Derrida and Our Animal Others

David Farrell Krell

Description

Reading Derrida's final seminar in light of Heidegger

Jacques Derrida's final seminars were devoted to animal life and political sovereignty—the connection being that animals slavishly adhere to the law while kings and gods tower above it and that this relationship reveals much about humanity in the West. David Farrell Krell offers a detailed account of these seminars, placing them in the context of Derrida's late work and his critique of Heidegger. Krell focuses his discussion on questions such as death, language, and animality. He concludes that Heidegger and Derrida share a commitment to finding new ways of speaking and thinking about human and animal life.

Acknowledgments
List of Abbreviations
Introduction
1. The Beast and the Sovereign I
2. The Beast and the Sovereign II
3. How Follow the Animal . . . That I Am?
4. Is There a Touchstone for All Philosophy?
5. Is Apophantic Discourse the Touchstone?
6. Conclusions and Directions for Future Research
Index

Sujets

• Philosophie
• Philosophie politique
• Éthique et morale
• Moral Philosophy
• Political
• PHILOSOPHY
• Philosophie et théologie
• Politics
• Ethics

Informations

• Publié par: Indiana University Press
• Date de parution: 18 juin 2013
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9780253009456
• Langue: English

Extrait

Derrida and Our Animal Others
Studies in Continental Thought
EDITOR
JOHN SALLIS
CONSULTING EDITORS
Robert Bernasconi
Rudolf Bernet
John D. Caputo
David Carr
Edward S. Casey
Hubert L. Dreyfus
Don Ihde
David Farrell Krell
Lenore Langsdorf
Alphonso Lingis
William L. McBride
J. N. Mohanty
Mary Rawlinson
Tom Rockmore
Calvin O. Schrag
Reiner Sch rmann
Charles E. Scott
Thomas Sheehan
Robert Sokolowski
Bruce W. Wilshire
David Wood
DERRIDA
and Our Animal Others
DERRIDA S FINAL SEMINAR , THE BEAST AND THE SOVEREIGN
David Farrell Krell
This book is a publication of
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2013 by David Farrell Krell
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Krell, David Farrell.
Derrida and our animal others : Derrida s final seminar, The beast and the sovereign / David Farrell Krell.
pages cm. - (Studies in Continental thought)
Includes index.
ISBN 978-0-253-00924-1 (cloth : alk. paper) - ISBN 978-0-253-00933-3 (pbk. : alk. paper) - ISBN 978-0-253-00945-6 (electronic book) 1. Derrida, Jacques. 2. Philosophy, French-20th century. 3. Power (Social sciences)-Philosophy. 4. Sovereignty. 5. Responsibility. 6. Animals (Philosophy) I. Title.
B2430.D484K73 2013
194-dc23
2013001956
1 2 3 4 5 18 17 16 15 14 13
In memory of jd
and for my esteemed colleagues and dear friends dawne mccance and michael naas
Der Gerechte ist der F rsprech der Kreatur und zugleich ihre h chste Verk rperung .
( The just person is the advocate of all living beings and at the same time their supreme embodiment. )
-Walter Benjamin, Der Erz hler XVII
Contents
Acknowledgments
List of Abbreviations
Introduction
1. The Beast and the Sovereign I
2. The Beast and the Sovereign II
3. How Follow the Animal . . . That I Am?
4. Is There a Touchstone for All Philosophy?
5. Is Apophantic Discourse the Touchstone?
6. Conclusions and Directions for Future Research
Index
Acknowledgments
I would like to thank the following colleagues and publishers for their reception of earlier versions of these chapters: John Sallis and James Risser of Research in Phenomenology for chapters 1 and 2 ; Jeff Powell for chapter 5 , which in another form appears in his collection, Heidegger and Language , published by Indiana University Press in 2012. My thanks also to Michael Naas and Dawne McCance for their dependable wisdom and constant help. Dawne McCance s fine volume, Critical Animal Studies: An Introduction , which I was able to read in typescript, introduced me to the field of critical animal studies and enabled me to rethink many issues surrounding Derrida and the problem of lifedeath in humans and other animals. I had the opportunity to read an early manuscript of Michael Naas s forthcoming book, The End of the World and Other Teachable Moments: Jacques Derrida s Final Seminar , to be published by Fordham University Press as soon as Michael finishes it. I will cite McCance s book as CAS and Naas s as EW, both of them by chapter number, in the hope that the references can be located-but in any case readers of this book will want to read those two books from beginning to end. My thanks to Len Lawlor, Dawne McCance, and Helmbrecht Breinig, who read various versions of the manuscript and greatly improved it, and to Dee Mortensen and her staff at Indiana University Press, especially Sarah Eileen Jacobi, Marvin Keenan, and freelancer Carol Kennedy, for their generous support. Once again I am indebted to my designer, David Matthew Krell. Finally, my gratitude to Marlonbrando, the feral, formidable, and faithful.
D. F. K.
Strobelh tte, St. Ulrich
Abbreviations
Works by Derrida
S minaire: La b te et le souverain . Vol. 1: 2001-2002 . Ed. Michel Lisse, Marie-Louise Mallet, and Genette Michaud. Paris: Galil e, 2008. Translated by Geoffrey Bennington as The Beast and the Sovereign , vol. 1. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2009. Cited by volume and page of the French edition.
S minaire: La b te et le souverain . Vol. 2: 2002-2003 . Ed. Michel Lisse, Marie-Louise Mallet, and Genette Michaud. Paris: Galil e, 2010. Translated by Geoffrey Bennington as The Beast and the Sovereign , vol. 2. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2011. Cited by volume and page of the French edition.
A
L animal que donc je suis . Paris: Galil e, 2006. Translated by David Wills as The Animal That Therefore I Am . New York: Fordham University Press, 2008.
AP
Apories . Paris: Galil e, 1996 [1992]. Translated by Thomas Dutoit as Aporias . Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1993.
BM
Il faut bien manger, ou le calcul du sujet: Entretien (avec J.-L. Nancy). Cahiers Confrontation 20 (Winter 1989): 91-114. Translated as Eating Well, or the Calculation of the Subject, an interview with Jean-Luc Nancy. Translated by Peter Connor and Avital Ronell. In Points . . . Interviews, 1974-1994 , ed. Elisabeth Weber, trans. Peggy Kamuf and others, 255-87. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1995.
C
Circumfession . In Geoffrey Bennington, Jacques Derrida . Paris: Seuil, 1991; English translation, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1993.
CP
La Carte postale de Socrate Freud et au-del . Paris: Aubier-Flammarion, 1980. Translated by Alan Bass as The Postcard from Socrates to Freud and Beyond . Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987.
DE
De l esprit: Heidegger et la question . Paris: Galil e, 1987. Translated by Geoffrey Bennington and Rachel Bowlby as Of Spirit: Heidegger and the Question . Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1989.
DG
De la grammatologie . Paris: Minuit, 1967. Translated by Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak as Of Grammatology . Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1976.
ED
criture et la difference . Paris: Seuil, 1967. Translated by Alan Bass as Writing and Difference . Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1978.
p
perons: Les styles de Nietzsche . Paris: Flammarion, 1978.
F
Force of Law: the Mystical Foundation of Authority. Translated by Mary Quaintance in Acts of Religion , ed. Gil Anidjar. New York: Routledge, 2002.
G
Glas . Paris: Galil e, 1974. Translated by John P. Leavey Jr. and Richard Rand. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1986.
Gs I-IV
The four Geschlecht papers: (1) and (2) are published in Psych , while (4) is in Politiques de l amiti , with English translations as follows: (1) by Ruben Berezdivin in Research in Phenomenology 13 (1983): 65-83; by Ruben Berezdivin and Elizabeth Rottenberg in Psyche 2: Inventions of the Other , ed. Peggy Kamuf and Elizabeth Rottenberg. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 2008, 7-26; (2) translated by John P. Leavey Jr. in Deconstruction and Philosophy: The Texts of Jacques Derrida , ed. John Sallis. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987, 161-96; by John P. Leavey and Elizabeth Rottenberg in Psyche 2 , cited above. The third Geschlecht is not yet published. The fourth, L oreille de Heidegger: Philopol mologie ( Geschlecht IV ), appears in Politiques de l amiti . An English translation by John P. Leavey Jr. appears in Commemorations: Reading Heidegger , ed. John Sallis. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1993.
IS
Interpreting Signatures (Nietzsche/Heidegger): Two Questions. In Diane P. Michelfelder and Richard E. Palmer, eds. Dialogue and Deconstruction: The Gadamer-Derrida Encounter . Albany: State University of New York Press, 1989, 58-71.
MA
Mal d Archive: Une impression freudienne . Paris: Galil e, 1995. Translated by Eric Prenowitz as Archive Fever . Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996.
O
Otobiographies: L enseignement de Nietzsche et la politique du nom propre . Paris: Galil e, 1984.
OG
L Origine de la g om trie . Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1962.
PA
Politiques de l amiti . Paris: Galil e, 1994. Translated by George Collins as Politics of Friendship . New York: Verso, 1997.
Ps
Psych : Inventions de l autre . Paris: Galil e, 1987. A new English translation in two volumes is being prepared by Peggy Kamuf and Elizabeth Rottenberg, under the title Psyche: Inventions of the Other , to be published by Stanford University Press.
S
Schibboleth: Pour Paul Celan . Paris: Galil e, 1986.
SM
Spectres de Marx . Paris: Galil e, 1993. Translated by Peggy Kamuf as Specters of Marx: The State of the Debt, the Work of Mourning, and the New International . New York: Routledge, 1994.
T
Le Toucher, Jean-Luc Nancy . Paris: ditions Galil e, 2000. Translated by Christine Irizarry as On Touching-Jean-Luc Nancy . Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 2005; an early version of this work, translated by Peggy Kamuf, was published in On the Work of Jean-Luc Nancy , a special issue of Paragraph: A Journal of Modern Critical Theory 16, no. 2 (July 1993).
UG
Ulysse gramophone: Deux mots pour Joyce . Paris: Galil e, 1987.
V
Voyous . Paris: Galil e, 2003. Translated by Pascale-Anne Brault and Michael Naas as Rogues: Two Essays on Reason . Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 2005.

Works by Heidegger
EM
Einf hrung in die Metaphysik . T bingen: M. Niemeyer, 1953. A new translation by Gregory Fried and Richard Polt has appeared under the title Introduct