Freeing yourself towards Your Own Being-Free. Jean-Luc Nancy on the Metaphysics of Freedom

Abstract

In this article, a close study of Jean-Luc Nancy’s The Experience of Freedom is offered. After presenting the book’s main argument, i.e. a non-metaphysical thinking of freedom, we turn to the question of subjectivity and freedom in relation to the eventfulness of freedom itself. The article closes by questioning certain surprising tendencies in Nancy’s work. So, for instance, one might note a return of the concept of destiny (and therefore of a certain form of metaphysics) in Nancy’s debate with Heidegger. Throughout, this essay seeks to relate the theme of freedom to other works of Nancy, including his recent deconstruction of Christianity, and to the debate with Heidegger and Derrida that takes place around the question of the freedom of the human being.