Politics of the Heart

The heart is not a political concept, and is hardly a philosophical one. Yet, Derrida invites us to think about the heart, or more exactly with and from the heart, when it comes to certain political questions. The heart, he says, is on the side of life. ‘My’ heart, he shows, is always the other(‘s), or rather, ‘my heart of the other’. When politics is a matter of ‘living together’, of the possibility or impossibility of doing so, as is the case in the so-called Israeli-Palestinian conflict, or when it's a question of life and death, as in the case of the state-administered death penalty, Derrida turns to the heart. This essay examines the stakes and modalities of doing and thinking politics with the heart (‘my heart of the other’) in/as mind.