THE INFINITE DEBT OF THE HUMAN TOWARDS THE ANIMAL

The philosophies of Jacques Derrida and Paul Shepard, while rarely encoun- tering the other, nevertheless prove to be surprisingly complementary. Derrida acknowl- edges the impossibility and necessity of the human/animal frontier, thinking the human/ animal relation in a paradigm of seeing and being seen, conceived in particular in the context of a sphere of the intimate. Shepard's not merely biological but ontological interpretation of evolution argues that humans need animals, not only metabolically but for their mental development. From the positive dependence of the human on the animal follows an infinite debt that can never be repaid; but in attempting to do so lies the responsibility and destiny of the human, that most animal animal.