The [Transplanted] Thinking Heart

Abstract

This article discusses the relation between philosophy and heart from the viewpoint of a transplanted heart. It is a reflection on Jean-Luc Nancy’s thoughts on the heart as intruder in the thought of the world. Departing from the personal experience of a heart transplant, Nancy develops a deconstruction of the idea and experience of the self, showing that the need of another heart in the body of philosophy and in the body of the world has to do with the urgence of experiencing the self as soi-autre, as selfother, which is perhaps nothing but rhythm. Reading passages of his last book Cruor, the article aims to think together the rhythm of a transplanted heart, and of the heart of selfother.