, the oeuvre of Claude Lefort and Michel Foucault, two philosophers Nancy hardly refers to when thinking the political, is well equipped to think the political today.

First of all, I analyse how Nancy develops two central concepts of the political, justice and power. Next to that, I will sketch his shift towards the social and conclude this with an analysis of his regained attention to the political in recent writings. Secondly, I investigate the way Nancy refers to Lefort and Foucault in a minor way and question this lack of attention by a brief sketch of the concept of power in both their oeuvre, in order to argue that Nancy is not only mistaken in not paying attention to their analyses, but also why their oeuvre can be of help in thinking the political today, with or without Nancy.

About ‘The Political’

Obviously, Nancy has written on the political. In several of his books and articles, he has written on the retracement of the political, on democracy, on sovereignty, on justice or on globalisation; and also on sacrifice, terror, theodicy, suffering, destruction, violence, sovereignty or totalitarianism. Above, I put Nancy's ‘political philosophy’ between brackets, because Nancy has never put forward a new political philosophy or a new form of politics. Rather than fading interest in the political as such, his interest lies in seeking another way of thinking the political. His aim is to investigate what politics can still mean today.