Martin Heidegger distinguishes the human—as a world-forming, historical being that is capable of language—from the animal, which, according to him, is poor in world, ahistorical and incapable of language. This clear-cut distinction, which is connected to Heidegger’s anti-biologism, has frequently been criticised. By discussing the criticism of Matthew Calcaro, Giorgio Agamben and Jacques Derrida, the present paper aims to show that in Heidegger the human-animal difference is not a biologically determined distinction, human language is not understood as an instrument of (...) expression and communication, and humans are not distinguished from animals on the basis of their supposed access to an “objective” reality. While all three points imply corrections to the reception of Heidegger in animal philosophy, is particularly crucial since it refutes Derrida’s interpretation of the as-structure, which has had a large influence on readings of Heidegger, also far beyond the topic of animality. Taking into account these clarifications, a specific historical response-ability of the human becomes intelligible that is relevant in particular in regard to ethical aspirations in animal philosophy. (shrink)

This paper situates Günther Anders’s diagnosis of a shift in the modes of human self-production from hermeneutic and educational practices to techno-scientific interventions in the broader context of observations concerning posthumanism and biopolitics. It proposes to reframe the problem of human self-production within the philosophy of media and traces a common anti-hermeneutic trajectory to which both technoscientific transhumanism and certain strands of posthumanism belong, insofar as they are based on an ontology that exclusively considers causally effective agency. With Anders and (...) Martin Heidegger it is argued that such a focus on agency neglects the dimension of meaning that irreducibly guides technoscientific interventions. The paper claims that, with regard to the escalating dynamics both of human enhancement and of the Anthropocene, neither a truly critical theoretical stance nor a practical subversion is possible without taking the horizons of meaning into account that drive these dynamics. The last section sketches an outline of the complex interrelations of humans, technologies and meaning that cannot be mapped in terms of causally effective agency. (shrink)