| Animal Studies is a recently recognized subject in western philosophical field, which has not been attached much attention yet. It is widely accepted that Philosophy mainly focuses on metaphysics and epistemology, from which Animal Studies apparently deviates. However, as a matter of fact, ever since the birth of western philosophy, the Animal Studies has been an indispensable part of it. Philosophers never fail to talk about animals when probing into the mystery of man. Closest to man but of most mysterious existence, animals are both the counterpart and the foundation of man. They are what man wants to deny yet what constantly reappear. While mainstream western philosophers put forward various ideas about animals from different perspectives, they all hold that there is a natural boundary between human and animals. The emphasis of this boundary is to capture the conception of "the essence of man" from the imaginary differences, to spot man’s position in the world through artificial categories, and to get rid of the panic out of chaos with violence. Man judges and knows himself with the image of animal. If the animal other, so to speak, were deleted,"the nature of man" would become the dark night of nihility and an empty signifier. The concept of "the nature of man" is fulfilled by the animal other. Friedrich Nietzsche pioneered in the reflection of some traditional propositions like "humanity","animality","the boundary between man and animal" and so on. In the matter of "the boundary between man and animal", he rejected the traditionally metaphysical way of division. With the proposition of "animal existence or animality", he argued against the depreciation and suppression to animality by traditional metaphysics. Friedrich Nietzsche’s reflections have inspired following philosophers’ concerns about Animal Studies. In The Fundamental Concepts of Metaphysics: World, Finitude, Solitude, Martin Heidegger’s discussion about the issue of animal’s way of existence covers over100pages, which shows his deep concern about it. On the basis of Nietzsche’s research, He consciously opposed the the nature of animals defined by traditional metaphysics, and criticized the meditation concerning the differences between man and animals in traditional metaphysics. Following Nietzsche’s critique to metaphysical anthropocentrism, Jacques Derrida discussed the relationship between man and animals in an attempt to transcend "human and humanitarianism". From the writing Of Grammatology, said Derrida, he had devoted himself to breaking anthropocentrism. A series of concepts put forward by Derrida, such as "differance","supplement","hospitality" and "democracy to come", all transcend the category of "Human", covering all creatures in it. Italian thinker, Giorgio Agamben, thinks highly of Nietzsche’s courage to meditate "inappropriately", which regarded Christian morality, the pride of modern time, as a kind of disease and poverty, while sang its eulogy to the way of living like animals. In The Open:Man and Animal, Agamben accepted Nietzsche’s critique of Christian culture and traditional western metaphysics. If it could be said that in his works, Nietzsche rejected the binary relationship between man and animals divided by traditional metaphysics, then Agamben detected the operating mechanism behind such division on the basis of Nietzsche’s thoughts. To do this, he borrowed the concept of "anthropological machine" from Italian mythologist Furio Jesi to describe this mechanism. If Nietzsche’s discussion on animals mainly centered on philosophical level, then Agamben’s study on animals widely involved politics, philosophy, theology, biology and many other fields. Compared with Nietzsche, Agamben’s discussion on animals are more complicated and more comprehensive. Following the logic mentioned above, this dissertation includes two parts, six chapters. Part one discusses Nietzsche’s animal studies with three chapters, which is centered on three of Nietzsche’s important works:The Birth of Tragedy, Thus Spoke Zarathustra and On the Genealogy of Morals. Part two probes into Animal Studies in post-Nietzsche philosophy, which also covers three chapters. In this part, three contemporary European philosophers, Martin Heidegger, Giorgio Agamben and Jacques Derrida are under study. Chapter Four, with the title of "Heidegger’s discussion about animals", is devoted to exploring two topics:1. the complicated relationship between Heidegger and anthropocentrism;2. Heidegger’s critique of Nietzsche’s discussion about animals. Chapter Five,"Agamben’s Animal Studies", shows the trajectory of Agamben’s philosophy from the perspective of animal. And Chapter Six,"Derrida’s Animal Studies", attempts to find the answers to two questions:1. How did Derrida critique western metaphysical anthropocentrism?2. How did he explain "the animal other" in the perspective of ethics?... |
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