1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910970649603321

Autore

Derrida Jacques

Titolo

The animal that therefore I am / / Jacques Derrida; edited by Marie-Louise Mallet; translated by David Wills

Pubbl/distr/stampa

New York, : Fordham University Press, 2008

ISBN

9780823246878

0823246876

9780823227914

082322791X

9780823227921

0823227928

Edizione

[1st ed.]

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (191 p.)

Collana

Perspectives in Continental Philosophy

Altri autori (Persone)

MalletMarie-Louise

Disciplina

194

Soggetti

Animals (Philosophy)

Philosophy, French - 20th century

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Note generali

Bibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references.

Nota di contenuto

The animal that therefore I am (more to follow) -- But as for me, who am I (following)? -- And say the animal responded -- I don't know why we are doing this.

Sommario/riassunto

The Animal That Therefore I Am is the long-awaited translation of the complete text of Jacques Derrida?s ten-hour address to the 1997 Cérisy conference entitled ?The Autobiographical Animal,? the third of four such colloquia on his work. The book was assembled posthumously on the basis of two published sections, one written and recorded session, and one informal recorded session.The book is at once an affectionate look back over the multiple roles played by animals in Derrida?s work and a profound philosophical investigation and critique of the relegation of animal life that takes place as a result of the distinction?dating from Descartes?between man as thinking animal and every other living species. That starts with the very fact of the line of separation drawn between the human and the millions of other species that are reduced to a single ?the animal.? Derrida finds that distinction, or versions of it, surfacing in thinkers as far apart as Descartes, Kant,



Heidegger, Lacan, and Levinas, and he dedicates extended analyses tothe question in the work of each of them.The book?s autobiographical theme intersects with its philosophical analysis through the figures of looking and nakedness, staged in terms of Derrida?s experience when his cat follows him into the bathroom in the morning. In a classic deconstructive reversal, Derrida asks what this animal sees and thinks when it sees this naked man. Yet the experiences of nakedness and shame also lead all the way back into the mythologies of ?man?s dominion over the beasts? and trace a history of how man has systematically displaced onto the animal his own failings or bêtises. The Animal That Therefore I Am is at times a militant plea and indictment regarding, especially, the modern industrialized treatment of animals. However, Derrida cannot subscribe to a simplistic version of animal rights that

fails to follow through, in all its implications, the questions and definitions of ?life? to which he returned in much of his later work.