I. The Logic of the Proper in Heidegger’s Humanism

In Of Grammatology, Derrida writes of the name of man, how it is given, and what must be excluded from this name so that man is not confounded with his other:

Man calls himself man only by drawing limits [dessinant des limites] excluding his other from the play of supplementarity: the purity of nature, of animality, primitivism, infancy, madness, divinity. The approach to these limits is at once feared as a threat of death, and desired as access to life without differance. The history of man calling himself man is the articulation of all these limits among themselves.[1]

Without justification, but not without a certain provocation, I want to isolate here the inscription of one of these limits, viz., the boundary drawn in the delimitation of man from his animal other. In doing so, I am setting out to approach “the question of the animal” as it is posed in Derrida’s reading of Heidegger. Since this question contains within it a considerable number of tasks for thought which are in turn rather intricate and complicated, my task in the present essay is simply to sketch out the barest preface to this question.[2]

I shall begin with a reading of Derrida’s 1968 essay, “The Ends of Man,”[3] in which the question of the name and limits of man in Heidegger’s thought is raised explicitly. Readers of Derrida will no doubt recall the remarkable opening preface to this essay in which the essential link between the philosophical and the political is discussed, along with Derrida’s specific dating of the writing of the essay (April-May 1968) and his outspoken political protest against certain policies surrounding the Vietnam war. The essay’s governing theme, the (mis)appropriation of Hegel, Husserl, and Heidegger in France, is also well known and does not need to be rehearsed here. But with the question of the animal in mind, we should perhaps attempt a re-reading of the handful of pages devoted to Heidegger’s humanism and the role that the motif of the proper of man plays in this humanism. Of course, Derrida’s explicit concern in “The Ends of Man” is not with the distinction between humanity and animality as such; his interest here belongs rather to what remains of humanism and the name of man in Heidegger. So why begin with “The Ends of Man” if our task is to understand the place of the question of the animal in Derrida’s work? What I shall attempt to argue here is that Derrida’s reading of Heidegger’s humanism opens the space for the possibility of disclosing an often overlooked thematic concerning animality in Heidegger’s text—and it is this very conjunction, or rather disjunction, of humanism and animality that Derrida will later interrogate at more length in the name of the question of the animal. By carefully locating the role and status of animality in Heidegger’s re-thinking of humanism, we will thus be better prepared to understand what is at stake in those later texts where Derrida explicitly raises the question of the animal.

Before this argument can be developed at more length, we need first to turn our attention to the letter of the text of “The Ends of Man.” Opening to the middle of the essay, under the section entitled “Reading Us [Nous Lisant],” we find ourselves confronted straight-away with the question of man. Derrida asks: What about the “we,” the humanity of “we” men in Heidegger’s text? (EM 123/FH 147). As Derrida is quick to point out, this is by no means a simple question since, within Heidegger’s text, it can only be raised against the backdrop of a prior delimitation of humanism, one in which the essential complicity of humanism and metaphysics has been disclosed. If the question of the “we” is to be raised within Heidegger’s text, it cannot be a matter of accusing Heidegger of simply falling back into the metaphysical form of humanism that he, better than anyone else, has called into question. In his “Letter on ‘Humanism,’” Heidegger argues that humanism in its traditional or classical forms is metaphysical insofar as it grounds itself in a determination of the Being of man without ever raising the question of Being, either with respect to man or the beings over and against which man is defined. Consequently, if there is in fact a new determination of man’s Being in Heidegger’s text, it will likely be something other than a mere repetition of one of the traditional metaphysical definitions.

In order to locate the question of man in Heidegger’s text with the rigor with which he himself pursues it, one must think humanism otherwise, i.e., in relation to the thinking of the truth of Being. Derrida is perhaps the first to pursue the consequences of Heidegger’s humanism on this terrain. His means of gaining access to Heidegger’s humanism is through an examination of the various ways in which man and the thinking of Being maintain a hold on one another (EM 123-4/FH 148). As Heidegger no longer allows himself to define the “we” in terms of standard metaphysical determinations (e.g., animal rationale), what constitutes the “we” must be re-thought in terms of the question of Being. This other thinking of man that finds its place alongside the question of Being (Derrida will go so far as to call it a thinking of the proper of man [le propre de l’homme]) occurs, according to Derrida, by way of “a kind of magnetic attraction [un sorte d’aimantation]” (EM 124/FH 148).

With the modesty requisite for a project as large and involved as interrogating the relation between man and Being in Heidegger’s text, Derrida limits himself to merely indicating some of the effects of this magnetization. These indications are drawn from close readings of two key texts: the opening sections of Being and Time (1927) and the “Letter on ‘Humanism’” (1942), two works separated by several years and many substantive texts.[4] While he readily acknowledges the complications and multiplications that occur between these two texts and beyond them, Derrida nonetheless insists that there is no simple turning from man to Being in Heidegger’s work in the years between Being and Time and the “Letter.” Already in 1927, the existential analytic of Dasein in Being and Time attempts to distance itself from the man, or humanist subject, of metaphysics. And the “Letter,” for all of its professed opposition to humanism in favor of a thought of the truth of Being, is still governed throughout by another, (supposedly) non-metaphysical thought of the proper of man. Thus, rather than a break or a turning, Derrida will attempt to point up a continuity in Heidegger’s text, the constancy of a magnetic attraction which he suggests needs to be read in terms of the concept of proximity (proximité) (EM 124/FH 148). The proximity in question concerns the proximity of man, both in nearness to himself and to Being. It is in the play of this proximity that Derrida will attempt to locate Heidegger’s other thought of man, of “we men,”—in short, Heidegger’s humanism. Heidegger’s thinking of proximity, a thought directed against a metaphysical humanism that has forgotten what is closest to man, constitutes according to Derrida “another insistence of man [une autre insistance de l’homme]” (EM 124/FH 148), another humanism, even as it resists the name of humanism.

Concerning the opening sections of Being and Time, Derrida attempts to flesh out the proximity that marks Dasein out as the exemplary entity for the starting-point of the existential analytic. For Heidegger, the primary concern in these opening pages is to work out the formal structure of the question of Being and to determine the question’s ontical and ontological priority. Regarding inquiry (Fragen) as such, Heidegger argues that every inquiry is guided in advance by that which is sought out, which consequently implies that beings with the ability to inquire always already have some minimal understanding of Being. This pre-understanding of Being is what characterizes “us,” those who are inquiring into the meaning of Being. We, the inquirers, will turn out to be the exemplary beings for the starting point of the existential analytic based in part on this pre-understanding of Being and the ability to inquire. But Derrida suspects that this very minimal determination of who “we” are, as simple and unassuming as it might appear, nonetheless draws the existential analytic back within the horizon of metaphysics. To understand this supposition, let us look more closely at the three structural elements of the question of Being: every question has that which is asked about, that which is interrogated, and that which is to be found out through the asking. Concerning the question of Being, what is asked about is Being, and that which is to be found out by the asking is the meaning of Being—what, then, is to be interrogated here? Clearly Being, but Being never exists apart from a being, an entity, hence it is a matter of interrogating the Being of a particular being. But which being to interrogate? Heidegger wonders if the starting-point is optional (beliebig), or might it be that some particular being has a priority (Vorrang) here?

Derrida argues, in a move that appears rather forced upon first glance, that the answer to this question is governed by the phenomenological principle of presence. As we already know, Dasein is the exemplary entity chosen for the starting point of the existential analytic—but is Dasein chosen based on presence? Derrida’s argument is that it is indeed a certain form of self-presence, phenomenology’s “principle of principles,” that determines Dasein as the specific entity to be interrogated. This self-presence takes the form of self-proximity, the proximity of the questioning being to itself. In support of this claim, Derrida cites the key passage from Being and Time where Heidegger makes his argument for Dasein being the exemplary text for the working out of the question of Being.[5] But nowhere in this passage does Heidegger mention any kind of proximity or presence to self by name. This is not lost on Derrida, however, who immediately notes that the remains of self-presence in the choice of Dasein are at work in a more subtle way. Two points need to be made here in this regard. First, Heidegger says that the task of the existential analytic is to make the inquirer, Dasein, “transparent” in its Being. This reading will unfold in the form of a hermeneutics of unveiling which, as Derrida notes, resembles (which is not to say reproduces) and communicates with the classical metaphysical gesture of bringing something to light, to consciousness, to knowledge—to self-presence. Secondly, Heidegger sometimes retains the name of “man”—the being who has always been characterized by one form or another of self-presence—when speaking of Dasein.[6] According to Derrida, this reliance on the name of man, is the “paleonymic guiding thread which ties the analytic of Dasein to the totality of metaphysics’ traditional discourse [le fil conducteur paléonymique qui relie l’analytique du Dasein à la totalité du discours traditionnel de la métaphysique]” (EM 127/FH 151). Heidegger is not unaware of this risk of falling back into the closure of metaphysics; he knows he must avoid using the name “man” when speaking of Dasein so that the existential analytic is not confused with a traditional metaphysics or anthropology. Despite this cognizance, he is nevertheless forced by the language of metaphysics and, more importantly, by his own determination of Dasein’s proper being (viz., the limits of being capable of making inquiries and having a pre-understanding of Being, capacities that Heidegger argues are open only to those beings called “human”) to make recourse to the name of man. This is perhaps the point at which we can begin to see that Heidegger clearly has nothing other than “human beings” in mind when he speaks of Dasein. It is not that Dasein is simply equivalent to the “man” of metaphysics, it is rather the case that, for Heidegger, only the being that receives this determination, the human being, is capable of Dasein; there is, for example, no animal or plant Dasein. This reliance on the name of man gives rise to one of Derrida’s more memorable lines: “We can see then that Dasein, though not man, is nevertheless nothing other than man [On voit donc que le Dasein, s’il n’est pas l’homme, n’est pourtant pas autre chose que l’homme]” (EM 127/FH 151). To reformulate this passage in a more explicit but less elegant syntax, we could say that Dasein is not the man of metaphysics—but that, nevertheless, Dasein cannot be found anywhere else than (with) (in) human beings.

If Derrida’s insistence on the motif of presence qua proximity as the organizing structure of Heidegger’s discourse still seems a bit strained or even artificial, we need only read through a few more pages of Being and Time in order to see that Heidegger himself understands proximity to be at stake in the choice of Dasein as the exemplary entity for the Seinsfrage. In §5, the proximity of Dasein to itself is explained in terms of what is close (nahe), indeed that which is closest (das nächste). Dasein is close to us, so close that we ourselves are Dasein. This proximity, however, remains on an ontic level. Ontologically, the Being of our Dasein remains what is farthest (das Fernste) from us. Derrida suggests that Heidegger’s thinking, both within and beyond Being and Time, occupies the space between this (ontic) proximity and (ontological) distance in an attempt to reduce the distance, i.e., in order to re-establish the magnetic attraction that binds the essence of man to the thinking of Being.

If in formulating and choosing the exemplary entity for the question of Being in Being and Time Heidegger is unable to avoid relying on the name of man and his proper, what occurs when the question of Being is actually raised against metaphysics and humanism itself, for example in the “Letter on ‘Humanism’”? Does the thought of the truth of Being brought forth in that text displace the name of man, or does it instead insist on a restoration of what is proper to man? Heidegger’s circumscription of the essential co-belonging of humanism and metaphysics in the “Letter” would seem to promise just such a displacement. For Heidegger, metaphysics is defined by its inability to ask the question concerning the truth of Being and the relation between this truth and man’s essence (LH 246/BH 154); humanism thus remains metaphysical insofar as it “presupposes an interpretation of beings without asking about the truth of being [ohne die Frage der Wahrheit des Seins voraussetzt]. . .” (LH 245/BH 153). Thus, the posing of the question of the truth of Being to humanism and metaphysics would seem to give rise to a different kind of thinking beyond or prior to metaphysical humanism, one that gives a priority and privilege to Being itself, i.e., to (the) Being (of beings), rather than Man.

But contrary to this rather customary reading of Heidegger’s “Letter,” Derrida argues that the thinking of the truth of Being is still related to man, is of man. “Man and the name of man are not displaced in the question of Being such as it put to metaphysics. Even less do they disappear [Dans la question de l’être, telle qu’elle est posée à la métaphysique, l’homme et le nom de l’homme ne sont pas déplacés. Encore moins disparaissent-ils]” (EM 128/FH 153-4). Instead, what we find in the “Letter” according to Derrida is a “reevaluation or revalorization of the essence and dignity of man [réévaluation ou de revalorization de l’essence et de la dignité de l’homme]” (ibid.). Let us break this citation into two parts and consider in turn the reevaluation of man’s essence and then his dignity. Heidegger’s “Letter” contests the extension of metaphysics and the technical understanding of thought inasmuch as it threatens the essence of man (LH 242-3/BH 149-50). This threat is marked by the “widely and rapidly spreading devastation of language [überall und rasch fortwuchernde Verördung der Sprache]” and man’s homelessness (Heimatlosigkeit), in which “not only man but the essence of man stumbles aimlessly about [nur die Menschen, sondern das Wesen des Menschen umherirrt]” (LH 258/BH 169). Only a reinstatement of man’s essence can counter this threat and homelessness. This occurs when man gains another relation to language and speaking: “Before he speaks the human being must first let himself be claimed again by Being [vom Sein sich wieder ansprechen lassen] . . . ” (LH 243/BH 150). In listening to this claim, man’s essence and home will once more be bestowed upon him. Even though this is a thinking that gives a priority to Being and not man, Heidegger readily concedes that it is at the same time concerned with man and his humanity.

But in the claim [Anspruch] upon human beings, in the attempt to make humans ready for this claim, is there not implied a concern about human beings? Where else does “care” [“die Sorge”] tend but in the direction of bringing the human back to his essence [den Menschen wieder in sein Wesen zurückzubringen]? What else does that in turn betoken but that man (homo) become human (humanus)? Thus humanitas really does remain the concern of such thinking. For this is humanism: meditating and caring, that human beings be human and not inhumane, the “inhuman,” that is outside their essence. But in what does the humanity of the human being [Menschlichkeit des Menschen] consist? It lies in his essence [Sie ruht in seinem Wesen]. (LH 243-4/BH 151)

The restoration of man’s essence, as Derrida goes on to explain, coincides with a restoration of man’s dignity in the form of a proximity to Being. This dignity and proximity is found in man’s eksistence, or ecstatic inherence in the truth of Being. In eksistence, man closes the ontological distance from Being that characterizes ontic proximity by finding his way “once again into the nearness of being [noch einmal in die Nähe des Seins]” (LH 243/BH 150). And since Being is not a being, man’s saying of Being can be accomplished only in metaphoric terms—hence we find “in Heidegger’s discourse, the dominance of an entire metaphorics of proximity [une métaphorique de la proximité], of simple and immediate presence, a metaphorics associating the proximity of Being with the values of neighboring, shelter, house, service, guard, voice, and listening [de voix et d’écoute]” (EM 130/FH 156). The upshot of this metaphorics of proximity is another thought of the proximity of man to Being and Being to man, one in which “Being is essentially[7] farther than all beings and is yet nearer to man than every being [näher als jedes Seiende]. . . ,” or as Heidegger also phrases it, “Being is the nearest [Das Sein ist das Nächste]” (LH 252/BH 162). Derrida reads this nearness of man and Being in terms of the proper (le propre), a Latin-based vocabulary that translates and transfers a series of German terms (eigen, eigentlich, eignen, Ereignis, etc.) into the French idiom: “The near is the proper; the proper is the nearest [Le proche, c’est le propre; le propre, c’est le plus proche] (propre, proprius). Man is the proper of being [L’homme est le propre de l’être], which right near to him whispers in his ear; Being is the proper of man, such is the truth that speaks, such is the proposition which gives the there of the truth of Being and the truth of man” (EM 133/FH 160). It is thus in ek-sistence that man finds his most proper being. Heidegger writes: “Such standing in the clearing of Being I call the ek-sistence of human beings. This way of Being is proper only to the human being [Das Stehen in der Lichtung des Seins nenne ich die Ek-sistenz des Menschen. Nur dem Menschen eignet diese Art zu sein]” (LH 247/BH 155).

Derrida closes his reading of the “Letter” by citing this passage from Heidegger and footnoting his own writing on the “near, the proper, and the erection of the ‘standing upright’” in “La parole soufflé” and Of Grammatology (EM 133, n. 37/FH 160 n. 21). With this passage from Heidegger and these latter texts from Derrida in mind, we might take this footnote to suggest the following: for Derrida, what is at issue in Heidegger’s humanism is not simply a thought of the co-propriety of man and Being in Ereignis, but also the manner in which the delimitation of what is proper to man functions to exclude man’s others. Certainly, Derrida could not have failed to notice Heidegger’s repeated insistence that eksistence is a mode of being proper only to human beings. His thinking of the proper has been concerned with such exclusions all along: “Proper is the name of the subject close to himself—who is what he is—and abject the name of the object, the work, that has deviated from me [Propre est le nom du sujet proche de soi—qui est ce qu’il est—, abject le nom de l’object, de l’oeuvre à la dérive].”[8] And although he does not foreground this as an explicit theme in “The Ends of Man,” the fact that Heidegger’s limiting of eksistence to man is carried out in a distinguishing of man from his animal other is not likely to have escaped Derrida’s attention either, especially if we recall this chapter’s opening citation from Of Grammatology. We shall return to this limit between man and animal momentarily.

Now if we concern ourselves with both of these senses of the proper (the proper of man as a proximity to self and Being, and the proper of man as a logic of exclusion), we could imagine at least two sorts of responses to Derrida’s reading of Heidegger’s humanism. One response might be to question Derrida’s reductive reading of man’s proximity to self and Being in Ereignis in terms of the proper. On this point most readers would readily concede that the reading of Heidegger presented in “The Ends of Man” is to a certain extent violent and reductive. It is undoubtedly true, as Lacoue-Labarthe among others points out, that Derrida does not pay enough attention to the play of impropriety and the uncanny in Heidegger’s discourse on Ereignis and the question of man.[9] In this vein, one could criticize Derrida for completely neglecting Heidegger’s reading of Heraclitean ēthos in the “Letter” which discloses man’s proper dwelling site as anything but proper. From this perspective, man’s relation to being should be understood not in terms of proximity or propriety but as radically ex-propriating, unheimlich. Yet even if these limitations were acknowledged, on another reading one could still maintain that Derrida’s analysis is absolutely necessary and has to be followed through.[10] The reasons for this necessity might be understood as follows. On the one hand, underscoring the dominant and continuous traits of Heidegger’s discourse (e.g., the proper of man) allows the minor and disruptive elements (the uncanny, improper, etc.) to stand forth in a new light. And on the other hand, and more importantly for our present task of raising the question of the animal, it demonstrates that Heidegger’s thinking of the truth of Being—no matter how nuanced, ambiguous, or equivocal—remains a thinking of man and what is proper to man. In short, it is an anthropocentrism and a humanism, perhaps even a hyper-humanism.[11] Important consequences follow from this hyper-humanistic delimitation of metaphysical humanism. In the next section I am going to track but one of them, the one alluded to in the opening paragraph of this chapter: the problematic inscription of the limit between humanity and animality as it appears in the “Letter on ‘Humanism’”—for it is precisely this limit that is at issue for Heidegger when he insists that only man eksists.[12]

II. The Animal Without Eksistence

As those familiar with the “Letter on ‘Humanism’” will recall, Heidegger traces the concept of humanitas back to the age of the Roman Republic in which homo humanus was opposed to homo barbarus. He tells us that homo humanus is the name given to Romans who embodied the paideia of the Greeks of the Hellenistic age. Humanitas, the Roman translation of the Greek paideia, came to mean scholarship and training in good conduct. Subsequent versions of humanism (from Renaissance humanism, to eighteenth century German humanism, to the versions we find in Marx and, more recently, in Sartre) differ significantly in the respective modes in which they actualize this humanitas, but Heidegger argues that they all coincide in at least one essential aspect: the humanitas of man is “determined with regard to an already established interpretation [eine schon feststehende Auslegung] of nature, history, world, and the ground of world, that is of beings as a whole [des Seienden im Ganzen]” (LH 245/BH 245). As we have seen while reading “The Ends of Man,” this pre-established interpretation of the Being of beings as a whole is what typifies all previous humanisms as being metaphysical; and the posing of the question of the truth of Being to metaphysics and humanism is what discloses their common ground.

Yet, within this interpretation of beings as a whole, what exactly is the interpretation of the Being of man that metaphysical humanism presupposes? Heidegger argues that, beginning with the first humanism in Rome, every subsequent humanism has supposed the “essence” of man to be obvious: man is understood always as an animal rationale. Heidegger finds this determination questionable in several respects. To begin with, animal rationale is not simply a translation of the Greek definition of man, zōon logon echon (the animal having discourse or language), but a metaphysical interpretation of it in which ratio is problematically substituted for logos. But even beyond this contentious substitution, all subsequent humanisms have failed to inquire into the ground of ratio. The various definitions of ratio (as reason, a faculty of principles or categories, etc.) thus presuppose and arise from within a certain pre-established interpretation of the Being of beings, thereby covering over the question of the truth of Being itself (the question of the ontological difference), i.e., the question of how Being is given to man, and their essential co-belonging. The same goes for the animal of animal rationale, which is always interpreted in terms of a pre-determined conception of the Being of “life,” and the zoē and phusis in which what is living comes to presence. When Heidegger criticizes humanism for being metaphysical, it is these two limitations that are being addressed.

But beyond this penetrating delimitation of humanism and metaphysics, there is something else at stake here to which Heidegger will devote a considerable amount of effort in the remainder of the “Letter.” It involves a contestation of the confusion of man’s humanitas with his animalitas in the definition of man as animal rationale. Heidegger’s point here is that not only is metaphysics guilty of failing to raise the question of Being regarding ratio and animalitas, it is at fault for thinking man more on the basis of animalitas than his humanitas. He wonders if this is the most effective means of uncovering what is essential to man: “ . . . it finally remains to ask whether the essence of the human being primordially and most decisively lies in the dimension of animalitas at all [ob überhaupt das Wesen des Menschen, anfänglich und alles voraus entschiedend, in der Dimension der Animalitas liegt]” (LH 246/BH 154). Should man be thought of in terms of life, as one “living being” among others, among “plants, beasts, and God,” as Heidegger phrases it? This is how biologism proceeds, and in so doing, it will of course be able to state important things about human beings; ultimately, however, the biologistic approach fails to uncover the essence of man. According to Heidegger, when man is placed alongside other living beings, we “abandon” man’s essence to the realm of animalitas. This occurs even if (as is the case with metaphysical humanism) man is considered different from the animal on the basis of some essential attribute, e.g., having a spirit or soul, or being capable of subjectivity or personhood. An analysis of man that starts from the realm of animalitas and then locates the human being’s essential difference from the animal by tacking on a soul or mind still falls short of thinking man’s humanitas (LH 246-7/BH 155).

As Derrida recalls for us in “The Ends of Man,” what Heidegger finds missing in this approach to man is his proper essence and dignity. Man’s essence lies in his ek-sistence and it is in ek-sisting that man finds his dignity and propriety. But Heidegger is not just trying to restore man’s essence and revalorize his dignity; he is doing so within the context of trying to decisively separate the essence of man from the essence of other “living creatures,” especially the animal. In this context, Heidegger insists not once or twice but three times that ek-sistence is not only man’s proper, but his proper alone. He writes: “Such standing in the clearing of being I call the ek-sistence of human beings. This way of being is proper only to the human being [Nur dem Menschen eignet dieses Art zu sein]” (LH 247/BH 155). And one sentence later, Heidegger asserts two more times that only human beings are characterized by ek-sistence: “Ek-sistence can be said only of the essence of the human being [vom Wesen des Menschen], that is, only of the human way ‘to be’ [nur von der menschlichen Weise zu ‘sein’]. For as far as our experience shows, only the human being is [der Mensch allein ist] admitted to the destiny of ek-sistence [in das Geshick der Ek-sistenz eingelassen].” Why this insistence of/on man? Does Heidegger merely wish to drive home the point that metaphysics has time and again overlooked man’s essence as ek-sistence? Certainly, but that is perhaps not the only reason. Recalling Derrida’s remarks on the exclusionary aspect of the logic of the proper, it should not surprise us to find Heidegger also working to decisively separate man’s proper from that which is improper. And, for Heidegger, what does not belong properly to man’s essence is animalitas; the metaphysical definition of man as animal rationale has allowed this essential distinction to become blurred, and this is another reason why it has come under criticism in the “Letter.” Thus, Heidegger’s restoration of man’s essence and dignity is, I would suggest, as much a matter of bringing man back into a thinking relation with Being as it is of driving a wedge (or, as we shall see, an abyss) between the essence of man and the essence of the animal based on this relation.

This suggestion receives further support when Heidegger turns to a discussion of embodiment (LH 247ff./BH 155ff.). Heidegger argues here that the human body, in its essence, must be viewed as something other than the body of a living organism. He insists on this point because it is human bodies (which in many ways are so similar to other living being’s bodies—especially animal bodies) that encourage us to understand man’s Being in terms of animalitas. According to Heidegger, however, the human body and the animal body, despite certain anatomical and physiological similarities, are different in essence: “The human body is something essentially other than an animal organism [Der Leib des Menschen ist etwas wesentlich anderes als ein tierischer Organismus]” (LH 247/BH 156-7). That physiology can study the human body as an animal organism and even give us a number of interesting and useful facts in the process is no guarantee that the essence of the human being has been properly explained. For this to come about, the human body needs to be examined in light of its grounding in man’s ek-sistence. Man’s bodily interaction with other entities around him is, according to Heidegger, essentially different than the way non-human embodied beings relate to other entities since man moves about in a “world” which grants him access to beings in their Being. Because what is essential to man is ek-sistence, i.e., because he stands-out in the clearing of Being, the human body can be understood properly starting only from this essential ground.

As we know, Heidegger uses the term “ek-sistence” to highlight the ecstatic element of Dasein’s Being, as well as to avoid the metaphysical baggage that accompanies the concept of existentia which signifies actuality in contrast to possibility, essentia. Using the term ek-sistence, Heidegger thus establishes a certain distance between himself and the various metaphysical interpretations of existentia offered by medieval philosophy, Kant, Hegel, and Nietzsche, all of which fail to accurately characterize man’s Being. At this point in the text, he leaves it an open question whether or not the Being of beings other than man are adequately conveyed with the concept of existentia. What Heidegger is able to determine with apparent certainty is that, unlike human beings, living creatures (Heidegger’s examples are plants and animals, the stone being his example of a non-living being) do not ek-sist. It is at this point that we can best begin to see the exclusionary nature of the logic of the proper as it functions in Heidegger’s text. If ek-sistence is proper to man alone, then it follows that no being other than man can have a share in it, especially those beings we suspect of being the most akin to us. The logic of the proper has to make clean, decisive cuts where the possibility of contamination creeps in:

. . . living creatures are as they are without standing outside of their being as such and within the truth of being [in der Wahrheit des Seins], preserving in such standing the essential nature of their being. Of all the beings that are, presumably the most difficult to think about are living creatures [Lebe-wesen], because on the one hand they are in a certain way most closely akin to us [Heidegger will speak a few lines later on of our “abysmal bodily kinship with the beast”], and on the other they are at the same time separated from our ek-sistent essence by an abyss [durch einen Abgrund von underem ek-sistenten Wesen geschieden ist]. (LH 248/BH 157)

Ultimately, then, not only are “living creatures” different from “us,” they are different in their essence, so essentially different that a gulf opens up wide enough to be labeled an “abyss.” This is not the only time Heidegger will insist on an abyss between ek-sistent man and creatures that merely live.[13] But why this rhetoric of abysses and essential differences?

On the surface of the text, it is clear that at the very least Heidegger wants to clearly distance his own project from the determination of the Being of man made by previous metaphysical humanisms. The definition of man as animal rationale that humanism takes for granted is not altogether false, but it is metaphysical. Heidegger thus opposes this metaphysical humanism in order to think man on a non-metaphysical basis, in terms of the question of the truth of Being. This opposition to humanism does not come down then to merely advocating some form of anti-humanism, but rather is intended to bring about a more rigorous humanism, what I (following David Krell) have called a “hyperhumanism”:

. . . the highest determinations of the essence of the human being [die höchsten humanistischen Bestimmungen des Wesens des Menschen] in humanism still do not realize the proper dignity [die eigentlich Würde] of the human being. To that extent the thinking in Being and Time is against humanism. But this opposition does not mean that such thinking aligns itself against the humane and advocates the inhuman, that it promotes the inhumane and deprecates the dignity of the human being. Humanism is opposed because it does not set the humanitas of the human being high enough. (LH 251/BH 161)

Heidegger goes on to argue that man’s humanitas, his unique relation to the saying and truth of Being, should not be mistaken for a kind of mastery or tyranny over Being in which man deigns “to release the beingness of beings into an all too loudly glorified ‘objectivity’” (LH 252/BH 161). Instead, the recovery of man’s humanitas is meant to recall the essential finitude of the human being, man’s being-thrown by Being into the truth of Being so that he may guard and shepherd it.

Now if one reads “The Ends of Man” and other pieces by Derrida where he takes up Heidegger’s humanism (such as the Geschlecht essays), it is difficult to understand why Derrida would be at all interested in “criticizing” (if this is indeed how we should read these texts) Heidegger’s thinking when it is, in many respects, so close to his own. The stakes of this critique become clearer, however, if Heidegger’s recovery of humanism is placed alongside the Derridean questions of the proper and the animal. Beginning from this double site of questioning, one could in a Derridean vein subscribe almost without reservation to the questions Heidegger poses to metaphysical humanism; but when Heidegger offers his own determination of man’s proper, any adherence to his path of thought must be circumscribed and subsequently brought into question. Even the most minimal determination presupposes delimitation, inscriptions of propriety and impropriety—this is one of the chief lessons of Derrida’s analyses of the logic of the proper. And even when the determination is as equivocal and indeterminate as “man’s essence is ek-sistence,” where propriety and impropriety are intertwined in such a way that neither can be said to dominate, we nevertheless need to remain vigilant about what kinds of lines are being drawn. Of course, Heidegger’s non-metaphysical definition of man appears to be so broad as to pose no concerns about exclusion. Ek-sistence is not parceled out unequally along any of the traditional lines that have separated one group of human beings from another (class, race, sexuality, gender, etc.); it finds its place anterior to such distinctions. But it does institute, and is itself instituted, along a questionable dividing line separating man from animal. Reading Heidegger’s text from the perspective of the question of the animal enables us to uncover this oppositional line as well as to track the axioms that underlie Heidegger’s rhetoric of abysses and essential differences.

Pursuing this thought further, we find that the dividing line between animal and human re-appears in Heidegger’s text when he shifts to an analysis of language. When Heidegger calls into question the metaphysical definition of man as animal rationale he is of course doing so with an eye toward the more primordial Greek understanding of man as zōon logon echon, the animal having language. By interpreting the logos as ratio, metaphysical humanism misses the essential role that language plays in being-human. As mentioned earlier, this is why for Heidegger animal rationale is not simply a translation of zōon logon echon but a metaphysical interpretation of it, one in which a groundless experience of ratio is substituted for a more primordial experience of the word. But a simple return to the Greek definition of man will not suffice either since in labeling man “the animal possessing language” we run the risk of understanding language as something that arises out of, or is added on to, man’s animal existence. To understand man’s proper relation to language, we must begin from man’s humanitas and not his animal nature since animals, strictly speaking, do not have language.

Animals lack man’s specific relation to language according to Heidegger because they lack “world.” World here does not simply mean “nature,” or the “environment,” but signifies instead the place in which the Being of beings comes to unconcealment. “World” thus understood presupposes the capacity for ek-sistence, for standing in the clearing of Being where Being comes into presence and departs, a possibility (as we have seen) reserved for man alone. Plants and animals do not ek-sist outside of themselves in the clearing of being, but simply live within their surrounding environments: “Because plants and animals are lodged in their respective environments [Umgebung] but are never placed freely into the clearing of being [die Lichtung des Seins] which alone is ‘world,’ they lack language [Sprache]” (LH 248/BH 157). We should not infer from this passage that Heidegger is arguing that plants and animals have no access to beings beyond themselves. As is clear from his Freiburg lecture course in the winter semester of 1929-30, Heidegger does believe that plants and animals have access to other beings around them; he denies, however, that plants or animals are able to access these other entities in their Being, or as such, in the way that human beings with language and world are able to do. Without language, which simultaneously distances man from his surrounding environment and brings him into proximity with being, plants and animals remain lodged in their environments and continue “merely” to live without access to the being of other beings or their own being.

The metaphysical-animal explanation of man’s essence covers over the close relation between being and language posited here much as it misses man’s ek-sistent essence. The essence of language needs to be understood, according to Heidegger, as the “clearing-concealing advent of being itself [lichtend-verbergende Ankunft des Seins selbst]” (LH 249/BH 158); or, as he says later in the text, the bringing near of being “occurs essentially as language itself [west als die Sprache selbst]” (LH 253/BH 164). This conception of language finds its contrast in the traditional conception of language as a unity of body (phoneme or written character), soul (melody and rhythm), and spirit (meaning). The definition of man as animal rationale corresponds to this traditional understanding of language insofar as man’s constitution is read in terms of body, soul, and spirit. Man’s body on this account is what belongs to the realm of animalitas and his capacity for language and reason are the specific marks of his humanitas. The definition of man’s essence as animal rationale thus sets man apart as the single and sole living creature with the capacity for language. Heidegger insists however that language cannot be understood as arising from man’s animal nature; language is not just something added on to man’s essence in order to distinguish him from other living creatures: “. . . the human being is not only a living creature [nicht nur ein Lebewesen] who possesses language along with other capacities. Rather, language is the house of being in which the human being ek-sists by dwelling [darin wohnend der Mensch ek-sistiert], in that he belongs [gehört] to the truth of being, guarding it” (LH 254/BH 164).

As this passage illustrates, Heidegger’s contestation of the metaphysical definition of man as animal rationale is indeed undertaken in order to restore the privilege of being as the matter of thought; but this privilege cannot be separated from a logic of the proper that functions on another level—a logic that grants man, and man alone, a certain dignity in his ex-propriated proximity to being. It is from this perspective that we can appreciate the implications of Derrida’s statement that “man and the name of man are not displaced in the question of being such as it is put to metaphysics” (EM 128/FH 153-4). Heidegger’s thought of the truth of being is a displacement of metaphysical humanism, but one that occurs in the name of a more exacting and rigorous humanism.

But—as you no doubt have been wanting to rejoin for quite a while now—does not such thinking think precisely the humanitas of homo humanus? Does it not think humanitas in a decisive sense, as no metaphysics has thought it or can think it? Is this not a “humanism” in the extreme sense? Certainly. It is a humanism that thinks the humanity of the human being from nearness to being. But at the same time it is a humanism in which not the human being but the human being’s historical essence is at stake in its provenance from the truth of being. But then does not the ek-sistence of the human being also stand or fall in this game of stakes? Indeed it does. (LH 261/BH 173)

In those texts where Derrida explicitly raises the question of the animal in Heidegger’s discourse, it will almost always be a matter of contesting the various manifestations and manifold effects of this more subtle and rigorous form of humanism. Consequently, the question of the animal as it posed by Derrida should not be understood as an attempt to assimilate Heidegger simply and unthinkingly to the less rigorous forms of metaphysical humanism that Heidegger himself has delimited. To place Heidegger facilely within this closure would be to overlook his difference from that tradition. Where classical humanisms have been content to determine man’s Being in light of a presupposed determination of nature and humanity, Heidegger has boldly raised the question of the ground of these determinations, thereby exposing humanism’s complicity with metaphysics and offering a new determination of man’s essence as ek-sistence. With this critique of humanism and conception of ek-sistence we are given not only the possibility for a clearer understanding of the collapse of value theory and its attendant nihilism, but also the possibility for an alternative “ethics,” another thought of responsibility itself, of responsibility qua responsivity or ex-posure.[14]

The problem arises, at least from the perspective of the question of the animal as Derrida raises it, when Heidegger limits ek-sistence to man alone. And the issue here is not simply that Heidegger offers no analysis or argumentation in support of this claim (although this deficiency does pose certain difficulties); nor is the problem that this claim about ek-sistence is anything but certain (is anyone certain, including Heidegger himself, that ek-sistence cannot be found beyond man? What is the status of his constant denegations and disavowals of animal ek-sistence?). The problem lies instead with Heidegger’s uncritical reliance on a logic of opposition in differentiating human beings from animals. Why does Heidegger have to insist that man alone ek-sists? Could one not just as easily speak of ek-sistence without drawing single, insuperable lines between man and animal? Of course a less anthropocentric and more nuanced discussion of eksistence might still eventually give rise to certain distinctions and boundaries between “human beings” and “animals”—but would these differences necessarily be essential, simple, oppositional, binary, and abyssal?

Heidegger ultimately offers nothing in the way of critique concerning the tradition’s drawing of the oppositional line between human beings and animals; he is concerned, rather, with the way in which this oppositional line has been determined and understood. Heidegger thus says the “Same” as the humanist tradition—he too insists on an oppositional logic separating human from animal. The difference in Heidegger’s repetition of the Same lies in his shifting of the opposition between human and animal onto another register. The essential difference between man and animal for Heidegger lies not merely in having language or reason, but in the ground of these capacities: ek-sistence, which is reserved for man alone. Thus, what we find in Heidegger’s text when read from the perspective of the question of the animal is an effective challenge to metaphysical humanism (where man is determined according to a pre-established interpretation of the Being of beings) but, at the same time, a further sedimentation and reinforcement of the anthropocentrism of this same humanist tradition (in which the animal’s Being is determined in strict binary opposition to and against the measure of man’s Being[15]).

The force of the question of the animal in Derrida is to be found at this level, where Heidegger’s anthropocentrism uncritically communicates with the dogmatic anthropocentrism of the humanist tradition. In contrast to Heidegger’s insistence on man’s oppositional relation to the animal, Derrida will persist in thinking the contamination, complication, multiplication, and différance of the differences between and among man and animal. In place of a thinking of man’s essence and proper, Derrida will offer us a thought of the effects of these determinations, a tracking of the reductive consequences of this thinking of the Animal as such and Man as such. Derrida will ask: in what ways does Heidegger’s inscription of single, absolute limits between man and animal create homogeneities and flatten out differences, both between and among human beings and animals? Is there a way to think the differences between and among human beings and animals in non-oppositional terms? What are the possible consequences of a non-oppositional thinking of such differences? These and other such questions serve as the preface to the task of reading the question of the animal in Derrida.

I. The Logic of the Proper in Heidegger’s Humanism

II. The Animal Without Eksistence

Notes