For the love of this world: Michel Henry and Jean-Luc Nancy on theology and affectivity

ABSTRACT When read alongside the great command of Deuteronomy, ‘love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, and strength,’ the Judeo-Christian directive to ‘love your neighbour as yourself’ is perhaps one of the most theologically and ethically charged phrases in the Bible. In these two mutually reliant commandments lies a meeting point between the divine and the human that has important implications for our understanding of the nexus between theological conceptions of love and philosophical engagement with worldly existence. This point of intersection is explored in a particularly unique way in the thinking of Michel Henry and Jean-Luc Nancy. In this article, I conduct the first sustained comparative analysis of their respective philosophies, using an exploration of the role of love and affectivity in their work to better understand the philosophical opportunity represented by the commandment to love God and neighbour.