Ten theses on Animality

Animalism in its basic form is the view that we are animals. Whether it is a thesis about anything else – like what the conditions of our persistence through time are or whether we're wholly material things – depends on the facts about the persistence conditions and ontology of animals. Thus, I will argue, there are different varieties of animalism, differing with respect to which other theses are taken in conjunction with animalism in its basic form. The different varieties of animalism vary in credibility: some varieties are supported by arguments that are irrelevant to others, and some varieties are susceptible to objections that others can resist. Adequately distinguishing between varieties of animalism is thus an important preliminary to assessing them. In this paper, I'll present and argue for a taxonomy of the most distinctive varieties.

The XXI century forces us to think again, in a radical way, about the human-animals relationship. Violence toward animals has rapidly taken place in the public debate: veganism, animal products, animal testing and animals right are now significant themes in the political ground. We are currently part of a deep social transformation that involves every cultural aspect of the Western  world from science to literature: humanities, creative arts, and sciences are all shaken to its foundations. In view of this, the CfP 2018 has the aim to give voice to a philosophical urgency of our time through an academic multidisciplinary encounter. Dealing with the Animality means to redefine the anthropological paradigm of what is a human being beyond the Enlightenment frame. Thus, humankind becomes a permeable category for more- than-humans identities. Moving beyond Arnold Gehlen, Max Scheler, and Helmuth Plessner, we must replace Philosophical Anthropology with Philosophy of Animality. In this perspective, humans are no longer an isolated ontological entity, but the results of a constant co-becoming, through hybridization, with other living beings. Therefore, to investigate "animality" means get rid of the all-embracing anthropocentric prejudice. After the prison of metaphysical humanism, other ways to relate to the other are possible. The first step toward this new web of beings must be a new Philosophy of Animality. Several contemporary philosophies take into the account this frame: Posthumanism, Animals Politics, Environtmal Ethics and Ecology, Ecocritics, Ecofeminism, Multispecies Studies, Biopolitics, Ecofeminism, and so on...

2008

a SPECIAL ISSUE I, pp. 23 – 31, 2008 PROBLEMS FOR ANIMALISM

Second Language Learning and Teaching

This book brings together well-researched essays by established scholars as well as forward-thinking aspiring researchers to study how literary and non-literary texts highlight 'animal presence' and explore non-anthropocentric relationships between human and animals. To be precise, it offers Posthumanist readings of animal-centric Literary and Cultural texts. The contributors take positions that put the precepts and premises of humanism into question by considering the animal presence in texts seriously. The essays collected here focus primarily on literary and cultural texts from varied interdisciplinary and theoretically-informed perspectives advanced by critical approaches such as Critical Animal Studies and Posthumanism. Contributors select texts beyond geographical and period boundaries, and demonstrate how practices of close reading give rise to new ways of thinking about animals. By implicating the "Animal turn" for the field of literary and cultural studies, this book urges us to problematize the separation of the human from other animals and rethink the hierarchical order of beings through close readings of select texts. It offers some fresh perspectives of Posthumanist theory, so that we can revisit those criteria that created species' difference from the early ages of human civilization. This book will constitute a rich and thorough scholarly resource on the politics of representation of animals in literature and culture. The essays in this book are empirically and theoretically informed; and they explore a range of dynamic, captivating and highly relevant topics. This book does more than simply decentering the 'human' by bringing animals onto the center of critical discourse and challenging the anthropocentric hierarchical relationship, which are the basis of Posthumanist readings. It also highlights the theoretical intersections between Animal Theory and other relevant cultural theories, that is the latest advancement in this field. The volume is divided into four main sections

Environmental Values, 1997

Contemporary ethical discourse on animals is influenced partly by a scientific and partly by an anthropomorphic understanding of them. Apparently, we have deprived ourselves of the possibility of a more profound acquaintance with them. In this contribution it is claimed that all ethical theories or statements regarding the moral significance of animals are grounded in an ontological assessment of the animal’s way of being. In the course of history, several answers have been put forward to the question of what animals really and basically are. Three of them (namely the animal as a machine, an organism and a being that dwells in an – apparently – restricted world) are discussed. It is argued that the latter (Heideggerian) answer contains a valuable starting point for an ethical reflection on recent changes in the moral relationship between humans and animals.

Society Register, 2020

Can western human society apply its definition of the term "animal" on itself? Is it possible that a "person" is not only human? In this article, I explore and analyze various and interdisciplinary doctrines and approaches towards nonhuman animals in order to question the current status-quo regarding nonhuman animals. Throughout history, as Man developed self-awareness and the ability to empathize with others, hunters were associated with wolves and began to domesticate them and other animals. With the introduction of different religions and beliefs into human society, Man was given the lead in the food chain, and the status of the nonhuman animals became objectified and subject of the property of human animals. Common modern taxonomy identified and described approximately 1.9 million different species. Some estimate the total number of species on earth in 8.7 million. The Human is just one of 5,416 other species in the Mammal class and shares a place of honour among hundreds of other Primates and Great Apes. It appears to be commonly and scientifically accepted that humans are animals. Humans, as other nonhuman animals, all meet the definitions of the term. However, it seems that there is a wide gap between the human-generated definitions (HGDs) and the human social practice that created a distinct line between humans and "animals". This alienation is best illustrated by the commonly mistaken equivalence between the terms "human" and "person", as at least some nonhuman animals answer to many other HGDs. In this article I try to show that a rational and logical interpretation of these definitions' nonhuman animals (at least some), should be regarded as persons and to suggest an approach to implement in the future.

In the emerging field of animal studies, criticism turns to questions of ethics and animal rights by reading representations of nonhuman animals in philosophy and literature. A rhetoric of coming to terms often shapes such readings and points to a lack of satisfactory answers to two questions: why read nonhuman animals, and why now? These questions are crucial to animal studies but can only be answered by understanding this critical approach as an element of the anthropological discourse, fundamental to philosophy. Examining Aristotle's and Heidegger's approaches to thinking about the human-animal relation, it seems that the interest in reading how animals are presented in philosophy is not in coming to definitive terms with this relation or in correcting earlier theories. Rather, it appears to lie in reading the concept of the Animal as marking a limit of terminological language, and thus of theory. The Animal marks the point at which philosophy touches on poetry and withdraws. Criticism is concerned with animals now because the concept of "the animals" keeps casting doubt on theoretical conceptions of the Human and of human language.