The Open: Man and Animal

Giorgio Agamben

Published by Stanford University Press 2004

The Open

Man and Animal

Giorgio Agamben
Translated by: Kevin Attell

In the series Meridian: Crossing Aesthetics

https://doi.org/10.1515/9780804767064

Overview
Contents

About this book

The end of human history is an event that has been foreseen or announced by both messianics and dialecticians. But who is the protagonist of that history that is coming—or has come—to a close? What is man? How did he come on the scene? And how has he maintained his privileged place as the master of, or first among, the animals?

In The Open, contemporary Italian philosopher Giorgio Agamben considers the ways in which the "human" has been thought of as either a distinct and superior type of animal, or a kind of being that is essentially different from animal altogether. In an argument that ranges from ancient Greek, Christian, and Jewish texts to twentieth-century thinkers such as Heidegger, Benjamin, and Kojève, Agamben examines the ways in which the distinction between man and animal has been manufactured by the logical presuppositions of Western thought, and he investigates the profound implications that the man/animal distinction has had for disciplines as seemingly disparate as philosophy, law, anthropology, medicine, and politics.

Author / Editor information

Giorgio Agamben is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Venice. This is the fifth of his books published by Stanford; previous titles are Homo Sacer: Sovereign Power and Bare Life (1998), The Man Without Content (1999), The End of the Poem (1999), and Potentialities (1999).

Reviews

"[The Open] turns to perhaps the most basic distinction of existence: that between human beings and animals. The thin volume provides an impressive historical survey of the problem, offering a dizzying scope of debate over the nature of animality, including expositions of figures as diverse as Thomas Aquinas, Georges Bataille, Heidegger, Alexander Kojève, Benjamin, and the German zoologist Jakob von Uexküll."—Radical Philosophy Review

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
Contents Publicly Available Download PDF	vii
Translator’s Note Publicly Available Download PDF	ix
§ 1 Theriomorphous Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
§ 2 Acephalous Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	5
§ 3 Snob Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	9
§ 4 Mysterium disiunctionis Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	13
§ 5 Physiology of the Blessed Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	17
§ 6 Cognitio experimentalis Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	21
§ 7 Taxonomies Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	23
§ 8 Without Rank Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	29
§ 9 Anthropological Machine Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	33
§ 10 Umwelt Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	39
§ 11 Tick Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	45
§ 12 Poverty in World Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	49
§ 13 The Open Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	57
§ 14 Profound Boredom Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	63
§ 15 World and Earth Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	71
§ 16 Animalization Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	75
§ 17 Anthropogenesis Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	79
§ 18 Between Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	81
§ 19 Desoeuvrement Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	85
§ 20 Outside of Being Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	89
Notes Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	93
Index of Names Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	101

(Deutsch)

Language: English
Publisher: Stanford University Press
Audience: Professional and scholarly;
Pages
- Main content: 120
Keywords: History -- Intellectual and Cultural; Philosophy -- Poststructuralism and Phenomenology

eBook

Published: October 23, 2003
ISBN: 9780804767064