Philosophy and the Political

In the late 1970s and 1980s, Lacoue-Labarthe and Nancy undertook a reflection on discourses of shared existence, community, and politics. This was partly due to the circumstances of their early interactions and interest in a mode of commonality distinct from that of closed, avant-garde groups. Lacoue-Labarthe&s;s thinking around politics and community therefore causes us to consider his collaborative writing in the light of his solo work, and vice-versa. Throughout Lacoue-Labarthe&s;s thinking, &s;philosophy&s; is endowed with a very specific set of connotations, making it clear that it is not the genre or discipline to which his investigations belong in any straightforward way. Despite announcing that &s;the time for polemics is past&s;, Ferry and Renault&s;s position is both sweeping and provocative in the oldest polemical tradition. Lacoue-Labarthe responds to Heidegger&s;s use of art or the artwork as metaphor for various orders of the political with an alternative strategy which involves establishing the aim of stepping beyond &s;le fictionnement&s; or &s;la "politique-fiction"&s;.