Donare la vita: auto-affezioni di Jacques Derrida

This paper investigates the concept of auto-affection by Jacques Derrida, with a focus on its relation to Derrida's conceptions of life and experience. Auto-affection is that form of relation and contact that the Self has with itself: since, according to Derrida, there is no such thing as a pure identity with oneself, auto-affection always consists of a “paradoxical” intertwining of sameness and otherness and turns out to be, ultimately, auto-hetero-affection. This concept, I claim, plays an essential role in Derrida’s philosophy since its first appearance in Heidegger: the Question of Being and History (1964-65) until his later works, such as On Touching – Jean-Luc Nancy (2000). In the last few years, several studies have been published on the relationship between Derrida and the concept of life; nevertheless, most scholars have neglected the importance of the notion of auto-affection. On the one hand, I will show how this notion plays an essential role in Derridean philosophy, especially with regard to the issues of Derrida’s “phenomenology of life”. On the other hand, I will demonstrate how the notion of auto-immunity – which is crucial for Derrida’s “political turn” – not only emerges from a biological background but entirely lies on the phenomenon of auto-affection. The key to such understanding is the 1975-76’ seminar Life Death, in which Derrida posits the notion of auto-affection as the ownmost trait of every living being, for it is the condition of possibility of its re-production.