Mondialisation of Flesh

Derrida's name (at *On Touching—Jean-Luc Nancy* p. 247) for the over-extension of Husserlian Leiblichkeit — the globalization (mondialisation) of chair / flesh — beyond the self-affecting body to "things," "essences," and modes of experience that are "fleshless (without Leib) by essence, and without self-relation or self-contact." The critique targets Merleau-Ponty's late ontology of flesh of the world, specifically the V&I 57n10 extension (citing Bergson) of chair "as far as the stars" / to stones / to inert non-self-affecting bodies. Derrida's diagnosis: this extension departs from Husserlian rigor (Husserl's Leiblichkeit requires self-affection, hence cannot extend to stones), inherits the Christian-incarnational semantics of chair (the "unerasable connotations"), and risks an ontological inflation — extending flesh-status to whatever appears. The mondialisation is therefore the third charge of Derrida's three-part critique of MP's flesh (the other two: infidelity to Husserl, Christian semantics).

What the Concept Does

The concept performs three argumentative tasks:

  1. Names the over-extension explicitly. Derrida: "Beyond the virtually Christian connotations of the word 'flesh,' one also (though the two things may go hand in hand—more than ever) runs the risk of a sort of 'globalization' [mondialisation] of flesh, bestowing a flesh upon 'things,' 'essences,' and modes of experience that are fleshless (without Leib) by essence, and without self-relation or self-contact" (p. 247). The naming makes visible what was previously implicit in MP-reception: the move from my flesh to flesh-as-such to flesh-of-the-world is an extension that requires philological-philosophical defense.

  2. Restricts Leiblichkeit to the self-affecting body. Per Husserl, Leiblichkeit is constituted by self-affection — the Doppelempfindung of the touching hand touching itself. Stones cannot self-affect; therefore stones cannot be Leib. "Our kinship with other bodies is confined to the ones for whom self-affection is possible" (Derrida's reconstruction, restated in the wiki's existing jacques-derrida entity page from Carbone 2015).

  3. Connects to the Christian-incarnational inheritance. The two registers (Christian semantics + mondialisation) "may go hand in hand — more than ever" (Derrida p. 247). The Word made flesh extends chair to the cosmos via Incarnation (Christ as cosmic body); MP's mondialisation secularly extends chair to the stars via Bergson. The two extensions are structurally cognate; the mondialisation is the secular form of the Christian-cosmic extension.

What It Rejects

  • MP's V&I 57n10: the explicit extension of chair "as far as the stars" via Bergson. Derrida names this footnote as the locus of the problematic move.
  • MP's reading of Husserl's 1934 "Umsturz" manuscript (stones fly, two earths). Carbone (Carbone 2015) reads MP as more faithful to Husserl's 1934 thought-experiment than Derrida; Derrida reads MP as overreaching what Husserl himself meant as a thought-experiment.
  • The post-MP "panchair" tradition: any extension of flesh-as-ontological-element to all beings. The wiki's flesh-as-element page records the positive side of this tradition; mondialisation of flesh is the critical name.
  • The ontological inflation of Leibhaftigkeit: Husserl's adverb / adjective leibhaftig (everyday: "in person," "in the flesh") is taken by Didier Franck (and via him MP) to mean incarnate, fleshly. Derrida resists this thematic inflation: not every leibhaftig perception of a thing means the thing has flesh.

Stakes

  • For the wiki's reading of flesh-as-element: the positive Mp-side register and the negative Derridean diagnostic must coexist. The mondialisation critique does not refute the positive register but introduces a Positions tension. Specifically: is the kinship-of-flesh-with-stones (V&I 57n10) a philosophical insight (Carbone, MP) or a philological-philosophical overreach (Derrida, restricting to self-affecting bodies)?
  • For the wiki's reading of MP's Husserl-reception: MP's reading of Ideas II and the "Umsturz" manuscript is read by Derrida as unfaithful to Husserl (the wiki's existing jacques-derrida page records this); the mondialisation charge is the specific philological form.
  • For the philosophy of nature: MP's Nature lectures (1956–60) and the chair de monde register are vulnerable to the mondialisation charge. The wiki's existing pages on merleau-ponty-2003-nature and the flesh-of-nature register need this Derridean critical companion.
  • For Michel Henry's Incarnation (2000): Henry restricts chair to the self-affecting body (against MP's extension) for explicit Christian-phenomenological reasons. Henry and Derrida converge structurally (both restrict Leiblichkeit) but for opposed motives. The Henry-Derrida convergence is recorded on the jacques-derrida entity page.
  • For the wiki's reading of fragile-skin-of-the-world (Nancy's late title, 2020): Nancy's "the world is the factorial of all of our skins" is a post-mondialisation figure — it does not extend chair to the cosmos, but rather names the world as the non-own-skin that is constituted by the multiplicity of finite skins. Nancy resists mondialisation.
  • Confidence: high. The naming is explicit at p. 247; the philological-philosophical work is sustained across §§9–10.

Connections

  • named by derrida-2000-on-touching-nancy — p. 247 explicit naming; §§9–10 sustained development; §11 (the Christian-cosmological inheritance).
  • critiques flesh-as-element — the MP-side positive register that this concept critically targets.
  • critiques chiasm — the chiasm-of-flesh-with-the-world is the cosmological extension of the chiasm.
  • critiques MP's V&I 57n10 explicitly.
  • deconstructs haptocentrism — the mondialisation is the cosmological extreme of haptocentric immediacy.
  • engages edmund-husserl — Husserl's restriction of Leiblichkeit to self-affection is the philological measure.
  • engages maurice-merleau-ponty — the polemical target.
  • contrasts with techne-of-bodies — Nancy's technē of bodies resists the mondialisation by routing through the technical-prosthetic, not the cosmic.
  • contrasts with fragile-skin-of-the-world — Nancy's late figure resists mondialisation via the factorial of skins (no own-skin of the world).
  • aligns with Michel Henry's restriction of chair (Henry, Incarnation 2000).
  • anchors claims#mp-chair-departs-husserl (live, the specific mondialisation register).

Open Questions

  • Is the mondialisation of flesh philosophically incoherent or merely philologically overreaching? Derrida tends to suggest the former; Carbone (2015) and the MP-school suggest the latter. The question is whether Leiblichkeit can be coherently extended to inert bodies (per MP's reading of Husserl's "Umsturz") or whether the extension requires self-affection (per Derrida-Husserl).
  • Does Nancy's fragile skin of the world (2020) successfully resist mondialisation? Nancy's late formula — "the world is the factorial of all of our skins" — appears to avoid extending chair to the cosmos; the world has no own skin, only the multiplicity of finite skins. Whether this fully escapes the mondialisation register, or merely refigures it, deserves articulation.
  • What is the relation between mondialisation of flesh and mondialisation in Derrida's other senses (e.g., the mondialisation of capital, of religion, of the political — Foi et savoir 1996, La mondialisation, la paix et la cosmopolitique 2003)? Derrida uses mondialisation across multiple registers; the relation between them deserves articulation.
  • Is the Carbone-via-Gauguin counter-argument (the artistic de-Christianization of chair) coherent with the philological mondialisation charge? Carbone argues Gauguin's Polynesian painting performatively de-Christianizes chair; Derrida's charge is philological-philosophical (Husserl restricts Leiblichkeit). The two registers may be talking past each other.

Sources

  • derrida-2000-on-touching-nancy — primary attestation. §9 (the MP-Husserl close reading); §10 p. 247 (explicit naming of "mondialisation of flesh"); §11 (the Christian-cosmological inheritance). The argument turns on Husserl's restriction of Leiblichkeit in Ideas II §36–37 + MP's V&I 57n10 citation of Bergson.
  • The wiki's existing jacques-derrida entity page records the mondialisation charge via Carbone 2015 secondary attestation; this primary-source ingest provides the textual anchor.
  • The Husserlian counter-position is recorded indirectly at edmund-husserl and at flesh-as-element.