Élisabeth de Fontenay continues her reflection on the status of animals, so close to us and yet to us so submissive. As a committed philosopher, she looks at the status of animals, deconstructing too easy oppositions and proposing to recognize certain rights to them.
After “ The reason for the strongest Which was a large preface to Three treaties for animals of Plutarch, and The silence of the animals, philosophy to the test of animalityÉlisabeth de Fontenay devotes a third philosophical work to animal and animality. This subject is increasingly surveyed by philosophers, but they have some difficulty thinking about it serenely and especially new costs, without rehashing the same references, from Aristotle to Hegel, often deemed unsurpassable for the animal – even though they would seem outdated, even displaced, to think of the current status of women, of the child, the other and the other and the other and the other and the other and the other and the other.
The passion for debates comes from the fact that the animal seems so close to man, even for those who support a strong distinction, that all reflection on the first seems to rejoil on the status of the second and question a human civilization largely based on the multiple use of animals. A fine example of the difficulty of thinking about the animal itself, for itself, is the work of Jean-Marie Meyer and Patrice de Plunkett, whose very title, We are animals but we are not animalsillustrates the propensity to consider the animal only in relation to man, erected in supreme reference, as the ethnologists of XIXe century could only think of other populations compared to Europeans. This allows you to rehash the same good old concepts on animals and animality in a feeling of “ Circulate, there is nothing to do, man is man, the animal is the animal », Reassuring for some, disintegrating with ease for others.
Elisabeth de Fontenay’s work is not one of them. It is even a difficult party. He wants to make a third way between what the author calls the continental philosophical tradition, from Descartes to Heidegger, who would deny the originality of the animals and to devalue them to subject them, and a philosophy of Anglo-Saxon origin, which would reduce too much the difference between man and beast under the effect of a “ Continuing materialism ». Long presented in France as a scarecrow, a philosophical horror, when it was known and debated elsewhere, this philosophy, popularized and caricatured by the rights of the animal and antispecism, begins to be disseminated more serenely, as evidenced by theAnimal ethical by Jean-Baptiste Jeangène Vilmer.
It is more precisely with regard to a joint reflection on man and animal, humanity and animality, that Elisabeth de Fontenay tries this third way. So she wants to keep a clean of man, like the former, while reconsidering him, like the latter, because her criteria are constantly called into question by science. Likewise she wants to keep in philosophy the right to think in an autonomous manner man and animal, even to control science and its concepts by philosophical concepts deemed more rationally and more surely built (p. 45 et seq.), Which strangely recalls the claims of theologians of theologians XVIe–XIXe centuries. In this, Élisabeth de Fontenay is between philosophers who hardly take into account science and others, such as Dominique Lestel, who, assuming a double approach to scientist and philosopher, build a philosophical reflection from ethological knowledge.
Elisabeth de Fontenay’s reflection is deployed through a specific succession of studies which we cannot, and do not want, make the summary here. Let us just give an approach to encourage to read the book: Deconstruction of the classic difference of man and animal in the wake of Derrida ; reconstruction of man’s own, a man-animal relationship that did not have the first and would not reduce the second ; Definition of animal rights and non -extension of human rights to higher animals (primates) ; will to reconcile a philosophical approach “ classic Animality and humanity, and their distinction, with a renewal of the look on the animal.
The path is often complex, perilous, and Élisabeth de Fontenay is sometimes faced with contradictions. To save the own man’s own, she rallies herself at the idea of differences in degrees (man would also have the declarative, ostensive, conversational, metaphorical power, etc.), while knowing and recognizing that this kind of barrier between man and animal is constantly contradicted and leveled by scientific discoveries. To save the autonomy of philosophy, she wants to focus on classical philosophical concepts while admitting that it is impossible not to take into account the contributions of ethology. But it especially shows that the author does not accommodate simplistic thoughts and that she wants, on the contrary, to face the complexity of the living, the diversity of approaches, the difficulty of the question. Each page suggests, lifts questions, opens up tracks and makes this book essential for who is interested in the relationships between man and animal.