Lippit Afterthoughts on Animal Life

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Afterthoughts on the Animal World

Author(s): Akira Mizuta LippitSource: MLN, Vol. 109, No. 5, Comparative Literature (Dec., 1994), pp. 786-830Published by: The Johns Hopkins University Press

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Afterthoughtsn theAnimalT_ --1 1WoriM

AkiraMizutaLippit

Even narticulateoises ofbeasts, orinstance) o indeedreveal omething,etnone of themsa name.

-Aristotle1

This investigationfphilosophy

nd the animalbegins

at thesceneofa crime, hefourth tory f a house on a fictitioustreet n Paris.The occupants of the house have been brutally lain and the Pari-sian police are scrambling or answers.Under the heading "Extra-

ordinaryMurders,"the Gazette ivesnotice of the affair:A widowand her daughter,Madame and Mademoiselle L'Espanaye, havebeen found bludgeoned, mutilated, nd partiallydismembered-thedaughterforced ntothechimney,he motherthrown rom hewindow.The domestic assault appears to have extended even to

the house itself: The apartmentwas in the wildestdisorder-thefurniture roken and thrown bout in all directions."2 To thishor-riblemysteryhere s not as yet," henewspaperreports, theslight-est clue."3Stillmissing re a perpetratornd motive, n explanationof the crime.The Gazette oncludes: "Amurder so mysterious,ndso perplexing n all itsparticulars,was neverbefore committed nParis-if indeed a murderhas been committed t all."4

EdgarAllan Poe's 1841 story The Murders n theRue Morgue"bringsto the surface a characteristically odern catastrophe:the

domicileof mankindhas been assailed from heoutside, ndeed bythe outside.The social and architecturaltructures hatprotect hehumanworldappear to haveweakened,exposingthose inside, iketheL'Espanayes,to thedangersof thewildside. Poe's story egins,

MLN, 109 (1994): 786-830? 1994byTheJohnsHopkinsUniversityress







M L N 787

one can say,with n emergency, cryreverberating iththe call ofthe wild.Amongthose listening o these sounds is Poe's invention

C. Auguste Dupin, the first igure fmoderndetection.Dupin hasbeen assignedthe taskoftrailing murdererwhose identity,s thenarrative rogresses, ppears to exceed the realm ofthehuman.Atstake n his pursuit s the delineation ofthe criminalbeing and ofthe world withinwhich criminal cts takeplace, and as itproceedshis investigationfthe "inhuman"murderreveals theforms f ani-

mality hatbegin to coalesce in the exteriorities f thewild.The crime has been committed, fcourse,byan orangutan.But

can anorangutan

orany

other animal be considereda criminal, eforced to take responsibility or its actions in the human world?

Perhapstherehas been no crimeatthehouse on Rue Morgue,after

all-only death. Animals re, accordingtoAristotle,acking n logosand are thereforencapable of ethical behaviorand thus of crime.

Notingtheanthropomorphicnature ofethics,Kojeve explainsthat

"everymoralitys an implicit nthropology,nd man is speakingofhisverybeingwhenhe udges his actionsmorally."5 nimalsdo notinhabit thephilosophicalworldprojectedand animatedbyhuman

beings.Accordingly,s the case unfolds, hecrime tself isappears:the criminal respassdissolves nto a series ofaccidental encountersbetweentwowomen and an ape-an arbitrary laying f twohuman

beings by an animal. Thus, despite the suggestionof a perversepsychopathologytwork nthegrotesquekillings, oe's death scenerevertsback into the flow of "everydayife,"everyday avagery-thereare, in the end, no monsters, nlyanimals.

Reexaminingthe premisesof thiscase, however, ne finds thattheextraordinaryesists eingreduced totheordinary.ndeed, the

distinction etween thesestates ppears to have collapsed: one canno longerdeterminewhether ne is in realm of theordinary r the

extraordinary,he differencebetween the two seeming to haveshiftedto a more subtle distinctionbetween the ordinary-in-the-extraordinary nd the extraordinary-in-the-ordinary.n the onehand, "Rue Morgue" depicts the "savage"transgression f human

society,ndeed humanity, yan orangutan,whileon theother, oe'snarrative ecountstheframing f humanparadigms round animalacts: the oscillationbetween the mundane and thefantastic,nfact,

helps to establish the compelling uncertainty hat sustains Poe'snarrative.Throughout the newspaper reportsand eyewitness c-counts,Dupin remarks, he assassin'snationality nd gender-keypointsin the constitution f an identity-remainunascertainable.







788 AKIRA MIZUTA LIPPIT

Re-tracing his hypothesis, Dupin poses the following speculation to

hisaccomplice,

the narrator:

... an agility stounding,a strength uperhuman,a ferocity rutal,a

butcherywithoutmotive, grotesquerien horrorabsolutelylienfrom u-

manity,nd a voice foreign n tone to the ears ofmen ofmanynations,and devoidof all distinct r intelligible yllabification. hatresult, hen,has ensued? What impressionhave I made upon yourfancy?6

Dupin's reasoning launches the reader into an unintelligible world

in which the familiar indices of language and gender recede beyond

the graspof

comprehension,or even

recognition. Indeed, amongthe audible facts that are gathered by the police, the only evidence

remains defiantlyforeign. Each witness spoke of the killer's voice "as

that of a foreigner.Each is sure that it was not the voice of one ofhis

own countrymen.... No words-no sounds resembling words-

were byanywitnessmentioned as distinguishable."7 In this instance,

language and the demand upon the facultyof recognition that it

imposes actively mpede the crime's solution: as Heidegger remarks

in another context, human beings have not yet learned to "listen

abstractly."8The "witnesses" to the Rue Morgue atrocities have misconstrued

the startled, panicked cries of the orangutan for those of a human

being. From the indistinguishable noises that arose during the

struggle, each witness thought that he or she was able to discern

(without understanding) the alien tongue of a foreigner.Each audi-

torwas able to project the language and identityof a foreign beinginto the open spaces of animal noise. The voice, as opposed to the

look, tends to provoke such misidentifications. Rousseau, for exam-

ple, attempting to introduce his study of the origin of language,quickly loses control of his rhetoric when he reaches the thresholds

of speech. Slipping into philological abstraction and a phoneticdilemma, Rousseau writes:

Speech distinguishesman among the animals; language distinguishesnationsfromeach other;one does not knowwhere a man comes fromuntilhe has spoken.Out ofusage and necessity,ach learnsthe anguageofhisowncountry.But whatdetermines hatthis anguage is thatofhis

countrynd not ofanother? n orderto tell, t s

necessaryogo back to

some principle thatbelongs to the locality tself nd antedates its cus-toms, or peech,beingthefirst ocial institution,wes tsform onaturalcauses alone.9







M L N 789

As Poe's storyllustrates, owever,nimalsmay lso be mistaken orhuman beings when one confusesrhythmical ounds (gruntsof

exertion,forexample) forsemanticstructure an unfamiliarbutdistinctly oreign anguage). Moreover,while animals are deprivedof anguage,they renonetheless quipped with semiotic apacity.Animals are able to transmit he cries that signal theirpresencewithoutpossessingthe means of referringo absent objects or ab-stract oncepts. In fact Derrida has suggested,reversing he usualdistinction etweenmankindand the animals,thatwhat s charac-

teristicallynimal is the inabilityo refrain rom elf-exhibition;hat

language maybest be considered to follow fromthe capacityfor

silence-restraint-rather thanas the function fself-determinationand expression.10

What, then, s the natureof the animal's disclosure?What doesthe animal, "which can neitherchoose to keep silent,nor keep asecret,"so irrepressiblyeveal?11Withoutthe semiosis that trans-formsphone nto logos, nimal utterances, ike the "non-sense"of

foreigners,an onlyportrayhedynamic f affects nd bodily tates.

Philosophyhas alwaysmaintainedthedistinction etweenraces and

species, language and signals.Aristotle, orexample, argues that

whilethe capacityto signal pleasure and pain exists n all animals,onlyman possessesthe ability o formwordsfrom hose signals:

Andwhereasmerevoice sbut n indicationfpleasure rpain, ndisthereforeoundnother nimalsfor heir ature ttains o thepercep-tion fpleasurendpain ndthe ntimationf hem ooneanother,ndno further),hepower fspeech sintended o setforthheexpedientand inexpedient,ndthereforeikewise heustandtheunjust.12

Animalsform,

n Aristotle'sccount,

finite entimental ommuni-ties-their communicationsrestricted o the expressionof sensa-tions,thereach ofthatexpressionremainingwithin heimmediatehorde. Apparently, ot onlydoes the expressiverange of human

speech exceed that of the animal's cry which s limitedto the two

poles of affect, leasure and pain), but speech establishes largerrealm of communication.While animals conveytheiraffects nly"to one another,"Aristotle uggests hatthe effects fspeech reacha wider audience and carrygreater mplications, orinstancethe

foundation of ustice.The animal,signified y tscry, upplements he classicalopposi-tion between logos nd phone.Derrida explains the separation of








speech from the cry,and the problematic of language that it intro-

duces:

[Speech's] system equiresthat t be heard and understood mmediatelybywhoeveremits t. It produces a signifierwhich seemsnot to fall ntotheworld, utsidethe deality fthesignified, ut toremainsheltered-evenat the momentthat t attains heaudiophonic systemftheother-withinthe pure interiorityf auto-affection.t does not fall into the

exteriorityfspace, into what one calls theworld,which s nothingbutthe outsideofspeech.Within o-called"living" peech,thespatialexteri-

ority f thesignifiereemsabsolutely educed. It is in the contextofthis

possibilityhatone mustpose theproblemofthecry-of thatwhichone

has always xcluded,pushing t ntothe area ofanimality r ofmadness,like themyth fthe narticulate ry-and theproblemofspeech (voice)within hehistory f life.13

Problematizing the fall of speech out of the world, Derrida ex-

poses the proximityof all speech to the inarticulate cries of animals

and opens to scrutiny long historyof tension between the figureof

the animal and the limits of discourse. Indeed, while logosenjoys a

singular privilege in the philosophical hierarchy,zoonalways supple-

ments that privilege, undermining its autonomy. For example, inPlato's Sophist,Derrida explains, "[ ] ogos s a zoon":

An animal that sborn,grows, elongstophusis. inguistics,ogic,dialec-

tics, nd zoologyare all in the same camp.In describing ogos s zoon,Plato is following ertainrhetors nd so-

phistsbeforehimwho,as a contrast o the cadaverousrigidityfwriting,had held up the livingspoken word,which infallibly onformsto thenecessitiesof the situation t hand, to theexpectations nd demands ofthe nterlocutors resent, nd whichsniffsut hespotswhere toughtto

produce itself, eigning o bend and adapt at the moment t is actuallyachievingmaximumpersuasiveness nd control.

Logos, living, nimatecreature, s thus lso an organism hathas been

engendered.An organism: differentiatedodyproperwith center and

extremities,oints, a head, and feet. n order to be "proper," writtendiscourseoughto submit o the aws of ifeust as a livingdiscourse does.

Logographicalnecessity anangke ogographike)ughtto be analogous to

biological, or rather oological necessity.14

By tracing logosback to itsorigin as zoon,Derrida exposes the early

attempts in Greek metaphysics to unite the living body with the"logographical" text: an attempt to secure the proximityof logosto

vitality.That phantasm of a primordial unitycontinues to haunt the

dialectics of logosand zoon,writingand speech, human and animal







M L N 791

being,even as theproximityfspeech to its otherthe affectiveryof the animal comes to establishthe spaces and temporalities hat

regulatetheopeningofworlds-the humanand animalworlds hatform partfromone another.

WorldsApart: Philosophy nd Animals

Nature has presented itself s the Idea in the formof otherness.incetherefore heIdea is thenegativeof tself, r is externalo tself; atureisnot merely xternalin relation to this dea (and to its subjectiveexis-tence Spirit); the truth s rather thatexternalityonstitutes he specific

character n whichNature,as Nature,exists.-Hegel15

Yet in the alert,warm animal there lies the pain and burden of anenormous sadness. For it too feels the presence of what often over-whelmsus: a memory,s ifthe elementwekeep pressing owardwas oncemore intimate,more true,and our communioninfinitelyender. Hereall isdistance;there twas breath.After hatfirst ome,the second seems

ambiguousand drafty.-Rilke16

MartinHeidegger (1889-1976)

The workofHeidegger providesan appropriate place to begin an

explorationof thephilosophicalworldsince it thematizes he ideaof a world ndanger. t also signals heplace ofphilosophy's ast and

perhapsmostvehement standagainstthe swelling ide of psychol-ogyand technology,womovements hat contest the epistemologi-cal

groundof the

philosophicaldiscourse

throughoutthe nine-

teenthcentury. ressuredbythe existential risis hatthefigure fthe animal presents,Heidegger culminatesthe philosophical mo-mentum hatbringsmetaphysicso a violentconfrontation ith hetwentieth entury.Followinga discussion of philosophyand theanimal in theHeideggerianand Nietzscheancorpora,thisexplora-tion willrecapitulatethephilosophicaltradition romDescartes to

Hegel that eads to Heidegger's intervention. he key ndices thatreturn hroughout his ineage involvethe exclusionof the animal

from he world establishedby anguage,the absence of death fromthe topos f the animal, and the indestructibilityf the animal.Those three dimensionsof animal being characterizethe distanceof the animal from hehumanworld.








Heidegger's writings isplaya curious preoccupation with theworld-the absent world-of animals. For Heidegger as for the

Westernphilosophical traditionthathe sustains, anguage estab-lishes the gulfbetween mankind and the animal. Like the Aris-totelian nimalthat scapable ofexpressing nlypleasureand pain,theanimal in Heidegger's account is held to be incapable ofdevel-

oping the greaterfaculty ossessed bymankindfor anguage. As aconditionofbeing, language fundamentally xpands the ontologi-cal dimensionof a being'sbeing,and this xpansionforms hebasisfor theory fworld.The conceptofworld,whichmotivatesmuchof

Heidegger'swriting,enies a

placeforthe

animal,unlessthis

placecan be definedas a space ofexclusion.In Heidegger's thought heanimaldoes nothaveworld, r ispoor in theworld, ncapable atanyrateof a worldlyxistence. n his1935essay The Originofthe WorkofArt," n manywaysa treatiseon theworld-formingctivities f

techne,eidegger presents he contoursof a worldenvisagedbytheartwork:

The world s not themere collectionof the countable or uncountable,familiar nd unfamiliar hingsthat are just there. But neither is it a

merely maginedframeworkdded byour representation o the sum ofsuch giventhings.The worldworlds,nd is more fullyn being thanthe

tangibleand perceptiblerealm in whichwe believe ourselvesto be athome. World s never an object thatstands beforeus and can be seen.World is the ever-nonobjective o whichwe are subject as long as the

paths of birth and death, blessingand curse keep us transported nto

Being. Whereverthose decisions of our history hatrelate to our verybeing are made, are takenup and abandoned byus, go unrecognizedand are rediscoveredbynew inquiry, here the worldworlds.A stone sworldless.lantand animal ikewiseave noworld; ut heyelongo the overt

throng f surroundingntowhich heyre inked.17

Evidently, eidegger's "world" s one thatprecedes such anthropo-centricnotions as subjectivity,henomenality, nd consciousness:the "worldworlds,"forHeidegger,even in the absence of humanconsciousness.Worldmakespossiblethose variousmodes ofbeing,withoutbeing itselfone of them. The "ever-nonobjective" orldsecures the groundforobjects,entities, nd variouslevelsof con-scious and non-conscious existence. And yet human beings do

"have"a worldor are, at least,equipped withthe capacity o have aworld. Human beings possess the means- techne-withwhich tomake the worldappear: in artworks,orexample.

"Astone sworldless," owever,nd plantsand animalsalso suffer







M L N 793

thisprivation.As entities, tones,plants, nd animalsbelong to theworld, re in theworld,butthisworld s nottheir wn: t sanother's

world.Stones,plants, nd animals exist n theworldexternally. orHeidegger,the abyssthatseparatesmankind fromotherformsof

being resides in the worldlypower of language, which is to say,language and worldare inseparable. Heideggermakes thisrelationclear: "[L]anguage alone bringswhat s, as something hat s, intothe Open for the first ime.Where there is no language, as in the

beingofstone,plant, nd animal,there s also no opennesseitherofthatwhich s not and of the empty."18Where there s no language,there s no openness ofbeing, non-being,norabsence ofbeing.And

this, n turn, s inseparablefrom hequestionof death. For world salso the place ofNothing,the space inwhichNothingtakesplace.In thecase ofbeing,death signifies hepresenceofNothing n theworld.Heidegger strengthens he connection between world andthe capacityfor death in "The Thing" (1950):

The mortalsre human eings. hey recalledmortalsecause heyandie. To die means obe capableof death s death.Onlymandies.Theanimal erishes.t has deathneither head of tself orbehind t.Death

is theshrine fNothing,hat s,ofthatwhichnevery espects neversomethinghatmerelyxists, utwhich everthelessresences,ven sthemysteryfBeing tself.19

Withoutdeath, Heidegger argues-without the capacityto namethedisappearance ofbeingfrom heworld-the world tself easesto appear as the foundationthatgivesexistence tsplace. Stressingthereciprocaland co-dependentmomentumof this ogic, Heideg-ger positsworld within hefaculty flanguage and mortalityt the

same time thathe ascribesto world the taskofpreserving anguageand mortalitybeing's finitude). n Heidegger'swords: "Mortals re

theywho can experiencedeath as death.Animalscannotdo so. Butanimalscannotspeakeither. he essential elationbetween anguageand death flashesup beforeus,butremains tillunthought.20Ani-malscannotexperiencedeath,thegiving fbeing,ofabsolutesingu-larity,o existence. And since theycannot die, conversely,nimalscannot experience the death or loss ofothers. Unable to mourn a

priori,he animalfalls, ccordingtoHeidegger,beyondthe existen-

tialabodes of mankind-the very ituation fitsworldly eingfallsinto doubt.

Heidegger's attemptsto delimit the boundaries that surround"world,"Dasein,and the topologyof the animal remainat best in-








conclusive. In An Introduction o Metaphysics 1935), he makes this

claim regarding "the darkening of the world [Entmachtung] : "What

do we mean byworld when we speak of a darkening of the world?World is always world of the spirit.The animal has no world nor

any environment ['Das Tier hat keine Welt,auch keine Umwelt']."21The unequivocal tone of Heidegger's assertion is challenged byDerrida, who in Of Spiritoffersa searching analysis of Heidegger'stheses on the animal. Derrida finds that Heidegger in the Introduc-

tion toMetaphysics as modified an earlier vision of the relations of

three "essents" to world. He describes Heidegger's 1929-30 world-

configuration:"The stone is without world (weltlos), the animal

is poor in the world (weltarm), [and] Man is world-forming ..

(weltbildend)."22 Establishing the apparent contradictions between

this early view and Heidegger's later claims, Derrida highlights the

difference between the animal's poverty n the earlier work and the

absence of world in the later one. It is, he says,a difference between

essence and degree. The distinction is crucial, for if indeed the

animal's poverty of world marks a distinct existential condition

(rather than the midpoint of a descending scale of privation that

spans from mankind to stone), then the animal must besaid to

subside "within" some world, if not the world of man or of Dasein.

Can povertybe construed as a mode of being? Moving toward that

question, Derrida rejects the question of a degree of world from

Heidegger's postulation:

The difference e is talking boutbetweenpovertynd wealth s notoneofdegree. For preciselybecause of a differencen essence, the world ofthe animal-and if the animal is poor in the world,and therefore n

spirit, ne must e able to talk bout a worldoftheanimal,and therefore

of a spiritualworld-is not a species or a degree of the human world.This povertys not an indigence,a meagrenessof world. t has,without

doubt,thesense ofprivation Entbehrung),f a lack: the animal does nothave enough world,to be sure. But this ack is not to be evaluated as a

quantitative elation to theentities fthe world. t is not thattheanimalhas a lesserrelationship, more limited ccess to entities, t has an other

relationship.23

The idea of an "other relationship" provides a crucial glimpseinto the possibility of an animal world. Positing another way of

relating the human and animal worlds, Derrida moves the questionof animal world from one of its existence (does the animal have

world?) to that of the relationship bywhich mankind mightdiscover

the animal world (can we speak of an animal world?). This, in turn,







M L N 795

calls intoquestionthe use of anguage as a universalmode of deter-

miningbeing's relation to world. (Elsewhere,forexample,Derrida

poses thefollowing uestionsof the animal's relation to worldandto Dasein: "[D]oes the animal hear the call thatoriginatesrespon-sibility? oes it question?Moreover,can the call heard byDaseincome originally o or from the animal? Is therean advent of the

animal?")24 n Derrida's critiqueofHeidegger,the poverty f ani-mal being presupposes,nonetheless, ome mode ofhaving, ven asit drifts owarda not-having: [the animal] is deprived of worldbecause it can have a world."25Accordingly,nimals are neitherreticent nhabitants f the humanworld,nor are they,ike stones,

impassiveto the environment f entities.Rather,the animal in-habits, venif n a negativemanner, world that s at the same timenota world.While thisnotion ofpovertyeems to summona philo-sophical paradox, Derrida is hesitant to concede this aporia in

Heidegger's formulation, rguingthatin Heidegger "The animalhas and doesnothave world."26

The ambiguitythat Derrida describes in Heidegger's animalworld, heduplicity f a (simultaneous)having nd not-having,ol-lowsfrom he

nabilityf the animalto reflect pon the entities hat

surround t.The animal is enveloped in a "world," r environmentofentities,t can perceiveor sense thoseentities tactilely,or xam-

ple), butcannotappropriatethem "as such"-that is as conceptualor ideal entities. The animalcan have a worldbecause it has accessto entities,but it is deprivedof a worldbecause it does not haveaccess to entities s such nd in theirBeing."27 n otherwords,theanimalcannot nteriorize he worldthrough eflection: nreflected,the worldremains xterior o itsbeing.Herder insists pon thisvery

point in his investigationf the

originof

language:one cannot

derivebyanymeans theworld of humanlanguage from he cries ofanimals.AccordingtoHerder,thefaculty freflection, hichformsthefoundationoflanguage,comes complete in humanbeingsand

distinguishes ogos ssentially rom the "dark anguage of even allanimals."Prefiguringhe structural ifference hatHeidegger in-scribes between the world-forming abits of mankind and the

worldly estitution f the animal,Herder assertsthat "thehuman

speciesstands bove the animalsnotby stagesof more or of ess but

in kind."28At the same time, inceHeideggerianworld sessentiallyone ofDasein,the animal'shavinga "world" uggests n some senseitscapacity o exist n theworld, nside theworld, nd in the worldof expression,thoughthe poverty f thisexpressionmustbe illus-








tratedby summoninga hypothetical anguage under erasure. Hemarksthe animal worldas a world under erasure.

In Heidegger's techniqueof"crossing hrough," heanimal worldis representedbywords that re at once written nd erased. Thus, alizard lyingon a rock sees that rock as "rock," rossed through norder to signifyhe lizard's inability o access this rock "as entity."Derrida explainsthe techne:Erasureof thename,then,here of thename of the rockwhich would designatethepossibility fnamingthe rockitself, s such nd accessible in itsbeing-rock. he erasingwould mark n our anguage, by avoidinga word,this nability f theanimal to name."29

Accordingto

Derrida,the erasure

signifies,in

our anguage,"the absence ofthe izard world.Andyet, he lizard snot in totaldeprivation the rock "is doubtlessgivenhim in some

way," laimsHeidegger): it lacksonlythe ability

to open itself o the as such fthething. t is not of therock as such thatthe lizard has experience. This is whythe name of the rock must beerased when we want to designate what the lizard is stretched out

upon . . . This inability to name is not primarily or simply linguistic; itderivesfromthe properly henomenologicalmpossibilityf speaking the

phenomenonwhosephenomenality s such,orwhosevery s such,doesnot appear to the animal and does not unveiltheBeing of the entity.30

The animal "world" s thus,despiteitsqualification, ndeniablyworld, lbeit a worldapart: "however ittlewe can identify iththelizard,we know that it has a relationshipwiththe sun-and withthe stone,which tselfhas none, neitherwiththe sun nor with thelizard."31Elsewhere,Derrida recountsHeidegger's complex delin-eation of the animal "world":

The Heideggerian discourse on the animal is violent and awkward, ttimescontradictory. eidegger does not simply ay"The animal is poorin the world [weltarm],"or, s distinct rom hestone, thas a world. He

says:the animal has a world in the mode of a not-having.ut thisnot-

havingdoes not constituten hisview an indigence,the lackof a worldthatwouldbe human.So why hisnegativedetermination?Wheredoes itcome from? here isno category foriginal xistencefor heanimal: it s

evidentlynot Dasein, either as vorhandener zuhandene Being cannot

appear,be, or be questioned as such [als] forthe animal).32

Animals re notentirelyxcluded fromHeidegger'sworld,buttheyare put at a distance from heopenness ofbeing: "theanimal has aworld n themode ofnot-having."nwilling orelinquish he animal

entirely romthe topoi f being, Heidegger sets the animal forth,







M L N 797

instead, nto the recessesofworldly overty: he animal is "poor in

world," t existswithout heplenitudeof world and perisheswithout

dying-withoutloss.Heidegger's mostconciliatory nd lucid efforts o correlatethe

domains of mortal and animal worldsappear in his 1926 explora-tion ofpoetic destitution,WhatAre Poets For?"In thisreadingofH6lderlinand Rilke,Heidegger offers he worldto human beings,beasts,and plantsalike, reserving nlythe "world'snight,"or the

possibility f a worldly bsence, forhuman "mortals."Heideggerswiftlyinks, n thespace of hisanalysis, he destitution f the "pres-ent" withthe failureof mortals o experience death:

The time emains estituteotonlybecause God is dead,but becausemortalsrehardlyware ndcapableof eventheir wnmortality.or-talshavenotyet ome ntoownershipftheir wnnature. eathwith-draws nto heenigmatic.hemysteryfpainremains eiled.Lovehasnotyetbeen learned.But the mortals re.Theyare,in thatthere s

language.33

Under the sway, erhaps,of the poetic "spirit,"Heidegger departsfromhisusual

sobrietynd

pursuesnstead the

trajectoryf mortal-

ity hroughto itsconvergencewith ove. Tracingthe logic of thisrhetorical verflow,ne infers hat n language mortalsdiscoverorrecoverbeing. Mortals "are"because language "is there" (Dasein),because language takesplace. Love constitutes, urthermore, les-son tobe learned,a knowledgeor experienceto be acquiredwhich

would, ifmastered, ift he veil ofpain's mystery. ot simply painamong pains,however,hepain ofwhichHeideggerspeaksclaimsasits source the enigmatic byssor "world'snight"of death. Death is

theplace inwhichbeing arrives nto itself, ecomes itself yfusingwithnature:world,the worldofDasein, s formed n the alliance of

interioritynd exteriority,f natureand love,ofmankind s mortaland mankindas animal. The alliance, however, s nevergiven: itmustbe achievedby"venturing"orth, yrisking.n havingworld,one is never far fromthe destitutionof its withdrawal: nd theawarenessof thatfinitude, ccordingto Heidegger,constitutes heriskthatgivesmankind tsmortality,ndeed itscapacityto love.

FollowingRilke,who names thegroundsharedbyall living rea-

tures"theOpen," Heidegger grants o animalsand plantsthe same"daring" hatnecessitatesmankind'sexistence. n Rilke'spoem, allcreatures re exposed to the "unprotectedness" f the Open, or as

Heidegger quotes it:"AsNaturegives he other creatures ver tothe








ventureof theirdimdelightand in our soil and branchwork rantsnone special cover,so too our being's pristineground settlesour

plight;we are no dearer to it; t ventures s."34Heideggerconcedes,in Rilke'sworld-structure,he existence of a community f livingbeings.And to the extent hat hosebeingsare in theworld, hey re

susceptibleto death: "Plant, nimal,and man-insofar as they re

beingsatall, that s, nsofar s they reventured-agree in this, hat

they re notspeciallyprotected.But sincethey iffer onetheless ntheirbeing, there will also be a difference n theirunprotected-ness."35This difference indsexpression n Rilke's next lines: "Ex-

ceptthat

we,more

eagerthan

plantand

beast,gowith his

venture,will t,adventurousmore sometimes hanLife tselfs,moredaringby breath . ."36Mankindexposes itself urther,eyondeven "Lifeitself," o the dangers that await all livingcreatures n the Open.Mankind alone willsthe danger,risks ts whole life for the sake of

being, livingmore so thanplantsand animals,"unshielded n theworld."Findingconfirmation lsewhere n Rilke'swork,Heideggerarguesthatmankind'sunshieldednessactually tands t "before heworld":

Plant ndanimal re admittedntotheOpen.They re "intheworld."The "in" means:they re included nd drawn, nlightened,ntothedrawingf thepuredraft. he relation otheOpen-if indeedwemaystill peakhereof a "to"-is the unconscious ne ofa merelytriving-drawingamificationnto hewhole fwhat s. With heheighteningfconsciousness,henature fwhich,ormodernmetaphysics,srepresen-tation,he tandingndthecounterstandingfobjects re alsoheight-ened. Thehighertsconsciousness,hemore he onsciouseings excludedromtheworld. his swhyman, n thewords fRilke'setter;s "beforeheworld.Heis not dmittednto he

Open.Man stands ver

gainstheworld.37

Heideggerhas, twouldappear,reversedhispositionon theanimal,being,and world under the influence ofRilke,or poetry, r both.Now,plantsand animals are in theworld, nd it is rathermankindthat tands"before heworld," not admitted nto theOpen," "over

againstthe world."Andyetbeforerushing o confirm hisreversal,one mustfurther ituate the evolution ofHeidegger's thought.

In Heidegger's articulation f mankind'sventure ntotheworld,the latter stands beforemankind as a world to come. The fullest

manifestation fHeidegger'sworld s none otherthan the future: ohave world s to have a future. hus standingbefore theworld,over

againsttheworld,mankind stands n the world. The world s essen-

tially world to come, and mankindstands n it even whilebeing







M L N 799

denied the Open. Plants and beasts, however,who stand in theworld,remain nonetheless outside of the world's "presence" (as

future) s wellas outsideof and behindthepresent.Plantand beastremainsecure in the worldwhilepossessingneitherhope nor de-sire:

Plant ndbeast, in he enture f heir imdelight,"re held arefreentheOpen.Theirbodilyharacter oes notperplex hem. y heir rives,the ivingreaturesre ulled nto heOpen.They ooremain ndangertobe sure, utnot ntheir ature. lant ndbeast ieinthebalance nsuch way hat hebalance lwaysettlesnto herepose f secureness.

The balancenwhich lant

nd beast re ventured oesnotyet

eachinto herealm fwhat sin essence nd thus onstantlynstilled.38

The security hat surroundsplant and beast in the world,comesfrom heir nability o reflect he world"as such."While providingsecurity,hat nability eniesplants nd animals access to thefuture.Animals,who,accordingtoAristotle,liveby ppearances and mem-ories, and have but littleof connected experience,"cannot bringtogether he "invisible f the world's nnerspace"39withthe worldof

objects (theouter worldof

objectsand their

representations,r

language) to formthe experience ofbeing thatHeidegger values:"Whathas merelypassed away s withoutdestiny ven before t has

passed. The once-presentbeing, on the contrary, artakes n des-

tiny."40 eidegger differentiateshe non-present eing of animalsand plantsfrom he "once-present eing"ofmortals n thecapacityforself-representation.It is bythe positioning pro-positing] hat

belongs to representation hat Nature is broughtbeforeman ...Plant and animal do not willbecause, muted in theirdesire,they

neverbringtheOpen beforethemselves s an object. Theycannotgo with the venture as one that is represented."41n this sense,representation stablishes hecapacityfor"connectedexperience,"the ability o bringwilling nd appearance together ntothe world-as world and future. Thus mankind,according to Heidegger,standswithinthe dimension of connected experience and beforethe worldas the always once-present eing,"whilethe animal,de-nied the means ofa historicalndworld-formingechne-language-remains "without estiny ven before it has passed." In theworld,

but unable to risk he venture f ts oss,the animalturns tsback tothe futureof the world. In sum,without anguage, the animal re-mains in the memories of a merelypassed world:undying,unde-stined, nd unmourned. In "The EighthElegy,"Rilkeprojectsthis








animal world: "We know what is reallyout there only fromtheanimal'sgaze; forwe take theveryyoungchild and force taround,so that t sees objects-not the Open which s so deep in animals'faces.Free fromdeath.We,only, an see death; the freeanimal hasits decline in back of it, forever .. ."42

FriedrichNietzsche (1844-1900)

Most of those who have written bout the origin of language...looked for[it] in thesuperiorarticulation f theorgansofspeech. As ifan

orangutanwith

preciselyhe same organshad inventeda language.

-Herder43

Ifa lion could talk,we could not understandhim.

-Wittgenstein44

While the chasm that separates an impoverishedanimalityfromtheworld-formingurgeof Dasein is found to be unbridgeable in

Heidegger,one discovers n Nietzschea more sympatheticelationto theworldly ifferences nd distances hat heanimaldiscloses. n

contrast o theHeideggerian animal,Nietzsche'screaturesdisplay,for the mostpart,a joyous, even ecstatic,disposition.Of the ani-mal's oyous nature,Nietzschewrites: Ahumanbeingmaywell askan animal: Whydo younotspeak to me ofyourhappinessbutonlystandand gaze atme?'And the animal wouldliketoanswer, nd say:'The reason is I always orgetwhat wasgoingto say'-but then he

forgot his answertoo, and stayed ilent:so that the human beingwas leftwondering."45Here, the animal has language but lacks

memory: t is constantly orgettingo speak.46For Nietzsche, the

forgetting hat animals do marks their impermanentrelation tolanguage: animals are not bound by anguage, theymaintain cor-dial but ndifferentelation oitsdemands.47The implications fanessential forgetting-of an existence based upon the capacityto

forget-are far-reaching. nable towieldtheapparatusofmemory,animalbeing elaborates an entirely ifferentelation toworld,his-

tory, nd language from hatofmankind:

Then man says"I remember" nd enviesthe animal which mmediately

forgetsnd sees each moment

reallydie, sinkback into

deep nightxtin-

guishedforever.n thiswaythe animal livesunhistorically:or tgoes intothe present ike a numberwithout eavinga fraction; t does not knowhow todissimulate, idesnothing, ppears at everymomentfully swhatit is and so cannot but be honest.48







M L N 801

The animal's instinctive onesty glossed above byDerrida as its

inabilityokeep secrets)also prevents he animalfrom stablishing

an awarenessof the death that overtakesbeings.Withoutmemory,withouthistory, eath loses the singularityf itsfinitude:for theanimal there can no longer be death, only deaths. As Nietzscheindicates, nthe animal world t snot thebeingthatdies,but ratherthe momentthatdies, passes, sinks "back into deep nightextin-

guishedforever." nlike humanbeings,who believe themselves o

occupy unique moments n time,to be bound by singularity,heNietzscheananimal appears rather o be inhabitedby singularmo-ments: s each momentdies and sinksback intooblivion, heanimal

passes into anothermoment, notherworld, notherhistory.n thisfashion heanimalsurvives imewhich sessentially uman.Accord-

ingly,heanimal returns o each newworld as an immortal,ncapa-ble of only dyingonce. It is, perhaps,withthis aspect of animal

immortalityhatNietzsche identifieswhen he writes n Ecce Homo:"One pays dearlyfor mmortality:ne has to die severaltimeswhilestillalive."49Nietzscherepeatedly urnshis philosophytowardthisstrenuousfatalityf animals.

EvenHeidegger,

his adamant denial of the animal worldor fullanimalworldnotwithstanding,ppears to concede a privileged n-teractionbetween the Dionysiac philosopher and his animals. Inhis lectures on Nietzsche under the heading "Zarathustra'sAni-

mals,"Heidegger observes:"The animals [do] talk to Zarathustra."

Heidegger sanctionsthisexchange byallowingfor a sensuous ex-

pression on the part of the animals, an emblematic signing.Hewrites:

Zarathustra'snimals re all themoremplacable

nasmuch swe hearthem-not expressingertain ropositionsr rules or admonitions-but ayingrom utoftheir ssential atures hat sessential,ndsayingitwith rowingucidityhroughhepalpablepresence f ensuousmag-ery. ense-imagespeakonly o thosewhopossess heconstructiven-ergy ogive hem hape, o that heymake ense.Assoonas thepoeticforce-thats, hehigheronstructivenergy-wanes,he mblemsurnmute.Theypetrify,ecome heer facade"nd "ornament."50

Surprisingly, eidegger grantsto Zarathustraand his animals a

worldthatframes heir nteraction. he "constructivenergy," hileoperative,allows the twoworlds, f indeed theyare two separateworlds and not two dimensions of the same world, to intersect.Furthermore,n Heidegger's account,the energyor "poeticforce"







802 AKIRAMIZUTALIPPIT

thatforgesa passage between the human and animal worlds alsocreates a timefordialogue. In thissense, the poetic force s also a

temporalforce: t founds a temporality. s timepasses,the energywanes and the animals return to theirformer, mblematic mute-ness.Duringthetimeofthepoeticforce,however, hat s invariablytransmitted etween thespeciesremainson thehighest rderof theessential, in this case the eternal return: "Zarathustra's nimals

speak to him about whattheythemselves ymbolize: hey peak ofeternal return."51 arathustra's nimal transgression arries,how-ever, price.The effect f theexchange is,accordingtoHeidegger,a

profoundsolitude: "whenZarathustra's oneliness

speaks,t is his

animalswho are speaking."52Anotherfiguremarkedby oneliness,Orpheus, also spoke to the animals in their language, and also

sought to cross the barriersthat enclose humanity nd its finite

temporality.)n this sense, the voices of Zarathustra's agle and

serpent signal an impossible communion and bring Zarathustracloser to the abyssof a collapsing subjectivity. eidegger adds:

Thesetwo nimals efine or hefirstime he oneliestoneliness,nd tis somethingifferentromwhat heusual view akes t to be. In the

usualview,olitudes what iberatess,frees s from llthings.olitude,accordingothis iew,swhathappens fter oupostthe"DoNot Dis-turb" ign.Yet nour oneliestoneliness hemosthair-raisingndhaz-ardous hingsre ooseduponus andon ourtask,ndthese annot edeflected ntoother hingsrother eople.53

In conversingwith the animals,Zarathustra xposes himself othe contagionof theirworldly overty: ere,speakingwith nimalsseems to effect becoming-animal.By speakingwithanimals,one

opens oneselfto the vastnegativityf a worldunder erasure;onerenounces the "presence"ofa worlddeterminedby anguage. Zara-thustra'sother-worldlyntercoursewith animals thus exceeds the

parameters f anguage, blocking tsability obe represented n thehumanworld.His dialogue takesplace outside the exchanges thatconstitute heworldcommunity,n the interstices f communica-tion. ndeed, as Heidegger notes, t s in thesuspendedmomentofNietzsche's "midday" hat the encountersoccur: "These animals ofhis,eagle and serpent, .. do not enter on thestageat some fortu-

itous point. Zarathustrafirst spies them at glowingmidday, hatpartof the daywhichthroughout he workThusSpokeZarathustraunleashes an essential image-generating orce."54 n suspendedtime and solitude,conversing ere comes to resemble tsantithesis,







M L N 803

seclusion and stasis. Conversationrequires chronology, he move-ment of the sun. Moreover, he solitude thatZarathustra chieves

withanimals is not to be confusedwithanyfamiliar or, for thatmatter, amilial)comfort: t is, forHeidegger,a solitudeemergingfrom he depthsof alienation:

[Theanimals] eek to learnwhether arathustras still iving,ivingsonewho sprepared ogounder. hat houldbe enough o etusknowthat heeagleandserpentrenotpets;wedo nottake hem omewithus and domesticatehem. hey realien o allthat s domesticndusual,all that s "familiar"nthepettyenseof theword.55

Like Poe's orangutan,Zarathustra'snimalsdo notbelong athome,in homes-they are unheimlich.nd so the "speech" of animals is

uncannybecause, even if t is only jabbering,"itmanages to pro-duce in Zarathustra he semblance of a world,of a fullexterioritywithinwhich language circulates.Heidegger explains that "aftersuch solitudethe world slike a garden,even whenit is invokedbymere emptytalk, n the sheer play of words and phrases."56Thediscourse of animals thus provokesa deep sense of solitude, anabundance of

emptiness.t is in thissense thatthose animals are

uncanny:Zarathustra eels alone in theircompany.For Heidegger,Zarathustra'sexchange with the animals portrays he "loneliestloneliness,"an experience of solitude thatreveals,foran instant

(theshadowlessmomentof a suspendedmidday),the animalworld.Zarathustra's ntercoursewiththe animals propels him into an-

other world, another time: the transgressive ommunion alignsZarathustrawith n alternativeworld-history,prehistory f worldthatexplodes into hismemory.n On theGenealogyfMorals,Nietz-

sche writes: indeed perhaps there was nothingmorefearful nd

uncanny nthe wholeprehistoryfman hanhis mnemotechnics."57hefearand pain thataccompanyZarathustra's ntry nto the abyssofanimal world arise fromthe depths of memory, r as Nietzsche

phrases t,from he "prehistoryf man." By engagingthe animals,Zarathustra-and by nference,mankind-plummets from he edi-ficeof world language and memory) nto theimmemorial pen ofa time before world.And this time beforeworld,thisprehistoryf

man,returns omankind s thefigure f the animal.Animalbeing

forcesmankind to acknowledgethe finitude f world:that s, ani-mals tearmankind wayfrom heimaginedtotalityf world. n this

way,Nietzscheanand Heideggeriananimalmeet at a pointbeyondlanguage, world,and memory-at a point beyond mortality. he








point beyond world is marked for Nietzsche by forgetting, or

Heidegger byerasure; and forboth Nietzscheand Heidegger,the

beyondis recalled bythefigure f the animal. For Nietzsche,how-ever,the worldbeyond represents "robust ealth,"and the possi-bility f a newbeginning, "newpromise,"whileforHeidegger it sa saddened and darkened affair.58he criticaldistinction etweenNietzsche's unheimlichompany nd Heidegger's "crossed-through"worldmay ndeed be one of affect. n an interviewwithJean-LucNancy,Derrida notes the importanceofaffect o animal being. Onthe seemingmelancholyofHeidegger's animals,Derrida respondsto the

following uestion:J-LN:.. How could sadness be nonhuman? Or rather,how would

sadness failto testifyo a relationto a world?

JD:... To come back to your remark, perhaps the animal is sad, per-

haps itappears sad, because it ndeed has a world, n the sense inwhich

Heidegger speaks of a world as world of spirit, nd because there s an

opennessof thisworldfor t,but an opennesswithout penness,a having(world)withouthaving t.Whence the impressionof sadness-for manorinrelationto

man,n the

societyfman. And ofa sadness determined

in its phenomenology, s if the animal remained a man enshrouded,

suffering, eprivedon account ofhavingaccess neither to the worldofman thathe nonetheless enses,nor totruth,peech,death,or theBeingof the being as such.59

The contrast n mood betweentheNietzscheanand Heideggeriananimal, between ecstasyand depression respectively, rings the

question of animal being to the limitsof language-to itsborderwith ffect nd the affectivery.This limit hat peaksto "theBeing

of the being as such" also marks the final ine of a philosophicaltradition hatsituates he distanceof the animal in absolute terms.Whatfollows s a brief urvey f that ineage. Organized accordingto thematicratherthan historical oncerns,the remainder of this

investigations meant to serveas a kindzoological garden,a seriesof exhibits hatreveal thefigure f the animal in thephilosophicallandscape. The functionof the series is to indicate the frequencywith which the animal figure ppears at criticalunctures,not toaccountfor hetotalityf tsmeaning. Bytracking he animalacross

the philosophical spectrum, ne discovers he systemicmannerinwhich the figureof the animal comes to portray kind of serial

logic: the animal is incapable of language; that lack preventsthe







M L N 805

animal fromexperiencingdeath; this n turnsuspendsthe animalin a virtual, erpetualexistence.The figure f the animal thusde-

termines radically ntithetical ounterpointto human mortality,to the edificeofhumanism.

Rene Descartes (1596-1650)

Perhaps the mostnotoriousof the dualist thinkers, escartes hascome to standfor the insistent egregationof the human and ani-mal worlds n philosophy.Likeninganimalsto automata,Descartes

argues nhis 1637 Discoursen theMethodhatnotonly"do thebeasts

have less reason than men, but theyhave no reason at all."60Al-

thoughhe concedes in private hatthe animalpossessesnotonly n"dme rganiqueu vegetale"ut also an "timeensible,"escarteswarnsthatone shouldnot "think,ike some of theancientsthatthebeasts

speak, althoughwe do not understandtheir anguage. For ifthatwere true, then since theyhave manyorgans that correspondto

ours, theycould make themselvesunderstoodbyus as well as bytheirfellows."61 ince animals are endowed withthe capacityfor

movement, escartescontinues,they re in thisregard ikehumanbeings and machines. Unable to engage in genuine speech, how-

ever, nimals remain,along withmachines,simplemimics."[W]emustnotconfuse,"Descarteswrites, speechwith henaturalmove-mentswhich express passions and which can be imitatedbyma-chines as well as by animals."62 t is Descartes who most deeplyinstilled n thephilosophicaltradition he dea thatthecapacity orreason and consciousnessdeterminesthe ontological universe.Asthe greatestvehicle for such reflection,human beings occupythe

centerof the universethattheythemselveshave conjured.Acrossthe Cartesianplane of being, onlyhuman beings establishan au-thentic ite: all otherbeings reflect he eidos f mankind'sproduc-tions. In this schema, animals, like automata, simplyreflectthe

priorityf mankind's"presence," ts cogito.

GottfriedWilhelmLeibniz (1646-1716)

ChallengingtheCartesianviewofanimals,Leibniz approaches thequestionof animal being from he perspective fmonadic compo-sition.Animals,or "divinemachines,"are incapable of death but







806 AKIRAMIZUTA LIPPIT

onlybecause the monads thatcompose themare reorganized ntonewbeingsrather hanextinguished tthe end of ife.To this xtent

theyresemblesouls whichare likewise mmortal.Leibniz explains:

Thus,notonly ouls, utalso animals annot e generatednd cannotperish.Theyare onlyunfolded, nfolded, eclothed, nclothed,ndtransformed;oulsnever ntirelyeavetheir ody,nddo notpassfromonebodynto nother hat sentirelyew o them. here s thereforeometempsychosis,ut thereis metamorphosis.nimals change, but they c-

quire nd leavebehind nly arts.n nutritionhishappens little tatime ndby mallnsensiblearticles,hough ontinually,ut thappenssuddenly,isibly,utrarely,n conception r in death,which auses

animals oacquireorlose a great eal all at once.63Leibniz has here linked conception with death. By attachingthe

question of appearance to being,Leibniz extends the rift etweenhumanand animal existence to include the limits fappearance aswell as disappearance,the finitude fbeginningas well as ending.In the anonymouslypublished "New Systemof Nature" (1695),Leibniz aligns his theoryof the "conservation"of animal matterwith those of classical naturalistsDemocritus and Hippocrates.

Claimingto follow n theirpaths,Leibniz asserts hat t is "naturalthat an animal,havingalwaysbeen alive and organized. . . alwaysremainsso," and that "animals are not born and do not die ...[the] thingswe believe to begin and perish merelyappear and

disappear."64Accordingto Leibniz's physics,what he calls in 1714the "Monadology," nlythe souls of rational creatures re prone tocreation and destructionwhile the souls and bodies of "brutes"form limitless ontinuum, n expanse of life and matter hat nei-therbeginsnorends,but rather ransformstself nto furthermate-

rial figurations. hus Nancy writes n The Inoperative ommunity:"Since Leibniz there has been no death in our universe: n one wayoranotheran absolute circulation fmeaning(ofvalues,ofends,of

History)fills r reabsorbs ll finite egativity,rawsfrom ach finite

singulardestiny surplusvalue of humanity r an infinite uper-humanity."65

Despitehisdeparture rom herigidmetaphysicsfDescartes, nd

despite the radical contributions e bringsto the philosophiesof

composition nd formation, eibniz nonethelessreinscribes he dis-

tinction etween"beasts" nd "rational nimals."Leibniz locates thegulfbetween two modes ofcognition, perception" nd "appercep-tion," rguing:"it sgood to distinguish etweenperception,hich s







M L N 807

the internal state of the monad representing xternalthings, nd

apperception,hich s consciousness,r the reflective nowledgeofthe

internal tate, omethingnotgivento all souls,nor at all timesto agiven oul."66Thus while ll animals and soulsareimperishable, nly"rational nimals"are equipped with heapperceptive aculties hatare required to experience or anticipatedeath. In Leibniz's dis-course,death comes to assumetheproperties f "necessary r eter-nal truths, uch as those of logic, numbers,and geometry,which

bringabout an indubitable connection of ideas and infallibleon-

sequences."67And because the "interconnection" f perceptions nanimals is founded "in the memoryoffactsor effects,nd not at

all in theknowledgeof causes," eibniz writes hatanimals "do notfully erish nwhatwe call death."68 ccordingto Leibniz,deathre-

quiresa certain alculationtoward initude,oward infallible onse-

quences,"andwithout uch reflective aculties nimalsremain ntheworldundying.Animals, ikesouls,are those creatures husdestinedto survive, r at least toremain: their pparent ackof logos ommitsthem to a perpetualand protean "evolution" owardeternity.

Arthur chopenhauer (1788-1860)Leibniz's belief n theperpetuationofbeing overexistingmonadic

compositionsreturnsmuch later n Schopenhauer's articulation f

"palingenesis," r the survivalof the will. Like Leibniz, Schopen-hauer insists hatwhile"[c]onsciousness sdestroyedndeath,to besure . . .that which has been producing it is by no means de-

stroyed."69chopenhauer,a keyfigurenthe adventofevolutionarytheory, rgues that consciousness is in facta mere component of

corporealitynd has little

bearingon what is essential in

being.Consciousness s,he writes, something econdary, s a resultof the

life-process,t s also secondarypsychologically,n antithesis owill,which alone is primary nd everywhere he original element."70

Leaning increasingly lose to Lamarck's preliminary volutionism-in which interiororthogeneticforces "will" the organism to

adapt-Schopenhauer claimsthat onsciousness,which s intruthconsciousnessof ifeand whosesole content s thedesireto remainalive, s sharedbyall living reatures.Consciousness s thus n effect

ofbeing aliverather hanofbeing. "That which cries I, I, I wanttoexist' snotyoualone; it severything,bsolutely verythinghathasthe slightest race of consciousness. So that this desire in you is








preciselythat which is not individual but common to everythingwithout xception."71Regardingthe loss of consciousness n death,

Schopenhauer writesthat what dies in death (consciousness) iscommon but whatsurvives s "thebeing's intrinsic tate":

Butcheerup -for whatkind f consciousnesss it?A cerebral,n ani-mal, somewhat orehighlyharged estial onsciousness,nas far swe have t nallessentialsncommonwith hewhole nimalworld,venif tdoes reach tspeak nus.This onsciousnesss, n ts riginndaim,merelyn expedient orhelping heanimal ogetwhat tneeds.Thestate o which eathrestoresson theotherhand, s ouroriginaltate,i.e. s thebeing'sntrinsictate,hemovingrinciplefwhichppearsn

theproductionnd maintenancef the ifewhichsnowcoming oanend: it is thestateof thethingn itself,n antithesiso the world f

appearance.72

All consciousness is animal consciousness,according to Schopen-hauer,and disappears n death. In death,however, he individual sborn: death separates ntrinsic eing from nimal being. Schopen-hauer's description f the transcendenceof the individual n deathto an authentic tateofbeing connects this somewhatmorbidphi-

losophyto the doctrines

alreadyobserved.

Still,t is

importanto

note thatSchopenhauer concedes a formof consciousness to "thewhole animal world."

Whatdistinguishesmankindfrom heanimal then snot theabil-

ity o be conscious,butrather, nce again,theability operish, o beunconscious. For Schopenhauer, the unconsciousnesseffectedbydeath,or putmoreprecisely he "cognitionlessrimalstate," estores

being to itsoriginary tate as "will." urthermore,hemetaphysicalwilldefies "theworldofappearance," itsrepresentations phenom-

enon or consciousness.73 One can thus regardeveryhuman be-ing,"writes chopenhauer,"from woopposed viewpoints. rom theone he is thefleeting ndividual,burdened witherror and sorrowand witha beginningand end in time;fromthe other he is theindestructible rimal being whichis objectified n everythinghatexists."74The distinction s important.The fleetingindividual,markedbyfinituden space and time, akesplace in the worldwhilethe "indestructible rimalbeing," although "objectified n every-thingthatexists," annot be objectified as such."Whilemaintain-

ing the metaphysical tructure, chopenhauer here reversesthetermsof the oppositionbetweenmankind and natureby grantinganimals a measure of consciousnessand individuality.n Schopen-hauer's worldonlythe individualcan signify,hat s, appear in the







M L N 809

phenomenalworld. The individual,however, oes not signifyndi-

vidualitybut commonality. ndividuality n Schopenhauer's dis-

course is derivedfromthe generality f life,of livingbeings,anddoes not accord anydirect access to the "primalstate."Thus whatthe individual consciousnesssignifies s essentially ommon. Likehis descriptionof a consciousness that s "common to everything,"Schopenhauer consigns ndividualityo a secondaryand derivative

categorywhich s superseded bya transcendental nd unrepresent-able singularity,hewill.Therefore, nimals,which are constituted

primarily y the multitude, s hordes, are purely phenomenal-capable of individuatedappearances but unable to participate n

the transcendental pecificityhatcomes fromwilling. n sum,im-mortality oes not necessarilymean perpetual being: "[I]mmor-talityan also be termed n indestructibilityithout ontinuedexis-tence."75

Schopenhauer's opposition between indestructibilitynd exis-tence leads invariablyoward volutionary hought, s well to a zoo-

morphicrendering fDasein. t is in theworkofRousseau,however,that the question of the animal's capacityto represent s raised.

Ultimately,ne mustquestion whetherthe phenomenality f the

animal-its cry-in factpoints philosophyto the existenceof an-other world.

Jean-Jacques ousseau (1712-78)

Rousseau, ike Descartesand Leibniz beforehim, lso likens nimalsto automata,or "ingeniousmachines." He does, however, oncedethatanimals possess intelligence,or at least thattheyhave ideas:

"Everynimal has ideas,"he writes, since t has senses."76

ensing,in Rousseau, achieves the statusofintelligence ince it comes fromthe source ofall Reason,Nature.Whattruly istinguishesmankindfromanimal, according to Rousseau, lies in the "faculty f self-

perfection,a facultywhich,with the aid of circumstances, uc-

cessively evelops all the others, nd residesamong us as much inthespeciesas in the ndividual."77What the animal lacks, ccordingto Rousseau, is not intelligencebut imagination,which is to say,language. Imaginationand language are linked,forRousseau, in

the capacityto perfectoneself. Efforts owardself-perfection,nturn,forceone to consider finitude nd thus death.Addressing he

conceptionofdeath,Rousseau repeatsthefamiliar xiom that theanimal does not fear death because it cannot imaginedeath, "be-








cause an animal will never know what it is to die."78 Rousseau con-cludes that the "knowledge of death and itsterrors s one of the first

acquisitions that man has made in withdrawing from the animalcondition."79 The inability of the animal to proceed toward deathresults from its inability to imagine and fear death which, in turn,limits its capacity to perfect itself.What Rousseau has added to thehuman reason/animal instinct dialectic is a supplementary capacityfor imagination. Derrida addresses Rousseau's supplement to rea-son in Of Grammatology,bserving that

Althoughthe concept of reason is verycomplex in Rousseau, itmaybe

said that, n certainregards, eason, n as much as it s theunderstandingand thefaculty fformingdeas, is lesspropertohumanityhan magina-tion and perfectibility. e havealreadynoticedinwhat ense reasonmaybe called natural. One mayalso remark hatfrom notherpointof viewanimals,althoughgiftedwith ntelligence, re notperfectible.Theyare

deprivedof imagination, f thatpowerofanticipationthat exceeds the

givensof the senses and takes us towardtheunperceived.80

Animals are deprived of futures. Thus, in Rousseau's contributionto the thought of animal being, the animal is confined to a perpet-

ual presence that never advances in being or time since the animalcan never anticipate the arrival of what is unperceived, or unim-

agined. And so Derrida concludes that Rousseau's intervention inthe field of animal philosophy produces a link between the powersof imagination-the abilityto produce images or representations-and mortality:

Ifone movesalong thecourseof thesupplementaryeries,he sees that

imaginationbelongs to the same chain of significationss the anticipa-tion of death.

Imaginations at bottomthe

relationshipwithdeath. The

image is death. A propositionthatone maydefine or make indefinitethus:themage is a death or (the)death is an image. Imagination s the

powerthat allows ife to affect tselfwith ts ownre-presentation.81

According to Derrida, Rousseau positions the essence of death inthe imagination, in the image. Only beings that imagine can die.Rousseau's theses on language are also related to the faculty of

imagination and illuminate further the question of animal being.Seeking to recreate the stages that led to the invention of lan-

guage, Rousseau devolves mankind to a state alongside that of ani-mals. In that condition, Rousseau reasons, mankind only expresseditself, like animals, affectively."Man's first language," speculates










of man."85Accordingly,t wouldappear that t s mankindthatdoesnot inhabit thenatural worldand thatonly n imitation an man-

kind determine the worldto which it improperly elongs.86Man-kindentersthe worldthroughmimesis. ant alludes here,ofcourse,to thesequence of events s related n "Genesis": God formed verybeastofthefield nd every ird oftheair, nd brought hem to theman to see what he would call them;and whatever he man called

every ivingcreature, hatwas itsname."

Hegel also reads the "Genetic" ppropriationof animalsbyman-kind and language as an essential ct in the constitutionmankind'sdialectical existence.For

Hegel,the named animal is sublated nto

the recessesof human ideation and language. He writes:

Inthenamets the nimal's] mpirical eing sremovedromt, hats,itis no longer oncrete, o longer multiplicityn itself, o longerliving ntity.nstead t is transformedntoa pureand simple deal.Adam'sfirstmediatingctionnestablishingis dominion ver he ni-malsconsistedn hisgrantinghemnames;thushe denied them sindependenteings nd he transformedhemnto deals.87

Accordingto

Hegel,the act of

namingtransformsnimals from

independent beings nto dealizedbeings: anguage, nessence,nul-lifies nimal life. n disappearing, he animal leaves only tscry.

The AnimalCry:EdmundBurke (1729-1797) and GeorgWilhelmFriedrichHegel (1770-1831)

Derrida's description f theanimalcry s a momentofphenomenalappearance or articulation hat imultaneously iercesthe world of

language and theother, lien topology fthe animal can be tracedto the ceuvres f Burke and Hegel. The idea of the animal cry srelated to thequestionof death. As discussedearlier, chopenhauerholds that n death the individual akes eave of tsanimalexistenceand passes into the transcendental, ara-phenomenalrealm of in-trinsic eing,or will.The animalthus xists none temporality hile

being inhabits nother: "Death announces itself ranklys the endof the ndividual, utin this ndividual ies thegermofa newbeing.Thus nothing that dies dies for ever .. The contrivancewhich

presentsus fromperceiving his s time."88 chopenhauer impliesthatbeing consistsof twotemporaldimensionswhose connection,palingenesis, cannot be secured in the phenomenalityof either

space or time.







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The animal crymarksor signalsthe momentof contactbetweenthose two ontic worlds: the cry is, as Derrida explains, a signal

burdenedwith the anti-discursiveorceof animality nd madness.Burke's 1757 reflection n the sublime ncludes a sectionon "TheCriesofAnimals."ForBurke, heexperienceof thesublimearoused

bythe animal's cry mposes a momentwholly utside of time-an

extemporaneousoment-in whichthedynamics f reason are tem-

porarilyhalted.Accordingto Burke,thismoment s registeredby"astonishment,"he imitresponseto thesublime n nature. "Aston-ishment,"Burkewrites, is that stateof the soul, in which all itsmotions re suspended,with omedegreeof horror."89n this tate,

Burkeargues,human reasoningsuccumbsto and lags behind "thegreatpowerof thesublime,"which"anticipates ur reasonings, ndhurriesus on byan irresistible orce."90What is mostastonishing,however, s Burke's assertionthat "[s]uch sounds as imitatethenatural narticulate oices ofmen,or anyanimals npain or danger,are capable of conveyinggreat deas."91 his suggests hat the sub-lime experience constitutes n idea, and that the criesof animals

are,to some degree,itsfacilitators.n fact, ccordingtoBurke,this"great dea" approximatesa glimpse into the veryessence of an

idea-generating ffect. t is a powerdenied to language, as Burkeexplains:

Itmighteemthat hesemodulationsfsoundcarryomeconnectionwith henature fthethingshey epresent,nd arenotmerelyrbi-

trary;ecause henatural ries f llanimals,ven fthose nimalswithwhomwehavenotbeenacquainted, ever ail o make hemselvesuffi-

cientlynderstood;his annot e said of anguage.92

It thusappears

that the inarticulate riesof animalsconvey-withurgency thesublimetemporicitylways alls for n emergency)the

sudden realizationof a primary elationbetweenthe noise and itsreferent.This referent, owever, s not somethingthat is alreadyknownto the listener;rather,ts existence s made manifest o the

subjectfor hefirst imeas a sublime ncarnation.And because of ts

prematuritywithregardto the rationalfaculties)and itsentirety(its"connectionwiththenatureof thethings heyrepresent"), heinarticulate ublime only impactsthe registers f affect. n other

words, hesublimityf thiscry stonishes hesubjectwith tsexplo-siveurgency nd density;thurls thatsubjecttowardthe epistemicinstant-the momentof an immediateknowledge-with no timeto

contemplateor experience properly tstakingplace.








The sublimityf Burke's animal cryalso piercesthe enclavesof

Hegel'sanimal thanatology.Hegel explains: "Every nimal finds

voice in its violentdeath; it expresses itself s a removed-selfalsaufgehobnes elbst)."93At the moment of its "violent death," everyanimal, n Hegel's formulation, emoves tself rom tself, nd thusfromdeath. It survives ts own death as an inarticulate ry, s theanimal voice. GiorgioAgamben reads thisdisplaced phone s the

origin f the "voiceofconsciousness." nscribing hat oice within heinfinite egativityromwhich Hegelian) languageerupts,Agambenhears the voiceas thereturn fnegativity.fthedeathcryAgamben

writes:Andalthought snotyetmeaningfulpeech, talreadyontains ithinitselfhepower f thenegativend ofmemory.. Indying,he nimalfindsts oice, texalts he oul nonevoice, nd, nthis ct, texpressesandpreservestself s dead.Thus the animalvoice s the voice fdeath. . whichpreserves nd recalls the living s dead, and it is, at the same

time, n immediaterace ndmemoryfdeath, urenegativity.94

According o the ogicofAgamben'sreadingofHegel, theHegelian

dialectic s already twork n theseemingly re-dialecticalmoment.At the moment of death, the animal tears itselfawayfromanyproper"experience"of death.Onlythe voice crossesthat xistentialthreshold.The body disappearswhile thevoice lingers s pure nega-tivityn the realm of the living.Thus thevoice remainsapartfromthe eventnessof dying,preservingdeath in the livingworld.Theanimalcry ruptsat the momentof death without eferent, ithout

body,withoutmeaning: temergesfrom nd returns o the realmof

pure negativitys "death tself."And as such,theanimal neverdies:

it merelyvanishes, eaving behind the survivalof its voice as an"immediate race and memory"upon whichthe second dialecticalmoment (the inception of language, or the "voice of conscious-

ness") is founded. Of Hegel's "magical"transformationf the ani-mal intomemory nd then anguage, Agambenconcludesthat"lan-

guage has thispowerand it truly wells n therealm of death onlybecause it is the articulationof the 'vanishingtrace' that is theanimal voice; that is, only because already in its veryvoice, theanimal, in violentdeath, had expressed itself s removed."95 ike

Burke's animal crythat nvokes"great deas" at the limitsof con-sciousness,Hegel's animal initiates dialecticsofdeathfromwhichit is nonetheless excluded. For Hegel, the animal cryeruptsfromoutside the confinesof "natural ife," t marksdeath butonlyas an







MLN 815

eventbeyondthe capacitiesof animal being. In the Phenomenology,Hegel explains that "Whatever s confinedwithin the limits of a

natural ife cannotby tsown efforts o beyondits mmediate exis-tence;but it s drivenbeyond tby something lse, and thisuproot-ing entails death."96The logic here remains mpeccablyHegelian:1) Nature cannot surpass tselfby its own means; 2) Death inter-venes frombeyondthe limitsof natureto push naturepast itself;3) And thisexteriorityives, n turn,nature its "essence"; 4) The

"something lse" of nature thus comes to constitutenature's "es-sence." Accordingly,he animal cry (the "something lse"), which

convergeson the limits f reason and being,burstsforth rom he

site of an absolute exteriority.he crycomes to determine,dialec-tically, he animal's verybeing. It is, as Hegel writes,not onlythe

expressionof alterity,ut of the "anti-human."

Hegel also ascribesan innate,murderousquality o all modes of

conceptualization. The naming of animals, Hegel insists,turnsthem nto deals. And in the abstraction f the animalfrom ssenceto language, the animal dies. Kojeve reads thisprocessin Hegel:

As ongas theMeaningorEssence,Concept, ogos, dea, etc.) is em-

bodied nan empiricallyxistingntity,hisMeaning rEssence,swell

as theentity,ives. orexample, s longas theMeaning or Essence)"dog" sembodiedna sensible ntity,hisMeaningEssence) ives:t stherealdog,the iving ogwhich uns, rinks,ndeats.Butwhen heMeaning Essence)"dog"passes ntothe worddog"-that s,becomesabstractonceptwhichsdifferentromhe ensible ealityhat t revealsby tsMeaning-theMeaning Essence)dies: heworddog"does notrun,drink,ndeat; n ttheMeaningEssence)ceaseso ive-that s, tdies. ndthat swhyhe onceptual nderstandingfempiricalealitys

equivalentto a murder97

Connectingconceptual anguageto actsofmurder,Kojeve brings o

light hetemporal equence throughwhich anguageand thecapac-ity ordeathalignthemselves. he killing akesplace at themomentthat anguage intervenes.Once murderedbyabstraction, owever,the animal's vitalityeases to adhere to itssemanticbody.Hence-forth, s word,the "dog" ceases to die empirically,while,as rep-resentation, t continues to die repeatedly.Kojeve continues tounravelHegel's astonishing illings: Now, hisdog which s annihi-

lated at every nstant s precisely he dog whichendures in Time,which teverynstant eases tolive or exist n thePresent o as tobeannihilated n thePast,or as Past."98Koj&vepursuesthisthought na footnotethatfollows romhis re-examination f "the Past."Con-








trastingAristotle's ternal dog (a dog whose identity s "dog" is

dispersedacrossthespecies "Dog") withHegel's mortaldog (a mor-

talityhat llowsHegel to repeatedlykillthedog), Kojeve offers hefollowing onclusion:

Therefore:forAristotle here s a concept "dog"onlybecause there s aneternaleal dog, namelythe speciesdog,"which s always n thepresent;forHegel, on the otherhand, there s a concept "dog" onlybecause thereal dog is a temporalntity-that is, an essentiallyfiniteor "mortal"

entity,n entitywhich s annihilatedat every nstant: nd theConcept isthepermanent upportofthisnihilationof the spatialreal,whilenihila-

tions itself othingotherthanTime. orHegel too, then,theConcept issomething hat spreserved "eternally,"fyouwill,but n the senseof:as

long as time asts). But forhim, t is onlythe Concept dog" that s pre-served (the Concept-that is, the temporalnihilation of the real dog,while nihilation actually lasts as long as Time lasts, since Time isthisnihilation s such); whereasforAristotle, he real dog s what s pre-served eternally,n thestrict ense,since there s eternaleturn), t leastas species. hat is why Hegel explains whatAristotle cannot explain,namely, hepreservation in and byMan) of the Concept ofan animal

belonging,forexample, to an extinctpecies (even ifthere are no fossil

remains) .99

In thisaccount, Kojeve elucidates the notion of eternity s it tra-versesAristotle nd Hegel. While the Aristotelian nimal survives

time, n spiteoftime, hrough peciation expansion through paceand time), the Hegelian animal dies a repeated death because ofthe murderouspersistenceof time. In Hegel's dialectic,only the

conceptsurvives henihilating assageof time. t is clear inKojeve'spresentation f the dialecticbetweenbeing and time,that n fact,

theanimal, n its"essence,"precedesbothbeingand time.Whetherin the registers f a spatializedexistence or in the eternal returnsof a nihilating emporality,he bestial Dasein has vanished beforeeverhavingenteredthe horizonsof an ontic or ontologicalrepre-sentation. n otherwords, he animalhas alreadyperishedbefore thas had the chance to represent ts death-to represent tself ndeath. The Hegelian animal suffersn a priori eath,a typeofpre-extinction.

And so thephilosophicalcirclecontinuesto spin:theanimal dies

at the moment t is thrust nto contact withabstraction,with an-guage. Killedbytheword,the animalenters figurative mpire (ofsigns) in which ts death is repeated endlessly. n such transmigra-tions,however, eath itself s circumvented: o longer a "dog" but







MLN 817

"Dog," thiscreature now supersedesanyincidentaldyingof dogs.Thus the "dog" is immortalized, reserved taxidermically) n the

slaughterhouseof being, language. Still, however,followingDer-rida's conception of the accountability f the name-"only thename can inherit"-it is onlythe name of the dog that dies those

multipledeaths and lives on in theafter-livesfconception.?00 he

dog "itself," he preconstitutiventity, as ceased to exist beforeeither xistenceor time.Thus one finds heHegelian dog hovering,like Schr6dinger'scat, between the realms of life and death, sus-

pended in the interstices f a paralyzeddialectic. In thismanner,thesemantically econfigured dog"is denied access to thepresent,to self-presence,nd is insteadrelegatedto the endless returns fabstraction.Ultimately,heanimalis expressed:n itscry nd concep-tualization, nimal being is markedby expression.

Lyotardrefers o animal expressionas an instance of the "affect-

phrase." "One could saythat a feelingappears and disappears en-

tirely t every nstant, hat t is ageless,"writes yotard.0l?As such,feelings, r "affect-phrases,"o not participate n the world ofdis-course,address,and reference.Rather, heaffect-phraseroblema-tizes discursive rder: "the

affect-phrasesuntimely

ndunruly."'02Notonlydoes theaffect-phraseinger nthe recessesof thecommu-

nicativeuniverse, talso, accordingtoLyotard, isrupts hedialogicmomentum.The affect-phrases a non-language not "language-al,"saysLyotard)whose appearance tears at the unityof language. In

Lyotard'sAristotelian eading,theaffect-phrasenterscommunica-tionas an impossiblemoment ofcompletionthat uspends,forthedurationof itsexpression,the activityf language. FollowingAris-totle's descriptionof pleasure and pain as being alwaysachieved

entirelyn the "now,"Lyotardclaims that the affect-phraseeter-mines a total and finitedisclosure: it produces an unrepeatable,singularutterance thatdisappears for ever.103 s such, the affect-

phrase remains severed both from human discourse and subjec-tivity.

ForLyotard, he animal servesas a primarygentof the inarticu-late affect-phrase.ndowedwith "communicabilityr transitivity"that s affective atherthandiscursive, yotard'sanimal signals tsaffects rom region that s "banishedfromhuman language."'04

From thisbanished region,however, urstsof affectre-enter heworldthrough ecret channelsopened up bytransference,r affec-tive communication: transference pens a line of communicationthat s essentially nti-discursive:








There s,however,communicabilityfpleasure ndpain, fpathemata,whichseffectedy he confusedoice" lone,withouthemediationf

logos. nimals, ristotleays, signal"heir eelingstoone another."-We alreadyknow hestakes hatKantwill attach o this entimentalcommunicability.t can be saidtobemute,f t'srecalled hat herootmu onnotes losed ipswhichuggest eepingtill rtalkingna mutedvoice. Fromthatrootcomesmurmurerto murmur),mugirto low),mysteremystery)nd thevulgar low]Latinmuttum,hich ieldedmot(word)nFrench.Muted ommunicationsmadeupof ontinuousnha-lations ndexhalationsf air:grunts, asps ndsighs.105

The "muted communication" omprising grunts, asps and sighs"bringsone withinearshot of the astonished (and astonishing, nBurke's sense of theterm)cries of theRue Morgue assassin.And ifthosemurmuringnimals remain exiles from he"political ommu-

nity,"henthey re also exemptfrom nyresponsibilitys such to thedemandsof ts ogos. orLyotard, he animalresides n a topos f the"differend,"n irresolvable thical impasse.106 he animal cannotbe held accountable for tscrimesbecause, like Oedipus, it is un-awareof its actions. To thisextent,Lyotard's nimal impliesa sepa-

rate mode of being that can be best described as unconscious.Lyotard'smurmuringnimalcommunicatesnotconsciously ut un-

consciously.According to Lyotard,then, the animal opens up achannelof unconscious communication hatcarrieswith t thepos-sibilityfan unconsciousworld, he world oftheunconscious. It isthus toward the unconscious that modern philosophyinevitablyedges. The figureof the animal leads, in manyways, hatprogres-sion:dispossessedof anguage and mortality,nd excluded from he

philosophical community f beings,the animal recedes into what

Lyotardterms "time before logos": time,that s,before the hu-man subject.

The human subjecthas determinedthus farmuchof the discus-sion of animal being: fromAristotelian peechlessnessto Cartesianautomatism nd Hegelian negation,the philosophical animal hascome tooccupya perpetualposition n theshadowofhumanontol-

ogy.The animal has become, accordingto thisgenealogy, trace.

Despite Heidegger's insistenceupon its "crossed-through" orld,however,he animal neverfully xitstherangeofhuman awareness.

Evenwithout he fullness fworld, heanimalproblematizeshumanontology.Or rather, recisely ecause itappears to occupyan inde-terminateworld,the animal threatens he safety f world,of theworldthathumanbeings nhabit. n otherwords, nimalbeingadds







M LN 819

something o the topos fontology hatthephilosophicaldiscoursedoes not or cannot fully bsorb, sublate, or abolish. Something

about animalbeingremains n excessof thehuman discourse on it.Thatis,animalbeing opens an irreducible pace betweenmanifesta-tion and metaphysics, etween immanence and the unconscious.Stated as a formula, he animal can be picturedas a being minus

being, being, or b - b-pure negation. In the philosophical dis-course,the figure f the animal often ignifies uch phantasms.

Lyotard ontests hephilosophicaldesire to configure he animalas a locus ofnegation,as a pure body.He writes: [T]he body, s itexists, resupposes ogos. ogical animalsalone have body."107his

is not to saythatanimals,who have bodies, have logos.Rather, tmeans that incebodyand logosre inextricable, he animal s eithera purely phantasmaticcreaturewith neitherbody nor logos, r it

occupies in a manneryettobe elucidatedthebodyand logos f thehuman being. Thus, despite the conceptual distances and existen-tial barriers hathuman beings maintainagainstthe threatof thewild,all human beings, like the L'Espanayes of Rue Morgue, arevulnerableto the sudden appearance of animals. Nor is mankindrestricted,n its

vulnerability,o

bodilyassault: the crises that the

animalunleashesstrike t the core of humanexistence.The strangeontologyof animal being disruptsmankind'snotions of conscious-ness, being, and world: in the "presence"of animals,mankindisthrust romthe traditional oci of itssubjectivity.ontact with ni-mals turns human beings into others, effects kind of meta-

morphosis.Animalitys, in thissense, a kind of seduction,a kindofmagneticforceor gaze thatbringsmankind to the thresholdofits ubjectivity.n proximityoanimals,humanbeingsare overcome

by the desireof others, y the pull of alterity nd the animalThe present discussion of philosophyand the animal has re-The present discussion of philosophyand the animal has re-

mained,in itsbriefcompass,within he confinesof "modern"phi-losophy, hat s,within he bodyof work thatquestionsmankind's

being. By contrast, he pre-modernsor "theriophilists," ave ex-

plored the inherentrationality f animal being.108 n fact,pre-modern philosophers believed animals to be particularly uitedtoward certainepistemologicalactivities. rom Chrysippus'exem-

plarydog to Montaigne's imaginativebeasts,the pre-modern ni-mal opens up vast areas of knowledge.109Montaigne (1533-1592),forexample, insists hat animals are the primordialpossessorsof

language. He asserts:








As for speech, it is certain that if it is not natural, it is not neces-

sary .. And it is not credible thatNature has denied us this resource

that she has giventomanyotheranimals: forwhat s itbut speech, thisfaculty e see in themofcomplaining, ejoicing, allingto each otherfor

help, nvitingach other to ove,as they o bythe use of their oice?Howcould theynot speak to one another?Theycertainlypeak tous, and weto them.10

For Montaigne, who quotes freelyfrom the ancients, especially Plu-tarch and Pliny, animals are not only capable of language but ofreason. And it is a mere failure of the human faculties, in Mon-

taigne's view,that this truth

passes unrecognized.11 Animals,ac-

cording to the pre-modern philosophers, precede human beings intheir claims to knowledge and the earth. In his Natural History, or

example, Pliny the Elder suggests that human beings, who enter lifewith little more than the ability to cry, might be better offunborn.

Comparing the innate skillsof animals with the almost total absenceof those in human beings, he writes:

Man, however, nowsnothingunlessby earning-neither howto speaknor how to walk nor how to eat; in a word, the only thinghe knows

instinctivelys how to weep. And so there have been manypeople whojudged that t would have been betternot to have been born,or to havedied as soon as possible.112

Since human beings mustwork to secure their existence and, unlike

animals, nothing is given a prioritoward their survival, Pliny insiststhat "we cannot confidently say whether she [Nature] is a goodparent to mankind or a harsh stepmother."113As Pliny's comment

suggests, when compared to animals, human beings cannot but

doubt their lineage, their standing in the worldlyorder. Despite thecelebration of humanism that modernity embodies, mankind'sneed to work at survival has produced, according to Nietzsche, aculture of ressentiment.ccordingly, mankind has come to assumethe role of a resentful sovereign, of an unnatural heir or stepson.Meanwhile, the disappearance of animal being in the discourseof modernity has also implemented a state of mourning: mankindhas yet to recover, Nietzsche says, from the impossible death ofthe animal. Of mourning and the modern era, Nietzsche writes:

"[T]hus began the gravest and uncanniest illness, from which hu-manityhas not yetrecovered, man's suffering ofman, ofhimself--theresult of a forcible sundering from his animal past, as it were a leapand plunge into new surroundings and conditions of existence, a







M L N 821

declarationof waragainstthe old instincts pon whichhisstrength,joy,and terribleness ad rested hitherto."1l4

From a historical iewpoint,modernity as caused a catastrophicbreak in the genealogyof animal being. Modernityrepresentscrucialmoment n the consolidationofmetaphysics uringwhichthe superiorityf mankind is achieved fromthe "hitherto" owestranks ofbeing. In the dialectical account ofmodernity,n a priorianimality thesis) is subsumed by a competinghumanity antith-esis): as a result, nimality eases to occupy a proper space apartfrom the humanity hat succeeds, appropriates,enframes t. Theanimal,accordingto thathistorical endering,no longerremains n

the realm ofontology; t has been effaced.Since philosophicalrea-son does not recognize the death of the animal, however, he ne-

gated animal neverpasses into an authentic tateofnon-existence.In the era of modernity,herefore, he animal is relegatedto theintersticesof ontology.Neither present nor absent, the animal

hangs in the dialectical moment thatmarks the adventof human

history.n thismanner, he animal becomes an activephantom nthecrypt fmodernity.neradicable,the animalcontinuesto hauntthe recesses of the modern human being,

appearingonlyto rees-

tablishthehuman identityn momentsof crisis.And because mod-ernphilosophy ails o eliminate ntirely he residuesoftheanimal,its texts continue to inscribe the secret historyof the animal as

phantom. In the philosophical world, the figureof the animalmovesundyingfrom one corpus to another,one text to another,leavingdistinct hough faintly erceptibletracks, ignsof itsmigra-tion across the field.

Althoughthis effort o trackthe animal worldhas strayed rom

theRue Morguehouseinto the

philosophicalstructureshat

neigh-bor Poe's animal topology,philosophyis by no means the onlyframeworkwithinwhich to house a discussionof the animal, forwhile thefigure f the animal playsan important ole in thephilo-sophical text, qually significantnd oftenconflictingdeas of ani-mal being populate the fieldsof literature, sychoanalysis,nd the

technologicalmedia. (Not tomention, fcourse,thescientific isci-

plines in which animal ontology s never n question:biology, ool-

ogy, nimal psychology,nd the other natural sciences.) In those

epistemic egions, he animal nhabitsworld nways hatphilosophyforbids.The literary enreof thefable,forexample,fromAesop toKafka,equips the animal witha discursive nd pedagogical func-tion;Freudianpsychoanalysisecordsthemovement f the animal








figure nto the unconscious frommagnetism ohypnosis nd trans-ference; nd in thecinema, nmanyrespects heexemplary echno-

logical medium, the figureof the animal resumes the task of itsnamesake animus,generating ife in the form of animation. And

althoughthepresent nalysishas respondedfirst o the cries at Rue

Morgue, those other calls that attestto the entry f animal beinginto thehumanworldstill waitan answer. or Poe's orangutan,bybreakingthroughthe walls that separate the domestic from thewild,has exposed humanity o the multiplicityf alien phone hatorbitsthe otherworld, hewildside.Future nquiriesofthe animalmust continue to disclose the world fromwhich the animal en-croachesupon being,continueto listenforthe calls that ound theanimal world.

UniversityfNebraska-Lincoln

NOTES

1 Aristotle, De Interpretatione,"n TheComplete orksfAristotle,d. JonathanBarnes, trans.J. L. Ackrill,2 vols. (Princeton: PrincetonUniversity ress,1984), vol. 1, 25.

2 EdgarAllanPoe, "The Murders n theRue Morgue," n Great ales nd Poems fEdgarAllanPoe (NewYork:Washington quare, 1951), 111.

3 Ibid., 112.

4 Ibid., 134.

5 AlexandreKojeve, IntroductionotheReading fHegel:Lectures n the henome-nologyofSpirit, d. Allan Bloom,trans.JamesH. Nichols,Jr. Ithaca: CornellUniversityress,1969), 189.

6 Poe, "Rue Morgue,"131 (emphasisadded).

7 Ibid., 123-24.8 This passage fromHeidegger appears to explicateperfectlyhe phenomenal

dilemma thatenvelopesRue Morgue: "Weneverreallyfirst erceivea throngofsensations, .g. tones and noises, n theappearance ofthings .. ratherwehear the stormwhistlingn thechimney,we hear thethree-motored lane,wehear the Mercedesinimmediatedistinction rom heVolkswagen.Much closerto us than all sensationsare the things hemselves.We hear thedoor shut nthe house and neverhear acoustical sensationsor even sounds. In order tohear a bare sound wehave to isten wayfrom hings, ivert ur earfrom hem,i.e., listenabstractly"MartinHeidegger,"The Originof theWorkofArt," n

Poetry,anguage,Thought,rans.AlbertHofstadter NewYork:Harper & Row,

1971], 27).9 Jean-Jacques ousseau, "Essay n theOriginofLanguages," n On theOrigin f

Language, rans.JohnH. Morganand AlexanderGode (Chicago: Universityf

Chicago Press, 1966), 5. Derrida deconstructsRousseau's "Nature"and itssupplementary language in his seminal Of Grammatology,rans. Gayatri







M L N 823

Chakravorty pivak (Baltimoreand London: The JohnsHopkins UniversityPress,1974).

0 Jacques Derrida, "How to Avoid Speaking: Denials," in Derridaand NegativeTheology,d. Harold Coward and Toby Foshay,trans.Ken Frieden (Albany:State Universityf New YorkPress,1992). Derrida writes: Some would say,perhaps imprudently,hatonlyman is capable of speaking,because onlyhecan not howwhathe could show. Of course, an animalmay nhibit move-ment,can abstainfrom n incautiousgesture,forexample in a defensiveoroffensive redatory trategy,uch as in thedelimitation fsexual territoryrin a matingritual. One might ay, hen,that animals can notrespond to the

inquisition rrequisition f a stimulus rof a complexofstimuli.According othissomewhatnaive philosophyof the animal world,one mayneverthelessobservethat nimalsare incapable ofkeepingor evenhaving secret, ecause

they annot represents such, s an objecteforeconsciousness, omething hat

theywouldthenforbidthemselves rom

howing" 86-87).1 Ibid., 87.

2 Aristotle,"Politics," n The CompleteWorks fAristotle,988. Jean-FrancoisLyotardhas explicated thispassage fromAristotle n his 1992 seminaron"affectivehrasing" t Yale University.yotardexplains thatwhilethe signal-ingof affects commonto bothhumanbeingsand animals, ffectshemselvesare incommunicableand as such, remainbeyond the confinesof discourse.Because pleasure and pain are whole and complete ("achieved," claims

Lyotard, itingAristotle), heydo not exist, o to speak, in time.

3 Jacques Derrida, Grammatology,66. For further iscussionon thistopic seeDerrida's comments n "The Voice That Keeps Silence,"in SpeechndPhenom-

ena: AndOtherssays nHusserl'sTheoryf igns, rans.David B. Allison (Evans-ton:Northwestern niversityress,1973), 70-87.

4 Jacques Derrida, "Plato's Pharmacy,"n Dissemination,rans.BarbaraJohnson(Chicago: UniversityfChicago Press,1981), 79.

5 G. W.F. Hegel, "Natureand Spirit:Self-Estrangementnd Reconciliation," n

Hegel:TheEssentialWritings,d. FrederickG. Weiss (NewYork:Harper& Row,1974), 211.

6 RainerMariaRilke,"Duino Elegies," n TheSelectedoetry fRainerMariaRilke,ed. and trans.Stephen Mitchell (New York:Harper & Row, 1982), 192-97."Unddoch ist n dem wachsamwarmenTier Gewichtund Sorge einergroBenSchwermut.Denn ihm auch haftet mmeran, was uns oftuberwaltigt,-die

Erinnerung, ls sei schon einmal das, wonach man drangt,nSher gewesen,treuerund seinAnschluBunendlich zartlich.Hier ist allesAbstand,und dortwarsAtem.Nach der erstenHeimat ist hm die zweitezwitterig nd windig."

7 Heidegger,"TheOrigin,"44-45 emphasisadded). Foran extensive eadingof

Heidegger's philosophy fworld, ee PhilippeLacoue-Labarthe,Heidegger,rtandPolitics,rans.ChrisTurner(Cambridge:BasilBlackwell, 990). See also inthis connectionRichardJ. Bernstein, Heidegger's Silence?: Ethos nd Tech-

nology,"n TheNewConstellation:heEthical-Politicalorizons fModernity/ost-

modernityCambridge:PolityPress,1991), 79-141.

8 Heidegger,"The Origin,"73.

9 MartinHeidegger,

"TheThing,"

nPoetry,

anguage,Thought,78.

'0 MartinHeidegger,"TheNature ofLanguage" in On theWay oLanguage, rans.Peter D. Hertz (New York:Harper & Row, 1971), 107. In Beingand Time,Heidegger distinguishesbetween the "biological-ontical"death of "animalsand plants" (those deathsmeasured in "longevity,ropagationand growth")








and theontologicaldeathof Dasein.He writes: The endingof thatwhich iveswe have called 'perishing.'Dasein too 'has' itsdeath,ofthekindappropriateto

anythinghat

lives;and it has

it,not in ontical

isolation,but as codeter-

minedby tsprimordialkindofBeing" (Beingand Time, rans.John Macquer-rie and Edward Robinson [NewYork:Harper & Row, 1962], 290-91).

21 MartinHeidegger,An IntroductionoMetaphysics,rans.Ralph Manheim (NewYork:Doubleday,1961), 37.

22 Jacques Derrida, Of Spirit:Heideggernd theQuestion, rans.GeoffreyBen-

ningtonand Rachel Bowlby Chicago: Chicago University ress,1989), 47-48.

23 Ibid., 49.

24 Jacques Derrida, "'Eating Well,' or the Calculation of the Subject:An Inter-viewwith acquesDerrida," n WhoComesfterhe ubject?d. Eduardo Cadava,Peter Connor,Jean-LucNancy,trans. Peter Connor and Avital Ronell (New

York:Routledge,1991), 112.25 Derrida, Of Spirit, 0.

26 Ibid.

27 Ibid., 51.

28 JohannGottfried erder,"Essay n theOriginofLanguage," in On theOriginofLanguage, rans.JohnH. Morganand AlexanderGode (Chicago: Universityof Chicago Press,1966), 108.

29 Derrida,OfSpirit,3. Derrida quotes thepassagein whichHeideggerproposeserasure as a means of distinguishingweltbildendromweltarm:When we saythat the lizard is stretchedout on the rock,we should cross through (du-

rchstreichenthe word rock,'to indicate thatwhile what the izard s stretchedout on is doubtlessgivenhim n someway irgendwie,talicized), t s notknown[or recognized] as (als, italicized) rock.The crossing-throughoes not onlymean: somethingelse is apprehended, as somethingelse, but: it is above allnot accessible as entity iiberhaupt icht ls Seiendes zugdnlich)."

30 Ibid., 53.

31 Ibid., 52.

32 Derrida, "'EatingWell,'" 111.

33 MartinHeidegger,"WhatAre PoetsFor?," n Poetry,anguage,Thought,6. Fora more sustained examinationofHeidegger's thoughts n Rilke,poetry, ndanimal

ontology,ee

VeroniqueM.

F6ti,Heideggernd the oets:

oiesis/Sophia/TechneNewJersey:HumanitiesPress,1992).34 Heidegger,"Poets,"99.

35 Ibid., 103.

36 Ibid., 99.

37 Ibid., 108 (emphasis added).38 Ibid., 134-35. Some years later,Wittgenstein uestions the relation between

hope and language,betweenbeing and mankind's exclusivecapacityfor thefuture.He writes: One can imagine an animal angry, rightened, nhappy,happy, tartled.Buthopeful?Andwhynot?A dog believeshismaster s at thedoor. But can he also believe hismasterwill come thedayafter o-morrow?-

And what an he not do here?-How do I do it?-How am I supposed toanswer his?Can onlythosehope who can talk?Onlythosewhohavemasteredtheuse ofa language.That is tosay, hephenomena ofhope are modes of this

complicated formof life" (Ludwig Wittgenstein, hilosophicalnvestigations,trans. G. E. M. Anscombe [NewYork:Macmillan, 1958], 174).







M L N 825

39 Aristotle, Metaphysics,"n TheComplete orksfAristotle,552.

40 Heidegger,"Poets,"142.

41 Ibid., 110.42 Rilke, "Duino Elegies," 192-97. "Was drauBen ist,wirwissensaus des Tiers

Antlitz llein;denn schon das frfihe ind wendenwirum undzwingens, aB esruckwarts estaltung ehe, nicht das Offne,das imTiergesicht o tief st.Freivon Tod. Ihn sehenwir llein; das freieTier hat seinenUntergang tetshintersich..."

43 Herder,Origin, 18.

44 Wittgenstein,hilosophicalnvestigations,23. "Wennein L6we sprechenk6n-nte,wirk6nnten hnnichtverstehen."RichardMackseyglossesthispassage inhis keynote ddress that commences the "Structuralist ontroversy"n 1966.In "Lions and Squares: Opening Remarks,"Mackseywrites fWittgenstein's

line: "The philosopher s clearlynottalking bout 'crackingthe code' of lionsor dolphins,but of the impossibilityfapprehendingany anguage unlesswehave some access to thespeaker's Lebensform.learly,what s in questionhereis not the 'formof life' peculiar to zoologistsor lion-tamers,who mightbe

expected to knowsomethingbout lions,but of the formof life definedbyalion's view of the world" (Richard Macksey,"Lions and Squares: OpeningRemarks," n TheStructuralistontroversy:he Languages ofCriticismnd theSciences fMan, ed. RichardMacksey nd Eugenio Donato [Baltimore:JohnsHopkins Universityress, 1970], 13-14).

45 FriedrichNietzsche,"On the Uses and DisadvantagesofHistoryforLife," n

Untimelyeditations,rans.R.J.Hollingdale (Cambridge: CambridgeUniver-

sityPress,1983), 60-61.46 In his Philosophicalnvestigations,ittgensteinontinuesthis ine of thinking.

Replacingthequestionofcapacitywith ne of desireor simplepragmatics, ewrites: It is sometimessaid thatanimals do not talkbecause they ack thementalcapacity.And thismeans: 'theydo not think, nd that s why heydonot talk.' But-they simplydo not talk. Or to put it better:theydo not use

language-if weaccept themostprimitive orms f anguage.-Commanding,questioning,recounting, hatting re as much a partof our naturalhistory s

walking,eating,drinking,playing" Wittgenstein, hilosophicalnvestigations,12). According to Wittgenstein's nalysis,another natural historymustbewritten oranimals.

47 This logic concerning anguage and the animal in Nietzscheis derived fromDerrida's reading of Nietzsche, "woman,"and the politicsof castration. n

Spurs,Derrida explains: "'Woman'-her name made epoch-no more be-lieves n castration's xactopposite,anti-castration,han she does in castrationitself" Jacques Derrida, Spurs:Nietzsche'styles,rans. Barbara Harlow [Chi-cago: UniversityfChicago Press, 1979], 61). "Woman," ccordingtoDerrida,playswithcastration,withthe economyto which "she" is not bound.

48 Nietzsche, "Uses,"61.

49 FriedrichNietzsche,EcceHomo, d. and trans. Walter Kaufmann (New York:

Vintage,1967), 303. Earlier in EcceHomo,Nietzsche confidesthathis preg-nancywith Zarathustra ad lasted eighteen months. This "mightsuggest,"

Nietzschewrites, at least to Buddhists,thatI am reallya female elephant"(295). Also, one cannot forgetthe scene of Nietzsche's collapse when "on

January3, 1889, he threwhimself n tears on the neck of a beaten horse"(Cited inRoland Barthes'Camera ucida:ReflectionsnPhotography,rans.Rich-ard Howard [Farrar, trauss nd Giroux,1981], 117).









M L N 827

future.The promise,however, s onlymade possible, can onlybe made andkept, s an abrogationofforgetting;s a deferralor suspensionof the act of

forgetting.hus,thecapacity oforgetmust first xist beforeanypromisecan

be made. This,accordingtoNietzsche,remains the most mportant askthatmankind faces.

59 Derrida, "'Eating Well,'" 111-12.

60 Rene Descartes,"Discourseon theMethod," in Descartes: electedhilosophicalWritings,rans.John Cottingham,Robert Stoothoff nd Dugald Murdoch(Cambridge: CambridgeUniversityress,1988), 45.

61 Ibid.

62 Ibid.With n eyetowardpsychoanalyticiscourse,Peirceoffers his ritiqueofDescartes' metaphysics: Descartes was of the opinion that animalswereun-conscious automata. He might s well have thought hat all men but himself

wereunconscious" (Charles SandersPeirce,"MinuteLogic," in Peirce nSigns:Writingsn SemioticsyCharles anders eirce, d. JamesHoopes [Chapel Hill:

Universityf North Carolina Press,1991], 234).63 G. W.Leibniz,"Principles f Nature and Grace,Based on Reason" inPhilosophi-

calEssays, d. and trans.RogerAriew nd Daniel Garber (Indianapolis: Hack-ett,1989), 209. Leibniz restates hispositionin "Monadology":"I have there-fore,held that f the animal neverbegins naturally,tdoes not end naturally,either; nd notonlywilltherebe no generation,butalso no completedestruc-tion,nor anydeath, strictlypeaking .." (Ibid., 223).

64 Leibniz, "ANew System fNature and CommunicationofSubstances, nd ofthe Union of theSoul and Body," n Philosophicalssays, 41.

65 Jean-LucNancy,The noperative ommunity,d. and trans.Peter Connor (Min-neapolis: Universityf MinnesotaPress,1991), 13.

66 Leibniz, "Principles," 08.

67 Ibid., 209 (emphasis added).68 Ibid., 208-9.

69 ArthurSchopenhauer, "The Indestructibilityf Being," in Essaysand Aphor-isms, d. and trans.R.J. Hollingdale (New York:Penguin,1970), 70.

70 Ibid.

71 Ibid.,76. Schopenhauer goes on toclaimthat hisdesiretosurvive, o be awareof one's own continued survival arises not fromthe individuality ut fromexistences such, is intrinsic o everythinghat existsnd is indeed the reasonwhytexists, nd it s consequently atisfied yexistence as such: t s this lonetowhichthisdesire applies, and not exclusively o some particular xistence.That whichdesiresexistenceso impetuouslys onlyindirectlyhe individual "

72 Ibid., 71. In TheGayScience, ietzsche extendsSchopenhauer's consciousnessinto therealm of anguage.Retaining he dea of thesociality fconsciousness,Nietzsche nsists hatconsciousnessarisesfrom hephysiologicalnecessities fcommunication nd notfrom hemetaphysics flanguage.The distinctionscrucial for tmarks ne of thetransitions rom philosophicaldiscourseto an

evolutionary ne. Nietzschewrites hat consciousnessasdevelopednly nder he

pressure ftheneed orcommunication;hat from the start t was needed and

useful only between human beings (particularlybetween those who com-manded and those who obeyed); and that t also developed in proportiontothedegree of thisutility. onsciousness s reallyonlya net of communicationbetween human beings; it is only as such that it had to develop; a solitaryhumanbeingwho lived ikea beast ofpreywouldnot have needed it. That our








actions,thoughts, eelings, nd movements nter our own consciousness-atleast a partof them-that is a resultof a 'must' thatfora terriblyong timelorded it overman.Asthemost

endangeredanimal,he needed

elpand

protec-tion,he needed his peers,he had to learn to expresshis distress nd makehimself nderstood;and for ll of thishe needed 'consciousness' first fall,heneeded to knowhimselfwhatdistressedhim,he needed to know' how he felt,he needed to know'whathe thought. or,tosay tonce more:Man, likeeverylivingbeing, thinks ontinuallywithoutknowing t; the thinking hatrisestoconsciousness s onlythesmallestpartof this-the mostsuperficial nd worstpart-for onlythis onsciousthinking akes he orm fwords, hich s to ay ignsof ommunication,nd thisfactuncovers heoriginofconsciousness" FriedrichNietzsche,TheGay cience,rans.WalterKaufmann NewYork:Vintage,1974],298-99).

73 Schopenhauer,"Indestructibility,"2.

74 Ibid., 73.75 Ibid., 74.

76 Jean-Jacques ousseau, "Discourseon theOriginofInequality,"n BasicPoliti-cal Writings fJean-Jacquesousseau,ed. and trans.Donald A. Cress (Indi-anapolis: Hackett,1987), 44-45.

77 Ibid., 45. Rousseau has, likeHeidegger,refusedto grantthe openness of thefuture to the animal. Unable to perfect tself, he animal cannot partake,accordingto Rousseau, in thegoing-to-be f the future. n a statementmadeobsoletebythe adventofevolution,Rousseau writes: [A]n animal,at the endof a fewmonths, s what t will be all its life;and itsspecies, at the end of athousand

years,s what s was in thefirst f those thousand

years" 45).78 Ibid., 46.

79 Ibid.

80 Derrida, Of Grammatology,82.

81 Ibid., 184.

82 Rousseau, "Inequality," 9.

83 Ibid.

84 Immanuel Kant,"ConjecturalBeginningof Human History,"n Kant:On His-tory,d. Lewis WhiteBeck, trans. Lewis WhiteBeck, RobertE. Anchor andEmil L. Fackenheim (NewYork:Macmillan,1963), 54.

85 Ibid.86 Kant is here returning o an Aristotelian ormulation n which,as Derrida

pointsout: "onlyman is capable of mimesis."or a discussionof themimeticeconomythat traverses antianaesthetics nd the animal kingdom, ee Der-rida's "Economimesis,"n Diacritics 1 (1981): 3-25.

87 Hegel,Jenenser ealphilosophie,itedin Giorgio Agamben,LanguageandDeath:ThePlaceofNegativity,rans.KarenE. PinkuswithMichael Hardt (Minneapolis:Universityf MinnesotaPress,1991), 43.

88 Ibid., 72-73.

89 Edmund Burke,A Philosophicalnquirynto heOrigin fOur deasof he ublime

andBeautiful,d.J.T. Boulton (NotreDame: Universityf Notre Dame Press,1958), 57.

90 Ibid.

91 Ibid., 84 (emphasisadded). Burke adds: "unless tbe the well knownvoice ofsome creature, n whichwe are used to look with ontempt." tsunfamiliarity







M L N 829

is therefore ssentialto itsevocativevalue. Precluding heappearance ofhyste-ria, Burke's "great ideas" also signal the hypnoid phenomena thatJosephBreuer terms "unconscious ideas," in Studies nHysteriaJosephBreuer and

SigmundFreud, Studies nHysteria,d. and trans.James Strachey NewYork:Basic,n.d.]).

92 Burke, Sublime, 4.

93 Hegel,Jenenserealphilosophie,itedinAgamben, Language ndDeath, 5. For afurther iscussionof theHegelian voice,seeJacques Derrida,"The Pit and the

Pyramid: ntroductionto Hegel's Semiology,"n MarginsofPhilosophy,rans.Alan Bass (Chicago: Universityf Chicago Press,1982), 69-108.

94 Agamben, Language,45.

95 Ibid., 46.

96 G. W. F. Hegel, PhenomenologyfSpirit, rans. A. V. Miller (Oxford: Oxford

Universityress,1977), 51.97 Kojeve, Introduction,40.

98 Ibid., 141.

99 Ibid.

100 Derrida, "Otobiographies,"7.

101 Jean-Francois yotard, The Inarticulateor the differendtself" manuscript).The essay comes from the textof a lecture thatLyotardaddressed to the

WhitneyHumanities Centerat Yale Universityn 1992.

102 Ibid.

103 In the "NicomacheanEthics,"Aristotlewrites: leasure "is a whole,and at no

timecan one find pleasurewhose formwillbe completed fthepleasurelastslonger.For thisreason, too, it is not a movement... [I]t is not possible tomove otherwisethan in time,but it is possible to be pleased; forthat whichtakesplace in a moment s a whole" (The Complete orksfAristotle,858).

104 Lyotard, The Inarticulate."

105 Ibid. Hegel also describes theenclosed world of narticulate hraseswhich, s

Lyotard nsists,does not open onto a universeof communication.On theintrusionof the voice of consciousnessinto the animal's affectivemuteness,Hegel writes: The empty oice of the animal acquires a meaning that s infi-

nitely eterminaten itself. he pure sound ofthevoice,thevowel, s differen-tiated since the organ of the voice presents ts articulationas a particular

articulationwith ts differences. his pure sound is interrupted ymute [con-sonants],the trueand properarrestation f mere resonation" Hegel,JenenserRealphilosophie,ited in Agamben, Language,44). Agamben explains that theconsonant createsalternation n an attempt o preserve,through ublation,the "mere resonance" of the animal cry: "What is articulatedhere? Hegelresponds:the pure sound' of the animalvoice, the vowelthat s interruptedand arrestedthroughmute consonants.The articulation ppears,that s,as a

process of differentiation,f interruption nd preservationof the animalvoice" (44).

106 See Jean-Francois yotard,TheDifferend:hrasesnDispute, rans.GeorgesVanDen Abbeele (Minneapolis: UniversityfMinnesotaPress,1988).

107 Lyotard, The Inarticulate."Leibniz also questionsthepossibilityfan emptybody.He writes: [I]f therewere no souls or something nalogous to them,then therewould be no I [Ego], no monads, no real unities,and thereforethere would be no substantialmultitudes; ndeed there would be nothing nbodies butphantasms" Leibniz, "Fromthe Letters oJohannBernoulli,"167).








108 George Boas, "Theriophily"n DictionaryftheHistory f deas, ed. Philip P.Wiener,5 vols. (NewYork:Scribners, 973), vol. 4, 384-89.

109 Boas recounts the famousepisode: "Chrysippus'dog,... lookingfor tsmas-ter n a wood, comes to a triplefork.He sniffs own twoof thebranchesandfindsno scent of his master.He thenwithout niffing artsdown the thirdbranch, thusprovinghis reasoning powers" (Boas, "Theriophily," 84). Ac-

cording to Montaigne, dogs grieve,mourn,and dream as do horses,whiletortoises nd ostricheshatch their ggswith ejaculative"glances.And cats, n

Montaigne'snotes,can fell theirpreywith ethal and insistent ooks (Michelde Montaigne, "Of the Power of the Imagination"in The CompletessaysofMontaigne,rans. Donald Frame [Stanford:StanfordUniversity ress, 1943],74-75). Throughouthis workMontaigne argues that animals posses variousimaginative killsthatboth align them with nd differentiate hem fromhu-man beings.A versionofMontaigne'sbelief n animal imaginationreturnsn

JakobvonUexkiill'stwentieth-centurytudiesof theanimal Umwelt.ee in thisconnection,PierreAlferi, e cheminfamilierupoisson ombatifParis: P. 0. L.,1992).

110 Montaigne,"ApologyforRaymondSebond," in Completessays, 35.

111 Ofthe evident imilarityetweenbeasts and men,Montaigneexplains: "Thereis no apparentreason to udge that the beasts do bynatural and obligatoryinstinct he samethings hatwe do byour choice and cleverness.Wemust nferfrom ikeresults ikefaculties,nd consequently onfess hatthis ame reason,this amemethod thatwe have forworking,s also thatof the animals.Whydowe imagine n them thiscompulsionofnature,we who feel no similar ffect?"("Apology," 36-37).

112 Plinythe Elder,NaturalHistory: Selection,rans.JohnF. Healy (New York:Penguin,1991), 74.

113 Ibid.

114 Nietzsche,OntheGenealogyfMorals, 5. In a differentontext, ocke and Kantconnect the sunderingof mankind from ts animal past,fromnature,to the

question of ethics.Decryingthe cruelty hathuman beings regularly xhibittoward their ownyoung,Locke writes: The Dens of Lions and Nurseries ofWolvesknow no such Cruelty s this:These Savage Inhabitantsof the DesertobeyGod and Nature nbeingtender nd careful f theirOff-spring:heywillHunt,Watch,Fight,and almostStarve forthe Preservationof theirYoung,never

partwith

them,never forsake hemtill

theyre able to shift or them-

selves;And is itthePrivilege f Man alone to act morecontrary o Nature thanthe Wild and most Untamedpartof the Creation?" JohnLocke, TwoTreatisesofGovernmentCambridge: CambridgeUniversity ress, 1960], 217). In TheMetaphysicsfMorals,Kant also makes referenceto animal virtues: Thefirst,thoughnot the principal,dutyof man to himself s an animal being is to

preserveimselfinisanimal nature" ImmanuelKant,TheMetaphysicsfMorals,trans.Mary Gregor [Cambridge: Cambridge University ress, 1991], 218).Nietzsche nsistsupon thenecessity fovercoming, fsurviving hatdialecticofmelancholia.ForNietzsche,melancholiacan be surpassed onlywhen man-kind can promise tself uturity,hat s,promise tself heright omakeprom-ises. He poses the following hallenge: "To breed an animal with herighto

make romises-isnot thistheparadoxical task thatnature has set itselfn thecase of man? is it not the real problem regardingman?" (57).

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