"Corpus" by Jean-Luc Nancy: extreme bodily experience as a reason for extreme discourse
In 1991, the French philosopher Jean-Luc Nancy at the age of fifty-one years old underwent heart transplant surgery. One year after the operation Nancy wrote a philosophical work entitled «Corpus». What the philosopher wrote a paper on the body after successfully endured such a responsible operation and in a sense started a new life, it is understandable from the point of view of psychology, but it is indicative of the size of the philosophical works. This work is a literary work and in terms of content is very independent from the event itself a heart transplant. In this work, there are practically no references and footnotes to some of the other philosophers. Work «Corpus» completely devoids of the apparatus, which we used to see in the works of the philosophers who aspire to be scientific. Work «Corpus» is not by chance devoided of all that involves the scientific study, because a literary work, the presence of this device does not assume. And yet, the work of «Corpus» is philosophy, but philosophy in a particular case. In «Corpus» some experience in the transformation of philosophical discourse is done – or rather, is done beyond the existing philosophical discourse.