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.
Keywords: Jacques Derrida; Paul Shepard; evolution; infinite debt; intimacy
Document Type: Research Article
Affiliations: Département de Philosophie, Ecole Normale Supérieure, 45 rue d'Ulm, 75005, Paris, France., Email: [email protected]
Publication date: 03 July 2014
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