De la métaphysique à la question philosophique de l’animal : avec Heidegger et Derrida

Abstract

In the history of the Western philosophical tradition, the question of the animal is, in a certain sense, central: it is by the flanks that it constantly emerges at the heart of the great reflectionon the boundaries of "humanity". Thus, contrary to a widespread opinion, the philosophical question of the animal is not secondary, but rather perhaps one of the most constant and tenacious thorn in the history of ideas - and of interrogations. Now, if Martin Heidegger has put the philosophical question of the animal back at the center of reflection, Jacques Derrida is perhaps the one who made visible the fragility and the cracks in the great construction of the Western philosophical tradition around the traditional opposition between the human and the animal. The Derridean deconstruction will then open the way to a plurality of thinkers and to a variety of interpretations that will directly insert themselves into these cracks that have weakened the very structure of the edifice. Nevertheless, it is from the texts of Heidegger that Derrida operates a reversal of the question. In Derrida's eyes, it is the whole Western philosophical tradition, in a certain sense, that perseveres in erasing any trace of the animal : a care fully orchestrated oblivion of the animal. In these conditions, by developing a distinction between spectator and listener, our reflection unfolds the question of the animal in such a way as to demonstrate that it is precisely as a listener, the one who stretches his or her ear, not as a spectator, that we must position ourselves before the animal in order not to remain in sensitive to its call: to remove this deafness, to listen attentively to the animal that tries to communicate with us. Let us open ourselves to the animal that tries to establish a dialogue with us: let us listen to it, finally.