JEAN-LUC NANCY E L’IMPERATIVO CATEGORICO

The essay focuses on J.-L. Nancy’s proposal to interpret the categorical imperative. He conceives the categorical/hypothetical pair in the light of Aristotelian-scholastic logic, asserting: categorical is an absolute affirmation of the predicate of a subject, while hypothetical corresponds to the conditional affirmation of a predicate for a subject. J.-L. Nancy doesn’t only refer to this, but he is also interested in the practical power of the categorical order of transcendental logic, in the prescriptiveness of that order or, to be more precise, in its self-prescriptiveness. This order is “the order of the relationship between existents” centrality of kategorèin in the field of praxis. Nancy considers the Kantian expression “universal law of nature” essential to identify the meaning of the formulation of the categorical imperative. This meaning will be illustrated with a double argumentative movement: the comparison with Kantian ethical works (Foundation of the Metaphysics of Customs and Critique of Practical Reason, in particular Preface and Typical of pure practical judgment), on the one hand, and the analysis of the critique that Nancy makes of subjectivist or “egotistic” interpretations of the universalisation of the categorical maximum, on the other. This will be connected with reflections on the complex relationship between the coercive imperiousness of command and freedom.