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The Open: Man and Animal
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.
120 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2002
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1,690 people want to read
About the author
Giorgio Agamben
207books931followersGiorgio Agamben is one of the leading figures in Italian and contemporary continental philosophy. He is the author of Homo Sacer: Sovereign Power and Bare Life; Remnants of Auschwitz: The Witness and the Archive; Profanations; The Signature of All Things: On Method, and other books. Through the 1970s, 1980s, and early 1990s he treated a wide range of topics, including aesthetics, literature, language, ontology, nihilism, and radical political thought.
In recent years, his work has had a deep impact on contemporary scholarship in a number of disciplines in the Anglo-American intellectual world. Born in Rome in 1942, Agamben completed studies in Law and Philosophy with a doctoral thesis on the political thought of Simone Weil, and participated in Martin Heidegger’s seminars on Hegel and Heraclitus as a postdoctoral scholar.
He rose to international prominence after the publication of Homo Sacer in 1995. Translated into English in 1998, the book’s analyses of law, life, and state power appeared uncannily prescient after the attacks on New York City and Washington, DC in September 2001, and the resultant shifts in the geopolitical landscape. Provoking a wave of scholarly interest in the philosopher’s work, the book also marked the beginning of a 20-year research project, which represents Agamben’s most important contribution to political philosophy.
In recent years, his work has had a deep impact on contemporary scholarship in a number of disciplines in the Anglo-American intellectual world. Born in Rome in 1942, Agamben completed studies in Law and Philosophy with a doctoral thesis on the political thought of Simone Weil, and participated in Martin Heidegger’s seminars on Hegel and Heraclitus as a postdoctoral scholar.
He rose to international prominence after the publication of Homo Sacer in 1995. Translated into English in 1998, the book’s analyses of law, life, and state power appeared uncannily prescient after the attacks on New York City and Washington, DC in September 2001, and the resultant shifts in the geopolitical landscape. Provoking a wave of scholarly interest in the philosopher’s work, the book also marked the beginning of a 20-year research project, which represents Agamben’s most important contribution to political philosophy.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 77 reviews
September 11, 2008
Will drive you to Southern Comfort, genocidal nightmares, weeping. Also, I think it made me accidentally marry Martin Heideggar. Not funny.
November 16, 2018
O animal é o espaço do espanto e do desconhecido. Numa altura que a tecnologia e o pós-humanismo operam uma nova revolução copernicana à outrora estável ontologia do humano, o refazer de fronteiras é também feito com o Outro. Outro no sentido lato de uma alteridade que inclui a geoesfera, a natureza, o animal. Boa leitura para entrar um pouco nestas questões que ocupou tanta gente de Aristóteles, a Heidegger, Deleuze ou Derrida.
November 11, 2024
I tako. Dok čekam autobus koji kasni i dok mi se tabani smrzavaju zbog hladnoće, sitne kiše i mog lošeg izbora obuće, razmišljam kako uopšte ovo delo predstaviti i to bez pomoći beležaka koje su mi na toplom i suvom i ne mogu da odolim da ne kažem onu toliko puta korišćenu formulaciju da je Agambenova misao najubedljivija kao intelektualna provokacija, a ne kao nešto što bi nam naučnički olakšalo život; naprotiv, sve je nakon susreta sa problemom, bivanja-sa-problemom, teže i zamršenije, ali ima u tome nečeg, uprkos svemu, lepog i čak razbistrujućeg, što deluje kao protivrečnost, ali ne mora da bude, kao što ne mora da se insistira na apsolutnim i nepremostivim granicama između sfere ljudskog i sfere animalnog, ili, sa druge strane, negirati bilo kakvu razliku, budući da je i jedna i druga krajnost ono važeće i konstituišuće za ljudsko biće kao ljudsko, a u toj ambivalenciji životinja je onaj entitet koji je zatvoren u svojoj otvorenosti prema svetu, dok je čovek otvoren u otvorenosti, Dasein koji je iskusio dosadu i, kroz nju, odnosno, kroz njeno prepoznavanje, uspostavio neistovetnost koja nije supstancijalna, ali jeste refleksivna i koja omogućuje da se život poima kao život, da se i bude i znači i označava.
Miks Ikskila i Hajdegera, Agamben je DJ.
Miks Ikskila i Hajdegera, Agamben je DJ.
December 19, 2022
towards an acephalous future, then.
January 12, 2015
One of those texts where the author is ostensibly trying to share some very interesting insights into the human condition, yet one can't help but wonder why he only wants people who have studied philosophy or critical theory to understand it. A friend of mine calls this sort of writing "intellectual masturbation", and I can't think of a more fitting description.
Recommended for people who really like Heidegger and sounding smart. Not recommended for naturalists or scientific realists.
Recommended for people who really like Heidegger and sounding smart. Not recommended for naturalists or scientific realists.
March 4, 2019
Konular ve bahsedilenler ilgi çekici olsa da her şey havada kalmış. Bir sıralama ve düzen olmadığından sonuca ulaşmak soruna dönüşüyor.
September 16, 2024
Great page about the spider and the fly
May 12, 2020
I cry foul.
So there were many times where the author, literally, didn't say anything like:
"(...) the animal and the NON animal are, BOTH, at the same time and not the same time, the thing and THE NON THING".
But the phrase is way longer and the words he uses are way more complex, so you have to re-read and then read it a third time. And then you re-read the paragraph until you give up thinking
"maybe i'm just not smart enough"
But he used this trickery so many times that i caught on to him.
That sly dog.
One, rare time, when he is being more objective he says that japanese people are snobish, with "their tea ceremony and flower art and nô theater" and stuff. And that made me laugh and think if that's even an appropriate thing to say these days.
I don't know why someone would like to read this and if you don't have to, you shouldn't.
So there were many times where the author, literally, didn't say anything like:
"(...) the animal and the NON animal are, BOTH, at the same time and not the same time, the thing and THE NON THING".
But the phrase is way longer and the words he uses are way more complex, so you have to re-read and then read it a third time. And then you re-read the paragraph until you give up thinking
"maybe i'm just not smart enough"
But he used this trickery so many times that i caught on to him.
That sly dog.
One, rare time, when he is being more objective he says that japanese people are snobish, with "their tea ceremony and flower art and nô theater" and stuff. And that made me laugh and think if that's even an appropriate thing to say these days.
I don't know why someone would like to read this and if you don't have to, you shouldn't.
April 13, 2007
The depth of Agamben's scholarship, and the command of materials that he cites is simply incredible. In this work, he explores what it is that distinguishes the concept of "humanity" from that of "animal". It's a fascinating journey through medieval Jewish mystical texts, Linnaeus, and modern philosophy.
July 2, 2018
Tudo vai bem, até que chega Heidegger...
Read
April 6, 2022defending anthropocentrism is honestly one of the bravest & most radical things a Man can do
December 4, 2022
I’m divided about Giorgio Agamben’s The Open. When it’s good, it’s really good. At its best, Agamben’s work enriches and expands our understanding of Aristotle, Heidegger and Nietzsche, especially. However, when it’s bad, it’s painfully bad � maybe even morally irresponsible. But I’ll get to that in a moment.
The ontological status of “man� is the subject of Agamben’s inquiry. How do we categorize the thing that we are? Where is the line between us and everything else? What is at stake when we define our being partly through negation? The Open leads us into these murky waters and carries us down a meandering stream of consciousness. Although Agamben has a tendency to get sidetracked � an unfortunate tendency which detracts from the force of his arguments � the actual core of his project is straight-forward enough.
He begins by interrogating some of the ways in which man has been defined throughout history as animal, human, or both. In particular, he takes aim at Aristotle’s characterization of man in De anima as the “rational animal�, which posited man as an animal with a unique animating principle � the principle of reason. For Aristotle, this principle separated man from the rest of the animal kingdom, and it elevated his ontological status from bare animal to something else � we might say, man as animal-plus-reason.
There is something compelling about Aristotle’s rational animal. Even now, in a post-Darwinian world, most of us accept the fact that we are part of the animal kingdom, subject to time and change, and absorbed within the realm of Nature. And yet, at the same time, we also intuitively feel that we are somehow different than all other life forms, that we have something extra, which every other organism lacks.
In a very real sense, then, we are still living under the long shadow of Aristotelian ontology. We feel insignificant and yet exceptional � at once natural and yet supernatural, terrestrial and celestial. We know we are animals, but we have a hard time accepting that we are merely animals. A part of Nature, yet apart from Nature, we prefer to imagine ourselves as transcendent beings, whose essence can be traced back to some special quality that distinguishes us from other species. Whether that extra something is reason or speech, soul or self, logos or geist (take your pick), man cannot help but to interpret himself as both animal and other-than-animal. In a word, we stubbornly perceive ourselves as both animal and human.
For Agamben, choosing one aspect of man over another is like trying to split hairs. Man cannot be neatly categorized as one thing over another, as more this than that, as purely this or essentially that. Man is both animal and human, yet also non-animal and non-human. We are many things and nothing at all. In myriad ways, we are very similar to the other animals on the planet, and yet, in myriad other ways, we are completely unlike them as well. We seem to be ambiguously liminal beings, suspended somewhere between a set of loosely defined categories, whose meanings appear to morph and defer endlessly over time.
Neither here nor there, man is that chimeric being which emerges out of a paradoxical tension between animality and humanity, chaos and order. More than the result of tension, however, we can also interpret Agamben’s argument as suggesting that man is the very space of tension itself. He writes: “In our culture, man has always been thought of as the articulation and conjunction of a body and a soul, of a living thing and a logos, of a natural (or animal) element and a supernatural or social or divine element. We must learn instead to think of man as what results from the incongruity of these two elements, and investigate not the metaphysical mystery of conjunction, but rather the practical and political mystery of separation. What is man, if he is always the place � and, at the same time, the result � of ceaseless divisions and caesurae? [my emphasis]� It is precisely because of this incongruous tension that man is “[…] always less than and more than himself�. I find this to be a particularly brilliant restatement of not only Aristotelian metaphysics, but also an imaginative spin on Nietzsche’s insights in The Birth of Tragedy. For what is Agamben’s “incongruity� between human and animal, if not an homage to Nietzsche’s oxymoronic relationship between Dionysus and Apollo?
I would go a step further than Agamben to connect this liminal dimension of man back to Freud and the tradition of German idealism which he inherits. If we accept that man is ontologically liminal, then we can also suggest that man is, to a certain extent, placeless. We are � to borrow from the work of Freud � unheimliche Wesen, or unhomely beings. We lack both a proper fixture in the world, and a proper grasp of the world. Caught between categories and negations that refuse to conform to our own self-perceptions, we are like transients and drifters without a permanent home. Perhaps our desire for meaning comes from the unease that we feel as ontological vagrants? Is the search for meaning really a search for belonging, a remedy to this unstable sense of homelessness in the world?
In Agamben’s estimation, the incongruity of man clears out a space of pure potentiality, in which openings continually emerge for new horizons of being-in-the-world. Man is therefore a meaning-making mechanism which produces and reproduces the animal and the human. Agamben clarifies this point: �Homo sapiens, then, is neither a clearly defined species nor a substance; it is, rather, a machine or device for producing the recognition of the human.� Agamben loves Heidegger, and this is a very Heideggerean notion. The future of man is a perpetually and radically open horizon of being. It includes the assemblage and dissolution of conceptual scraps, which separate the human from the non-human, the animal from the non-animal, indefinitely. In a never-ending, Heraclitean process of becoming, man is an endless line of deferred meanings, stretching off and away into the future. Drawing inspiration from Heidegger and Foucault, I might also suggest that man is a discursive idea, situated between vanishing and emerging temporalities. Marked by a presence and an absence, man is simultaneously a being-from-the-no-longer-present and a being-toward-the-not-yet-present.
This sort of speculation marks the high point of Agamben’s work for me. There’s a lot to be said for the breadth and depth of his thinking; indeed, he synthesizes a number of important ideas within the Western tradition. Chiefly among them, I would point out some of the concepts noted earlier, including: the idea of existence as becoming in Heraclitus; the struggle between Dionysian chaos and Apollonian order in Nietzsche; the discursive practices of Foucault; and the radically open future of Dasein in Heidegger. And although I have not read Adorno at any length, from what I’ve gathered in passing, one could also see the influence of his negative dialectics on this particular idea of man.
Agamben has inherited a rich tradition of German and French philosophy. True to its name, The Open is bound to open up a discussion or two, if you’re willing to follow it along. While there’s clearly a lot to chew on here, it’s not all prime beef � there’s a lot of fat on the bone as well. I think it’s crucial to point out some of the pitfalls in his thinking, since they’re particularly troubling. Let’s turn to that now.
There are many problems with Agamben’s work, which are unfortunately quite common within the Continental and post-modernist tradition. For one, Agamben is a politically and morally impoverished thinker. As someone who adheres closely to the writings of Nietzsche, Heidegger and Foucault, this is probably to be expected. However, it doesn’t have to be accepted, either. In passages like the following, Agamben accepts their politics and then pushes the envelope even further: “It is more urgent to work on these divisions, to ask in what way � within man � has man been separated from non-man, and the animal from the human, than it is to take positions on the great issues, on so-called human rights and values.� The devaluation of applied ethics on display here is troubling. For him, applied ethics are secondary to theoretical work, which he considers to be “more urgent� than taking a stance on “so-called human rights and values�. This sort of thinking seems incredibly harmful to me, and the tone underscoring “so-called human rights and values� is worrisome. Oddly, for someone who, like Heidegger, writes about being-in-the-world, Agamben’s ivory tower politics are not equipped to handle the problems facing actual human-beings-in-the-world. Take the abolitionist movement in North American history, for example. Those men and women did not eradicate slavery in North America by narrowly focusing their efforts toward erecting a theory of man and animal, and then contemplating the incongruous tensions between the two. No � they took their feelings, ethics, and intuitions and they applied them on the ground, putting their lives on the line in the process. They thought and they theorized, for sure. But more than anything else, they struggled and fought for their vision of justice. There, justice was practiced more than it was theorized at the level of abstraction. Abolitionists wouldn’t have gained any traction in North America if they adhered to a political philosophy like Agamben’s. If they had, they would’ve been stuck spinning their tires.
Furthermore, Agamben’s recent comments during the COVID-19 pandemic also demonstrate the poverty of his political thinking. He was highly critical of any restrictions or public health mandates, including vaccinations, but he even went so far as to reject the bare minimum precautions, such as physical distancing and masking. COVID-19 exposed just how laughably bad Agamben’s bioethics are, and it’s a wonder that he didn’t feel embarrassed making such ridiculous statements in public.
I also detected a pseudo-eugenic undercurrent flowing throughout The Open. Drawing upon Heidegger, Agamben distinguishes the human from the animal, suggesting that humans are “world-forming� beings, while animals are world-less beings. Although animals exist in the world, according to Heidegger and Agamben, they cannot be strictly said to have a world. What they possess, Agamben says, is a quality he identifies as “poverty in world�. Animals cannot create or form a world, but rather are simply “captivated� by the world. They are immersed without reflection and without awareness.
As I see it, the implications of this reasoning are twofold. For one, it suggests that any being which is incapable of world-forming thinking or activity is non-human, and so animal. Following this line of reasoning, any humans with physical and intellectual impairments which impede their world-forming capacities are categorically non-human animals. The problems with this are clear enough, and I don’t think they need to be fleshed out in any detail.
The second implication is that if we accept that non-human animals lack a world, then we must deny the belief that animals have an interiority � that is, a subjective consciousness and sentience. If animals do not have a world, as Heidegger and Agamben argue, then there is nothing that it is like to be them. In other words, Thomas Nagel’s thought-experiment would be a pointlessly absurd exercise. However, if we can imagine that there must be something that it is like to be a non-human animal � let’s take Nagel’s bat as the example � then the animal must possess a world of private experiences. There is no way that the phenomenological experience is a strictly human quality. The idea of having a world must be extended in varying degrees to every living organism with a sensory apparatus. A bat has sense organs, therefore it must have an inner perceptual experience of the world. To hold otherwise seems to me an untenable and ridiculously anthropocentric position. Perhaps not every animal-organism has a world, but we must assume that a great many of them actually do. In this sense, I would compare Heidegger and Agamben with Descartes, who essentially reduced animals to automata. There are several other outlandish beliefs sprinkled throughout the text, but I’ll leave them alone.
Finally, a note on style and language. Unless you are familiar with Heidegger, you will probably have a hard time navigating The Open. Some of the ideas are so convoluted and overwrought that they come across as turgid. In addition, the language occasionally slides into complete unintelligibility. In some ways, I think that Richard Connell’s The Most Dangerous Game does a better job exploring the ontological status of man than Agamben’s book could ever hope to achieve. On the other hand, Agamben is often quite insightful, and his readings of Heidegger and the Continental tradition are amusing and imaginative. Like most post-modern philosophies, The Open will reward the reader if they know the intellectual history and maintain a critical eye.
The ontological status of “man� is the subject of Agamben’s inquiry. How do we categorize the thing that we are? Where is the line between us and everything else? What is at stake when we define our being partly through negation? The Open leads us into these murky waters and carries us down a meandering stream of consciousness. Although Agamben has a tendency to get sidetracked � an unfortunate tendency which detracts from the force of his arguments � the actual core of his project is straight-forward enough.
He begins by interrogating some of the ways in which man has been defined throughout history as animal, human, or both. In particular, he takes aim at Aristotle’s characterization of man in De anima as the “rational animal�, which posited man as an animal with a unique animating principle � the principle of reason. For Aristotle, this principle separated man from the rest of the animal kingdom, and it elevated his ontological status from bare animal to something else � we might say, man as animal-plus-reason.
There is something compelling about Aristotle’s rational animal. Even now, in a post-Darwinian world, most of us accept the fact that we are part of the animal kingdom, subject to time and change, and absorbed within the realm of Nature. And yet, at the same time, we also intuitively feel that we are somehow different than all other life forms, that we have something extra, which every other organism lacks.
In a very real sense, then, we are still living under the long shadow of Aristotelian ontology. We feel insignificant and yet exceptional � at once natural and yet supernatural, terrestrial and celestial. We know we are animals, but we have a hard time accepting that we are merely animals. A part of Nature, yet apart from Nature, we prefer to imagine ourselves as transcendent beings, whose essence can be traced back to some special quality that distinguishes us from other species. Whether that extra something is reason or speech, soul or self, logos or geist (take your pick), man cannot help but to interpret himself as both animal and other-than-animal. In a word, we stubbornly perceive ourselves as both animal and human.
For Agamben, choosing one aspect of man over another is like trying to split hairs. Man cannot be neatly categorized as one thing over another, as more this than that, as purely this or essentially that. Man is both animal and human, yet also non-animal and non-human. We are many things and nothing at all. In myriad ways, we are very similar to the other animals on the planet, and yet, in myriad other ways, we are completely unlike them as well. We seem to be ambiguously liminal beings, suspended somewhere between a set of loosely defined categories, whose meanings appear to morph and defer endlessly over time.
Neither here nor there, man is that chimeric being which emerges out of a paradoxical tension between animality and humanity, chaos and order. More than the result of tension, however, we can also interpret Agamben’s argument as suggesting that man is the very space of tension itself. He writes: “In our culture, man has always been thought of as the articulation and conjunction of a body and a soul, of a living thing and a logos, of a natural (or animal) element and a supernatural or social or divine element. We must learn instead to think of man as what results from the incongruity of these two elements, and investigate not the metaphysical mystery of conjunction, but rather the practical and political mystery of separation. What is man, if he is always the place � and, at the same time, the result � of ceaseless divisions and caesurae? [my emphasis]� It is precisely because of this incongruous tension that man is “[…] always less than and more than himself�. I find this to be a particularly brilliant restatement of not only Aristotelian metaphysics, but also an imaginative spin on Nietzsche’s insights in The Birth of Tragedy. For what is Agamben’s “incongruity� between human and animal, if not an homage to Nietzsche’s oxymoronic relationship between Dionysus and Apollo?
I would go a step further than Agamben to connect this liminal dimension of man back to Freud and the tradition of German idealism which he inherits. If we accept that man is ontologically liminal, then we can also suggest that man is, to a certain extent, placeless. We are � to borrow from the work of Freud � unheimliche Wesen, or unhomely beings. We lack both a proper fixture in the world, and a proper grasp of the world. Caught between categories and negations that refuse to conform to our own self-perceptions, we are like transients and drifters without a permanent home. Perhaps our desire for meaning comes from the unease that we feel as ontological vagrants? Is the search for meaning really a search for belonging, a remedy to this unstable sense of homelessness in the world?
In Agamben’s estimation, the incongruity of man clears out a space of pure potentiality, in which openings continually emerge for new horizons of being-in-the-world. Man is therefore a meaning-making mechanism which produces and reproduces the animal and the human. Agamben clarifies this point: �Homo sapiens, then, is neither a clearly defined species nor a substance; it is, rather, a machine or device for producing the recognition of the human.� Agamben loves Heidegger, and this is a very Heideggerean notion. The future of man is a perpetually and radically open horizon of being. It includes the assemblage and dissolution of conceptual scraps, which separate the human from the non-human, the animal from the non-animal, indefinitely. In a never-ending, Heraclitean process of becoming, man is an endless line of deferred meanings, stretching off and away into the future. Drawing inspiration from Heidegger and Foucault, I might also suggest that man is a discursive idea, situated between vanishing and emerging temporalities. Marked by a presence and an absence, man is simultaneously a being-from-the-no-longer-present and a being-toward-the-not-yet-present.
This sort of speculation marks the high point of Agamben’s work for me. There’s a lot to be said for the breadth and depth of his thinking; indeed, he synthesizes a number of important ideas within the Western tradition. Chiefly among them, I would point out some of the concepts noted earlier, including: the idea of existence as becoming in Heraclitus; the struggle between Dionysian chaos and Apollonian order in Nietzsche; the discursive practices of Foucault; and the radically open future of Dasein in Heidegger. And although I have not read Adorno at any length, from what I’ve gathered in passing, one could also see the influence of his negative dialectics on this particular idea of man.
Agamben has inherited a rich tradition of German and French philosophy. True to its name, The Open is bound to open up a discussion or two, if you’re willing to follow it along. While there’s clearly a lot to chew on here, it’s not all prime beef � there’s a lot of fat on the bone as well. I think it’s crucial to point out some of the pitfalls in his thinking, since they’re particularly troubling. Let’s turn to that now.
There are many problems with Agamben’s work, which are unfortunately quite common within the Continental and post-modernist tradition. For one, Agamben is a politically and morally impoverished thinker. As someone who adheres closely to the writings of Nietzsche, Heidegger and Foucault, this is probably to be expected. However, it doesn’t have to be accepted, either. In passages like the following, Agamben accepts their politics and then pushes the envelope even further: “It is more urgent to work on these divisions, to ask in what way � within man � has man been separated from non-man, and the animal from the human, than it is to take positions on the great issues, on so-called human rights and values.� The devaluation of applied ethics on display here is troubling. For him, applied ethics are secondary to theoretical work, which he considers to be “more urgent� than taking a stance on “so-called human rights and values�. This sort of thinking seems incredibly harmful to me, and the tone underscoring “so-called human rights and values� is worrisome. Oddly, for someone who, like Heidegger, writes about being-in-the-world, Agamben’s ivory tower politics are not equipped to handle the problems facing actual human-beings-in-the-world. Take the abolitionist movement in North American history, for example. Those men and women did not eradicate slavery in North America by narrowly focusing their efforts toward erecting a theory of man and animal, and then contemplating the incongruous tensions between the two. No � they took their feelings, ethics, and intuitions and they applied them on the ground, putting their lives on the line in the process. They thought and they theorized, for sure. But more than anything else, they struggled and fought for their vision of justice. There, justice was practiced more than it was theorized at the level of abstraction. Abolitionists wouldn’t have gained any traction in North America if they adhered to a political philosophy like Agamben’s. If they had, they would’ve been stuck spinning their tires.
Furthermore, Agamben’s recent comments during the COVID-19 pandemic also demonstrate the poverty of his political thinking. He was highly critical of any restrictions or public health mandates, including vaccinations, but he even went so far as to reject the bare minimum precautions, such as physical distancing and masking. COVID-19 exposed just how laughably bad Agamben’s bioethics are, and it’s a wonder that he didn’t feel embarrassed making such ridiculous statements in public.
I also detected a pseudo-eugenic undercurrent flowing throughout The Open. Drawing upon Heidegger, Agamben distinguishes the human from the animal, suggesting that humans are “world-forming� beings, while animals are world-less beings. Although animals exist in the world, according to Heidegger and Agamben, they cannot be strictly said to have a world. What they possess, Agamben says, is a quality he identifies as “poverty in world�. Animals cannot create or form a world, but rather are simply “captivated� by the world. They are immersed without reflection and without awareness.
As I see it, the implications of this reasoning are twofold. For one, it suggests that any being which is incapable of world-forming thinking or activity is non-human, and so animal. Following this line of reasoning, any humans with physical and intellectual impairments which impede their world-forming capacities are categorically non-human animals. The problems with this are clear enough, and I don’t think they need to be fleshed out in any detail.
The second implication is that if we accept that non-human animals lack a world, then we must deny the belief that animals have an interiority � that is, a subjective consciousness and sentience. If animals do not have a world, as Heidegger and Agamben argue, then there is nothing that it is like to be them. In other words, Thomas Nagel’s thought-experiment would be a pointlessly absurd exercise. However, if we can imagine that there must be something that it is like to be a non-human animal � let’s take Nagel’s bat as the example � then the animal must possess a world of private experiences. There is no way that the phenomenological experience is a strictly human quality. The idea of having a world must be extended in varying degrees to every living organism with a sensory apparatus. A bat has sense organs, therefore it must have an inner perceptual experience of the world. To hold otherwise seems to me an untenable and ridiculously anthropocentric position. Perhaps not every animal-organism has a world, but we must assume that a great many of them actually do. In this sense, I would compare Heidegger and Agamben with Descartes, who essentially reduced animals to automata. There are several other outlandish beliefs sprinkled throughout the text, but I’ll leave them alone.
Finally, a note on style and language. Unless you are familiar with Heidegger, you will probably have a hard time navigating The Open. Some of the ideas are so convoluted and overwrought that they come across as turgid. In addition, the language occasionally slides into complete unintelligibility. In some ways, I think that Richard Connell’s The Most Dangerous Game does a better job exploring the ontological status of man than Agamben’s book could ever hope to achieve. On the other hand, Agamben is often quite insightful, and his readings of Heidegger and the Continental tradition are amusing and imaginative. Like most post-modern philosophies, The Open will reward the reader if they know the intellectual history and maintain a critical eye.
July 6, 2019
Me gustó mucho este libro. Habla sobre esa frontera que habita entre lo humano y lo animal, pensada ya no como una escisión definitiva, sino como un lugar móvil. Me parece que dicha concepción podría ser útil para pensar en una praxis política de los cuerpos cuyo propósito sea desestabilizar cualquier clase de binarismos. Se puede hacer uso de esa animalidad como lugar de habitabilidad, pero primero hay que acomodarse a ese intersticio y, desde allí, dar lugar a una enunciación específica. Agamben lo dice, pero de una forma más bonita:
"...si la cesura entre lo humano y lo animal se establece fundamentalmente en el interior del hombre, lo que debe plantearse de un modo nuevo es la propia cuestión del hombre, y del "humanismo". En nuestra cultura, el hombre ha sido pensado siempre como la articulación y la conjunción de un cuerpo y de un alma, de un viviente y de un logos, de un elemento natural (o animal) y de un elemento sobrenatural, social o divino. Ahora tenemos que aprender a pensar, muy de otro modo, al hombre como lo que resulta de la desconexión de esos dos elementos, e investigar no el misterio metafísico de la conjunción, sino el misterio práctico y político de la separación. ¿Qué es el hombre, si es siempre el lugar -y a la vez, el resultado- de divisiones y cesuras incesantes? Trabajar sobre estas divisiones, preguntarse de qué modo . . . el hombre ha sido separado del no-hombre y el animal de lo humano, es más urgente que tomar una posición sobre las grandes cuestiones, sobre los llamados valores y derechos humanos" (28-9).
Destaco especialmente el capítulo dedicado a las investigaciones de Jacob von Uexküll. Es una perspectiva interesante que reflexiona en torno a los ecosistemas de lo humano y lo animal.
"...si la cesura entre lo humano y lo animal se establece fundamentalmente en el interior del hombre, lo que debe plantearse de un modo nuevo es la propia cuestión del hombre, y del "humanismo". En nuestra cultura, el hombre ha sido pensado siempre como la articulación y la conjunción de un cuerpo y de un alma, de un viviente y de un logos, de un elemento natural (o animal) y de un elemento sobrenatural, social o divino. Ahora tenemos que aprender a pensar, muy de otro modo, al hombre como lo que resulta de la desconexión de esos dos elementos, e investigar no el misterio metafísico de la conjunción, sino el misterio práctico y político de la separación. ¿Qué es el hombre, si es siempre el lugar -y a la vez, el resultado- de divisiones y cesuras incesantes? Trabajar sobre estas divisiones, preguntarse de qué modo . . . el hombre ha sido separado del no-hombre y el animal de lo humano, es más urgente que tomar una posición sobre las grandes cuestiones, sobre los llamados valores y derechos humanos" (28-9).
Destaco especialmente el capítulo dedicado a las investigaciones de Jacob von Uexküll. Es una perspectiva interesante que reflexiona en torno a los ecosistemas de lo humano y lo animal.
September 30, 2022
"What does 'mastery of the relation between nature and humanity' mean? That neither must man master nature nor nature man. Nor must both be surpassed in a third term that would represent their dialectical synthesis. Rather, according to the Benjaminian model of a 'dialectic at a standstill,' what is decisive here is only the "between," the interval or, we might say, the play between the two terms, their immediate constellation in a non-coincidence. The anthropological machine no longer articulates nature and man in order to produce the human through the suspension and capture of the inhuman. The machine is, so to speak, stopped; it is 'at a standstill,' and, in the reciprocal suspension of the two terms, something for which we perhaps have no name and which is neither animal nor man settles in between nature and humanity and holds itself in the mastered relation, in the saved night."
Interesting term: 'dialectic at a standstill' ...
Interesting term: 'dialectic at a standstill' ...
May 1, 2020
Save for the abrupt switch from anthropology to Heideggerian meta-phenomenology, Agamben's austere and charming writing style captivates the reader without dislodging itself from the backbone of the treatise - that is, our awkward relationship with animals. The absent star from my rating stands for the few deployed perspectives on bio-politics. This is a contemporary revision of archaic, outdated, antiquated-but-still-relevant musings on animality, humanity etc. but it is delimited either by the writer's insecurity to involve topical issues on animal testing and bio-politics, or by some deadline of an impatient Italian publisher. I am glad I read my uni's syllabus and found this gem.
January 7, 2016
این کتاب مرا "می گیرد"،" گرفتن" به مثابه Benommenheit . که مسحور شدن نیست. مرا می نشاند و کلمه ها را میچیند( آنچنان که خود می گوید) تا نمایش "مانیفستی از برای آشکارسازی این اپراسیون،این ماشین انتروپولوژیک" را به نحوی احسن برایم به رخ بکشد.
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February 14, 2018Heidegger hace que me duela el cerebro. De todos modos, siempre disfruto mucho del gran desafío intelectual de leer filosofía (mis acercamientos suelen ser debido a la universidad, como en este caso. Estoy tratando de cambiar eso). Aunque sea doloroso. ¿Masoquista de mi parte? Quizás. Pero me gusta salir de mi zona de confort de vez en cuando. Siento que, cada vez que leo filo, aprendo muchas cosas (No sobre Heidegger. That bitch can choke).
De todos modos, una contra: A Agamben le gusta que todo el mundo sepa lo culto y bien leído que es. Es como ese compañero de clase en la facultad que todos tuvimos (y odiamos) alguna vez: el que participa en clase pero no para consultar alguna duda, sino para que todo el mundo sepa lo mucho que sabe. Si hay algo que me molestó muchísimo de este libro son todos esos citados en latín, griego, alemán, francés... ok, dude, sabés idiomas. Te felicito. Pero no estás ayudando a hacer que tu punto se entienda muy bien...
De todos modos, una contra: A Agamben le gusta que todo el mundo sepa lo culto y bien leído que es. Es como ese compañero de clase en la facultad que todos tuvimos (y odiamos) alguna vez: el que participa en clase pero no para consultar alguna duda, sino para que todo el mundo sepa lo mucho que sabe. Si hay algo que me molestó muchísimo de este libro son todos esos citados en latín, griego, alemán, francés... ok, dude, sabés idiomas. Te felicito. Pero no estás ayudando a hacer que tu punto se entienda muy bien...
January 16, 2022
-Potpuno očovječenje životinje podudara se s potpunim poživotinjenjem čoveka. (68-9)
-Ontologija ili prva filozofija nije neškodljiva akademska disciplina, nego u svakom smislu temeljni proces u kojem se ostvaruje antropogeneza, odnosno postajanje živog bića ljudskim. METAFIZIKA je od početka uhvaćena u tu strategiju: pogađa upravo onaj meta koji dovršava i čuva prevladavanje životinjske physis u smjeru ljudske povijesti. To prevladavanje nije događaj koji se završio jednom za svagda, nego je događaj koji je neprestano u toku, koji svagda i u svakom individuumu odlučuje o ljudskom i životinjskom, o prirodi i povijesti, o životu i smrti. (70)
-OTVORENO nije ništa drugo doli dokučivanje životinjske ne-otvorenosti. Čovjek privremeno suspendira svoju animalnost i time otvara "slobodno i prazno" područje u kojem je život zatočen i pre-pušten u područje vanrednosti. (70)
-Ontologija ili prva filozofija nije neškodljiva akademska disciplina, nego u svakom smislu temeljni proces u kojem se ostvaruje antropogeneza, odnosno postajanje živog bića ljudskim. METAFIZIKA je od početka uhvaćena u tu strategiju: pogađa upravo onaj meta koji dovršava i čuva prevladavanje životinjske physis u smjeru ljudske povijesti. To prevladavanje nije događaj koji se završio jednom za svagda, nego je događaj koji je neprestano u toku, koji svagda i u svakom individuumu odlučuje o ljudskom i životinjskom, o prirodi i povijesti, o životu i smrti. (70)
-OTVORENO nije ništa drugo doli dokučivanje životinjske ne-otvorenosti. Čovjek privremeno suspendira svoju animalnost i time otvara "slobodno i prazno" područje u kojem je život zatočen i pre-pušten u područje vanrednosti. (70)
September 13, 2017
Debo primero decir que nunca leo libros de filosofía. Por lo tanto, esperaba que este libro presentara una forma de texto difícil de entender para mí. Sin embargo, me sorprendí en los primeros capítulos cuando la prosa de Agamben me resultó no solo llevadera sino incluso didáctica para presentar las ideas de otros filósofos y científicos también. Pero a partir de los capítulos de Heidegger, la prosa se vuelve compleja y difícil de desentrañar -- hay muchos términos que se dan por sentado e incluso se complejizan. En medio de todos estos autores, la postura propia de Agamben pasa desapercibida, si bien en la conclusión trata de delimitar más la diferencia entre los autores citados y sí mismo. Es un libro que presenta muchas ideas interesantes, pero al que le falta un hilo -- es decir, una hipótesis clara -- que dé forma a estas ideas.
September 30, 2020
Hajdeger ima nekakve "definicije" otvorenosti i zatvorenosti čovjeka i životinje. Ok. Između ostalog i to definiše.
Vjerujem da je do mene, da ne shvatam šta je Hajdeger ikad htio reći. Samim tim ne shvatam ni Agambena u ovoj knjizi.
Ocjena zbog razumljivih dijelova (ima i toga).
Vjerujem da je do mene, da ne shvatam šta je Hajdeger ikad htio reći. Samim tim ne shvatam ni Agambena u ovoj knjizi.
Ocjena zbog razumljivih dijelova (ima i toga).
November 23, 2019
anlatılanları takip edebilmek için sindire sindire okumanız gerekiyor, bir üst çözümleme gibi düşünün, çok ilginç şeyler öğrendim
September 2, 2020
Agamben throws a monkey-wrench into the anthropological machine and reposes in the zone of a-knowledge (ignoscenza) that opens as the whirring dims.
December 5, 2016
to get this out of the way: fuck Agamben, and don't read this unless you have to. my rating aside, there's not enough here to make it worth the effort, even for a short book.
less salvageable than Homo sacer. more interesting than Stato di eccezione. way more salvageable and way less fake-deep than La potenza del pensiero, La comunità che viene, or fucking Mezzi senza fine. too much time spent on Heidegger. Agamben's use of long quotations is always bad and this was like five straight chapters of just long blockquotes from Heidegger. the reading of the Tiziano painting was basically incoherent. L'aperto doesn't live up to the hype or to its own stated goals imo.
but the idea of a "macchina antropologica" is useful, even if he subsequently leaves it behind without doing enough with it, and there's enough other stuff in this that's salvageable that I'm still giving it three stars. acceptable as assigned reading but not worth the effort otherwise.
less salvageable than Homo sacer. more interesting than Stato di eccezione. way more salvageable and way less fake-deep than La potenza del pensiero, La comunità che viene, or fucking Mezzi senza fine. too much time spent on Heidegger. Agamben's use of long quotations is always bad and this was like five straight chapters of just long blockquotes from Heidegger. the reading of the Tiziano painting was basically incoherent. L'aperto doesn't live up to the hype or to its own stated goals imo.
but the idea of a "macchina antropologica" is useful, even if he subsequently leaves it behind without doing enough with it, and there's enough other stuff in this that's salvageable that I'm still giving it three stars. acceptable as assigned reading but not worth the effort otherwise.
April 13, 2019
Şöyle düşünün: insanın ve hayvanın ne olduğu üzerine bir kitap yazıyorsunuz ama bunun içinde ne evrim ne de antropoloji var. Haliyle insanın ne olduğuna dair yazılan bu kitap, insanı tanrı katına çıkarma çabasındaki spekülatif zırvalıktan öteye geçemiyor. Tabii ki bu sadece Agamben’in değil aynı zamanda faşizan bir düşünce geleneğine sahip Heidegger’in de suçu.
December 28, 2008
My god, but this was thick. Rather like a summary of the authors of the term than anything particularly novel. Indeed, it was often difficult to tease out the original philosophy from the explorations of others'.
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December 15, 2008Interesting to learn that Walter Benjamin knew Jakob von Uexkul, one of the founders of ecology. Both were enemies of the Nazis. This mix of the religious with science and philosophy in Agamben's writing is fascinating to me.
July 3, 2017
não vou mentir: vai ter que rolar muita releitura pra compreender um pouquinho do que o agamben pretende aqui. pelo menos, consegui captar que ele pensa a relação homem/animal (homem/animalidade) a partir da representação, passando por questões filosóficas (ênfase em heidegger) e biopoder.
March 4, 2011
Read for lit theory. This made my brain hurt, in a good way.
May 5, 2017
I understood about 20% of this book, but my professor said cool things about it.
October 3, 2021
يكى از بهترين و ساده ترين تقريرهايى كه تا بحال از انديشه هايدگر و خاستگاه هاى بوم شناختى اون خووندم.
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