« Loi de la chair » – « loi du phallus » : d’une généalogie déconstructrice du concept de « carno – phallogocentrisme »

Abstract

The concept of "carno-phallogocentrism", introduced by Derrida in the late 1980s, is receiving significant attention today. However, commentators have noted that Derrida’s account of this concept is incomplete and not explicitly linked to the history of "anthropocentric subjectivity." The commonly proposed genealogy of this concept attempts to remediate these two unclarities by tracing the term’s definition back to its first appearance in 1989 in an interview with Jean-Luc Nancy, titled "‘Il faut bien manger’ ou le calcul du sujet". In this article, we suggest unfolding a new genealogy that examines the context in which this concept first appeared in the text "‘Il faut bien manger’ ou le calcul du sujet" and connects this first appearance to a set of other Derridean concepts and texts implicitly evoked on the same the occasion. This genealogy will reveal the speculative, "hetero-tautological" construction of the concept: the "hyphen" interposed between "carno" and "phallogo" indicates that the "law of the phallus" must speculatively oppose another law, which we call the "law of the flesh". The aim is to devise a deconstructive gesture capable of both revoking the presumed tautological omnipotence of the "anthropocentric subjectivity" (as dominant, virile, carnivorous and logocentric) and free the "law of the flesh" from its subjection to it.