Se toucher toi (To Self-Touch You)

Nancy's grammatical-philosophical figure (from Corpus p. 36) for the constitutive failure of pure self-touch — and one of Derrida's master-concepts in *On Touching—Jean-Luc Nancy* (Part III, §§12–13). The French phrase se toucher toi — "to self-touch you (and not 'oneself')" [Se toucher toi (et non "soi")] — is grammatically anomalous: the reflexive se (which normally takes a reflexive pronoun soi) is combined with the familiar second-person object toi. The result is a structure of touching-oneself-that-is-always-already-touching-you — the second-person address is constitutively inside any "self-touching." Pure auto-affection is therefore impossible: every self-touch is also an apostrophe to a tu. This figure breaks the haptocentric reflexivity that grounds the metaphysics of presence in self-touch (Husserl, Doppelempfindung; MP, touching-touched; the cogito).

What the Concept Does

The concept performs four argumentative tasks:

  1. Names the constitutive heteroaffection of any auto-affection. Nancy: "For this imperative [of kissing, of sex] doesn't aim at any object, either large or small, either self or child, but only the pleasure/pain of a 'self-touching' [d'un se- toucher]. (Or yet again: of a remaining-self, or a becoming-self without returning to self. To take pleasure [jouir] is at the heart of the dialectic a diastole without systole: this heart is the body.) To self-touch you (and not 'oneself') [Se toucher toi (et non 'soi')]" (Corpus p. 36, quoted Derrida p. 289). The phrase "self-touch you" thematizes what the haptocentric tradition denies: the second-person tu is inside any "I touch myself" as its constitutive interruption.

  2. Grounds the impossibility of pure self-affection grammatically. Derrida shows that the French se is "eternally untranslatable" (p. 45) — it is neither pure reflexivity (soi) nor pure transitivity. The se opens onto the tu / toi: "No sooner does 'I [touch] itself' than it is itself — it contracts itself, it contracts with itself, but as if with another. It addresses itself to itself and says tu to itself" (p. 44). The grammar of self-touching in French is already a grammar of address.

  3. Replaces specularity with heteroaffective reflexivity. Derrida's §13 proposition 1: "One must first of all speak of reflexivity and not specularity, since the contact (the self-touching and the self-touching you of the two borders) does not submit to the paradigm of sight or the mirror" (p. 291). The mirror model of self-relation (Cartesian, Lacanian-stade-du-miroir) is broken by the self-touching-you: there is no third-person image of the self; only the second-person address.

  4. Breaks the haptocentric reflexivity of MP's "touch is to touch oneself" and Maldiney's "in touching things, we touch ourselves to them." Derrida cites these formulas in §11 (p. 255) and shows that Nancy's se toucher toi says them otherwise — the otherwise that breaks the reflexive enclosure. The self-touching-you is therefore the Nancean post-haptocentric figure of touch.

What It Rejects

  • Husserlian Urpräsenz: the supposed originary presence of the ego to itself in self-affection. The se toucher toi installs the tu at the origin.
  • MP's reflexivity / I touch myself touching: read by Derrida as still intuitionistic at base; the self-touching-you names the interruption MP's écart partially recognizes but does not thematize.
  • Cartesian cogito as self-relation: the cogito presupposes a soi-without-toi; the se toucher toi makes the toi originary.
  • The Lacanian stade du miroir: the specular grounding of self-relation in the mirror image. Reflexivity, not specularity (Derrida §13 §1).
  • Heideggerian Jemeinigkeit / mineness of Dasein (insofar as it is read as monadic): "You, metronome of my heteronomy, you will always resist that which, in my 'self-touching,' could dream of the reflexive or specular autonomy of self-presence (be it that of the Dasein) or of self-consciousness, absolute knowledge" (p. 301).
  • Any haptocentric self-presence: see haptocentrism for the negative diagnostic.

Stakes

  • For the wiki's reading of chiasm and reversibility: MP's reversibility of touching-touched is the structurally homologous figure but, on Derrida's reading, remains reflexive (touching itself), not heteroaffective (touching you). The se toucher toi breaks the chiasm's symmetry by including the second-person address constitutively.
  • For the wiki's reading of unum-quid: Nancy's unum quid (the something-neither-soul-nor-body that utters ego sum) is structurally the I that touches itself — and on Derrida's §2 reading, the unum quid is already a self-touching-you: "The 'I' owes as much to the contract and the gathered stroke or trait of this contraction of oneself (with oneself) as to the opening itself, that is, of what is called the mouth . . . An I, there where it is (self-)touched [Là où ça se touche, un je]. But I self-touches spacing itself out, losing contact with itself, precisely in touching itself" (p. 44).
  • For the wiki's reading of allonomy (Nancy's late concept): the late-Nancean allonomy — that every *auto-*logy presupposes distance to self — is the matured form of the se toucher toi register. The 2020 Fragile Skin of the World cites Derrida's Voice and Phenomenon on this very structure; the se toucher toi of 2000 is the touch-mode anticipation of allonomy.
  • For the philosophy of language: the French tutoiement (familiar second-person address) is grammatically load-bearing here. The se toucher toi could not be formulated in languages without the tu/vous distinction; the philosophical thesis is partly a thesis about the French language.
  • For the deconstruction of Christianity: the and you / and to you of Nancy's Corpus (the book's last words) is the non-Christian form of the second-person — the you who is not God, not the Du of theological address, but the singular plural of the Mitsein. Yet the structure is haunted by the and you of prayer.
  • Confidence: high. Nancy's formula is textually exact (Corpus p. 36, citation p. 289); Derrida's reading is sustained across §§2, 12, 13; the grammatical-philosophical analysis at p. 44–45 is canonical.

Connections

  • develops jean-luc-nancy — Nancy's Corpus p. 36; the closing "and you" of Corpus; Être singulier pluriel on the with.
  • named by derrida-2000-on-touching-nancy — §§2, 12, 13 throughout; explicit grammatical analysis at pp. 44–45 and p. 289; Part III title-figure.
  • enacts haptical-differance — the spacing constitutive of contact takes its grammatical-temporal form here.
  • deconstructs chiasm — MP's symmetrical reversibility of touching-touched is broken by the second-person constitutive interruption.
  • deconstructs reversibility — the reflexive enclosure is opened by the toi.
  • deconstructs haptocentrism — the haptocentric reflexivity (the self-touching as criterion of Leiblichkeit) is structurally broken.
  • prefigures allonomy — late-Nancean diagnostic that every auto-logy presupposes distance to self; the se toucher toi is the early touch-mode anticipation.
  • prefigures singular-plural — Nancy's late synthesis (the each-time-mine is a priori plural); the se toucher toi anticipates the singular-plural structure.
  • requires corpus-corporum — Nancy's body-of-bodies is the ontological-anatomical register of the se toucher toi grammar.
  • enacts exscription — Nancy's writing-out / exscription names the same structural failure of the self-relation to close upon itself.
  • engages unum-quid — Nancy's Cartesian read; the I-that-self-touches is structurally the unum quid.
  • engages novalis — "The first kiss is the principle of philosophy" (cited §13); the principle of philosophy as the first kiss on the eyes is the se toucher toi in nuce.

Open Questions

  • Is the se toucher toi a French-language-specific philosophical figure? Derrida calls the se "eternally untranslatable." Other languages may have structurally analogous figures (e.g., German sich; Italian si) but the tutoiement is more distinctive. Does this language-specificity limit or enable the philosophical claim?
  • Does the se toucher toi break the haptocentric reflexivity enough? Derrida's §13 diagnosis of Nancy's "haptico-transcendental reduction" suggests that even Nancy may re-enclose the se toucher toi within a generalized haptic ontology. The post-haptocentric thrust of the figure may need supplementation.
  • What is the relation between the and you of Nancy's Corpus (closing) and the and to you of Derrida's Part III? Both are the second-person address as constitutive interruption; the relation between Nancean and Derridean uses of the tu deserves explicit thematization.
  • How does the se toucher toi relate to the kiss on the eyes that bookends Derrida's text? The kiss on the eyes — "when our eyes touch" — is the inaugurating and concluding figure; the se toucher toi is the grammatical form. The relation between the bodily figure (kiss-on-eyes) and the grammatical figure (se toucher toi) is internal to the book.

Sources

  • derrida-2000-on-touching-nancy — primary attestation. §2 p. 44–45 (grammatical analysis of se and the "I self-touches"); §12 throughout (the section title is "To self-touch you"); §13 throughout (Part III title-figure); cf. Nancy Corpus p. 36 (the originating formula). The closing "and you" of Nancy's Corpus is also load-bearing (the final words of Nancy's book).