Linberg, Heideggers Animal

Heidegger's animal
Author(s): Susanna Lindberg

Source: Phänomenologische Forschungen, änomenologische Forschungen (2004), pp. 57-81
Published by: Felix Meiner Verlag GmbH
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Susanna Lindberg
Heidegger's animal'
Why does the question of the animal pursue so many readers of Heidegger?1 In
the following, I would like to show how the living being's swift apparition at the
margins of Heidegger's thinking also gives a glimpse of his understanding of two
other major phenomenal registers that he hardly treats otherwise, namely the
sensibility and the fleshly condition of living with.
One need not interpret Heidegger's approach of the question of the animal as
being primarily motivated by a desire to define man by demarcating him against
his postulated animal origins. On the contrary, such an approach is typical of a
great metaphysical tradition that Heidegger precisely claims to leave behind.
Heidegger defines the Dasein by a strong contradistinction from the metaphysi
cal rational animal, and states that the Dasein seizes the human existence in an
entirely different way, without the support of any kind of a concept of animal.
That's why I rather examine the possibility that the „question of the animal"
opens out to the sphere of what we could regard as Heidegger's „philosophy of
nature". Of course, this proposition requires immediately several precisions.
First of all, such an expression doesn't come form Heidegger himself. He would
never construct „a philosophy", because his very understanding of the task of
thinking excludes all subordinate philosophies attached to regional ontologies.
And he would never fix an interpretation of the „nature", because for him the
word „nature" stands for an entire vision of Being he fights on all fronts. That's
* I thank The Academy of Finland for the funding that has enabled the preparation of this
article.
1 Some pathmarks: Giorgio Agamben: L'ouvert. De l'homme et de l'animal. Paris 2002;
Ingrid Auriol: Situation de l'animal et statut de l'animalité. Heidegger Studies vol 17. 2001;
Renaud Barbaras: Pulsion et perception. In: Alter n 9. 2001; Christian Ciocan: La vie et la
corporalité dans Être et temps de Martin Heidegger, parts I-II. In: Studia phenomenologica 1
(2001). 1-2 & 3-4; Françoise Dastur: Pour une zoologie ,privative', ou comment ne pas parler
de l'animal. In: Alter 3. 1995; Gilles Deleuze et Félix Guattari: Capitalisme et schizofrénie,
part H, Mille plateaux. Paris 1980; Jacques Derrida: De l'esprit. Heidegger et la question. Paris
1987; Jacques Derrida: L'animal que donc je suis. In: Marie-Louise Mallet (dir.): L'animal au
tobiographique. Paris 1999; Elisabeth de Fontanay: Le silence des bêtes. La philosophie à
l'épreuve de l'animalité. Paris 1998; Didier Franck: L'être et le vivant. In: Philosophie (Mi
nuit), n 16. 1987; Michel Haar: Le chant de la terre. Paris 1987; David Farrell Krell: Daimon
Life. Heidegger and Life-philosophy. Indiana 1992. Peter Sloterdijk: Règles pour un parc hu
main. 2000; Peter Sloterdijk: La domestication de l'être. 2000.
Phänomenologische Forschungen • 2004 • © Felix Meiner Verlag 2004 ■ ISSN 0342-8117
58 Susanna Lindberg
why it's better to speak of a „question of th

nature". Secondly, Heidegger remains, with
human world, and he doesn't give much a
whether we call it life, animality, or othe
Heidegger eludes the question of the natural
tially connected with certain other impor
and the other Dasein. These questions hang
ing without penetrating into it. He hardly r
does pose singularly significant limit cond
that's where Heidegger's look on, say, the
ought to be though. And first of all, think t
As several thinkers have already pointed o
have a „privative" access to the animal world
not only marginal but also critical: it is one
nomena that permit us to circumscribe the T
This being said, let us consider the „questio
tion" of what is traditionally called a „philos
the „question of the animal" is capable of de-
tations of a philosophy of nature.
First of all, if one opens out a philosophy o
being, one takes up a position against the mo
ture, which is based on physics. Heidegger re
world view precisely because it is based on
preted in a mathematical frame, which parad
ist point of view on the world: the metaphys
the object of physics, and yet physics reache
extreme negativity. For physics, nature is the
point where something must be given, bu
plained by the experience it makes possible
thing in itself). In order to penetrate further
between mathematics and the givenness of
towards a certain idea of life, hereby followi
idealist-romantic tradition. The figure of t
what I present here as a kind of a philosop
philosophy of life or an ontology of life. For
interpretations of Being as life, should it be
self (the first position is largely explained alr
connection with readings of philosophers
Heidegger: Sein und Zeit, § 10. 50. Tübingen, 19
Heidegger's Animal 59
whom „we have no other representation of be

persing in „pure vapor"3).
But what would be the specificity of „nature"
leged manner as the „animal realm"? When „Nat
the „animal realm" names a finite plurality of c
Heidegger, an assiduous reader of Uexküll, is we
generally uses the singular word „animal". The p
nothing to do with the multiplicity of its prim
the DNA molecules) - and Heidegger refers as lit
lecular biology as to physics or mathematics.
side in what is normally presented as being its
laws, but in organized beings. Being animal, s
animate (like the stone) nor deprived of sense
that moves and senses by itself. The „animal rea
whose inhabitants are not simply seen, but th
zon. More precisely, the animal has a kind o
(Zugang zu seiner Umwelt). Thus, to a certain ex
capable of meeting man and, in this sense, th
looks at nature where nature looks back at him:
Here we reach two essential limits of Heidegge
certain lingering indecision becomes the defin
animal's relation to truth, when it has an openin
world capable of seizing the things as such? Wh
litical or ethical community, if it lives with us b
in the end, we won't know to what extent th
and that's why it remains, as Heidegger says, se
another reading of Heidegger's texts on the „an
3 „[...] das ,Sein' - wir haben keine andere Vorstellu

ger: Wozu Dichter?, 275 (257). In: Heidegger: Holzweg
Heidegger: Aletheia. 265. In: Heidegger: Vorträge und A
als] der letzte rauch einer verdunsteten Realität" (Götz
führung in die Metaphysik. Tübingen 1978 (1953). 27).
4 Heidegger: Die Grundbegriffe der Metaphysik. Fr
1929-1930). 308. (Tr. William McNeill and Nicholas W
Metaphysics. World, Finitude, Solitude. Bloomington
indicated in the translation.)
5 Heidegger: Parmenides. Frankfurt a.M. 1982 (Vorles
60 Susanna Lindberg
The animal's way
According to Heidegger, a living being - pri

a plant - has its own way of being, which
things nor to the being of the Dasein: life is
The character of being thanks to which th
such is life: (pûoiç or Çatiy However, this st
of interrogation than concludes any. Heideg
does, he generally aims at dismissing it as an
What is more, the words (pûoiç and Çoyri a
dicate a fundamental tension between an ori
later, metaphysical interpretation of Being.
considered as a global interpretation of Bein
the character of being of the animal, it also
ways attained in a „privative manner" : indi
animality is what the Dasein must leave in o
all, a rather traditional gesture, even if Heid
extraordinary difficulty of this separation.
,humanism'" :
„Of all the beings that are, presumably th
living creatures, because on the one hand th
akin to us, and on the other they are at t
sistent essence by an abyss. However, it m
of divinity is closer to us than what is so al
namely in an essential distance that, howeve
iar to our ek-sistent essence than is our s
kinship with the beast."9
In only one text, namely The Fundamental
being is at the center of Heidegger's interro
6 Sein und Zeit, § 10. 50.

7 Heidegger: Brief über den .Humanismus'. In:
furt a.M. 1978 (1967). (Tr. ed. William McNeill: Pa
8 Sein und Zeit. 50.
9 „Vermutlich ist für uns von allem Seienden, da
denken, weil es uns einerseits in gewisser Weise am
zugleich durch einen Abgrund von unserem ek-
möchte es scheinen, als sei das Wesen des Göttlich
Wesen, näher nämlich in einer Wesensferne, die a
wohl vertrauter ist als die kaum auszudenkende abg
Tier." Brief über den .Humanismus'. In: Wegmark
Capuzzi: Letter on .Humanism'. In: Pathmarks. 24
remains comparative, and the access to the anim

Heidegger says that the animal is what is betwe
following the principle „the stone is worldless,
is world-forming".10 In his analysis, he doesn't
lationship to the stone, which would be a truly
he examines largely the animal's relationship
human artifact belonging to a human world. So,
being by a comparison with the tool's or man's
animal mainly by its privation of humanity and
degger persists in thinking that the privative w
essence of the animality: he might be right and
structure the question of the animal. But in ord
we must see how far Heidegger can bring us.
So, according to Heidegger, what is the animal
What constitutes the living character of the liv
the living beings' life?
The Fundamental Concepts of Metaphysics ans
world without having it,11 or the so-called poor
world is not what the living being is but what i
that is to say its life, is its effort to appropriate w
and be its „own" {eigen). Only it doesn't: the thi
propriate, its world, is precisely that of which
long to the living being but, on the contrary, re
of its reach. In other words, the world is alw
which implies a closedness, a rejection and even
of whoever tries to seize it. That's why neither
the world but both of them miss it, each in a d
miss it they are constituted by a lack, which pu
puts them to movement towards their limits
might still put it, each one's being is a kind of
rything depends on the particular character of t
In each case, the lack that constitutes their bei
could be appeased by a satisfaction (such an ap
faction, and that's why it cannot determine a
degger characterises the lack as a poverty, whic
ever could be „own" in the sense of eigen. „Livin
10 Die Grundbegriffe der Metaphysik. 263.

12 Cf. Vom Wesen des Grundes. In: Wegmarken. 161
62 Susanna Lindberg
thing, in other words, lacking the world. An

ing" also means: being immerged in the worl
world - being poor of what is yet given so ab
dantly" in the sense that it is all there). Prec
ing-the-world. The living being is a point
world reigns in the midst of the world - wh
the animal: thanks to a fold constituted by a
living being and the world are bom on the b
the strange borderline on which the living b
thétisé each other.
Of course, this remains very abstract. In
characteristic of the living being as such, we
logic and contradistinguish the animal's pove
if the poverty is the animal's ownmost distin
the poverty is accessible only in man, say
permits us to see what it really means that t
deprivation as a mood of existence, „a pree
seem not to have".13
Heidegger's understanding of the human
readings of Hölderlin, whose words for this
distress {Not, Diiftigkeii). Here I only nee
Dichter?' - which contains another import
begins with the hölderlinian motif of distres
Zeit" ft „why the poet in the time of distre
and deprivation? According to Heidegger, i
which is characterised by the default of the d
erty-of-tbe-divinity, the depart of the divin
poet is the one that articulates this disposs
sion is essentially his deprivation of the w
word to articulate the divine name pointing
the poet's kôyoç, is capable of founding m
„fatherland" and, thus, of clearing the openi
13 „Dieses eigentliche Armsein im Sinne der Exist

behren, und muß es sein, aber so, daß aus dem E
Durchsichtigkeit und inneren Freiheit für das Dase
Armmiitigkeit ist nicht eine bloße Gleichgültigkeit
gezeichnete Haben, als hätten wir nicht". (Die Grund
14 Wozu Dichter? In: Holzwege. 265 (249).
15 Cf. „Der Mensch ist der Hirt des Seins. [...] Er
ten, dessen Würde darin beruht, vom Sein selbst in
sein." (Brief über den ,Humanismus'. 338-339 (172
ger, such a distress only makes sense because th

an originary giving or, as Heidegger will say lat
being, and the possibility of saying the sense of
No-one will be surprised to learn that this pov
cessible to the animal. In an absolutely classic
mains excluded form the possibility of the kôyo
sible. However, in passing we can note that as fa
this instant of the missing word, the poet's distr
living being's condition. Indeed, for Hölderlin, t
all Dionysos and Christ, two divinities of life, a
having transgressed the simple living condition
in a pre-eminent way their departure that cons
possession of the sense of life, the time of the
Agamben calls „naked life".17 Heidegger, too, pe
are the inhabitants of the Modern Era, we have
living gods, and our condition remains the sen
being. We would live in a poor, improper world
an analysis, developed not only by Agamben
another way by Sloterdijk, is not exactly a criti
an effort to understand the naked life as the cen
My aim, however, is to maintain a clearer d
animality (his bestiality or his extreme disposse
speaking. I also think this is what Heidegger is a
of „humanising the animal".18 Heidegger's judge
as has often been pointed out, nevetherless hi
animal shouldn't be regarded as a human lefto
rationale when the rationale has been omitted),
specting its peculiar „secret". For man, the de
relative of an originary generosity: a possibil
served), a formation of a world (even if it rema
this is not possible. Precisely, the world never a
ity (of saying, building, inhabiting, briefly: of
correlative of a possible propriation but it is def
of possession to the world. The animal only h
its world, that it can touch but not question. He
16 Heidegger: Erläuterungen zu Hölderlins Dichtung (

17 Giorgio Agamben: Homo sacer. Le pouvoir souvera
18 Parmenides. 239.
64 Susanna Lindberg
„The animal has a specific relationship t

spect to its sources of nourishment, its p
[...] But throughout the course of its life
specific element, whether it is water or air
ment belonging to it goes unnoticed by th
accessible to the animal in a way which is n
are not arbitrary either. The animal's way o
without access to what is around it and ab
pears as a living being. [...] Throughout th
fined to its environmental world, immured
is incapable of further expansion or contract
The animal's poverty is not a dispossession
in question. On the contrary, it is poor in t
remains confined and immured in its own s
constituted as a movement towards some
drive ( Trieb) stemming from a lack. But th
merely its own being: if the human poverty
animal poverty ends up by being a hollowne
The drive that determines the animal life
damental Concepts of Metaphysics, Heidegge
at describing the specific character of the a
dismisses two classical interpretations of
mechanism and the vitalism, which both ex
principle. For Heidegger, the animal movem
capability of sustaining oneself thanks to it
by distinguishing it form the artefacts (rco
man as a fabricant-creator (téyvtîEç), on
(Fähig), whereas the tool is useful (Dienlich),
established, is an ability to be (Seinkönn
[something else], one could call it heteroteli
19 „Das Tier hat als Tier bestimmte Beziehunge

nen Feinden, zu seinem Geschlechtspartner. [...]
ziehung zu seinem Nahrungs-, Beute-, Feindes- u
zugleich in der Dauer seines Lebens je in einem b
oder in der Luft oder in beidem, so zwar, daß das
[...] So ist dem Tier mancherlei und nicht beliebi
Seine Art zu Sein, die wir das ,Leben' nennen, ist
ben ihm ist, worunter es als seiendes Lebewesen
welt in der Dauer seines Lebens wie in einem Rohr
gesperrt." (Die Grundbegriffe der Metaphysik. 292
20 Die Grundbegriffe der Metaphysik, § 52.
is capable of a teleological action. The animal

logic but what we could call autotelic beings: th
own being, but their being is, indeed, an end
animals become capable of various actions. H
pability implies this ,intrinsically into itself
movement back towards itself shouldn't be und
but the capability still has a self-like character
likeness has nothing to do with a self-consciou
ness, but it is just a relation to oneself where t
hört sich) and its being is a „being proper to it
mal has no „authenticity" (Eigentlichkeit) such
towards its possibilities: but it relates itself to
this gives it a proper character (Eigentümlichkei
Such an auto-movement, where the living
movement is its activity of auto-appropriat
Heidegger's readings of Aristotle: here I refer
und Begriff der Ouotç. Aristoteles, Physik,
scription of cpûaet övxa, of natural beings. Acc
tpboet ovtcc are Ktvopeva, moving things or „
be understood as a manner of Being, which
„presencing" (Anwesung).23 The being of the a
things, is their movement of coming to be, of
themselves such as they are. Their being is a k
being is its own becoming: where being is a tra
presencing.
Heidegger understands the Ktveotç characteri
in the framework of Aristotle's Physics.24 T
ment from a place to another but the moveme
depicts it as a movement „on place" towards
for it is a change (Umschlag) thanks to which a
thing determined by cpûotç not only stays wit
21 „Fähigsein - darin liegt dieses ,sich in sich selbst

339.)
23 Vom Wesen und Begriff der Oboiç. Aristoteles: Physik, B.l. In: Wegmarken. 259 (331).
(Tr. Thomas Sheehan: On the Essence and Concept of Oûctç in Aristotle's Physics B, I. In:
Pathmarks: the original page numbers are indicated in the translation).
24 Vom Wesen und Begriff der $ûctiç. Aristoteles: Physik, B.l. 240 (312).
66 Susanna Lindberg
cisely goes back into itself".25 This interpre

natural being as an Umschlag has several int
First, via negativa, we see that the movem
ing in its being follows none of the two mo
èvtekexeta nor *|/t>xr|. To be more preci
xaßoÄ.f| as Umschlag aims at getting beyond
articulate their essence. So, the natural be
on the condition that the èvteXexeta be
ing-itself-in-its-end {Sich im Ende-Haben
shouldn't be seen just as the realisation of po
and that become gradually actual, becaus
permit the apparition of anything new. I
thing seen form its „end" : the appropriatio
its history or its biography. Furthermore, i
natural being's ownmost movement in ter
the Soul, it's because the principle of the yt
and vitalist hypostases, on the one hand, or
which reduces living to its quasi-digestive f
sustaining-oneself.27 When the yoxT| is refer
trary opened towards changes brought up b
So, the animal is a moving thing whose o
derstood as Umschlag. The word Umschlag
signs several things: 1. a sudden change a
which evokes the action of striking and the
movement (like when one strikes money
movement of formation (Bildung) or, as Phi
„onto-typo-logy",28 only applied on parti
The Umschlag is the entire movement of im
ownmost being is not a passive material but
supposing that the constituting movement o
animals is this Umschlag, what strikes the c
quires in this way?
25 „[...] was dergestalt durch die (pûotç bestimmt

bei ihm selbst, sondern es geht, indem es gemäß d
breitet, gerade in es selbst zurück." Vom Wesen u
B.l, 252 (324).
26 Vom Wesen und Begriff der «Sûotç. Aristoteles: Physik, B.l. 282 (354).
27 Cf. also Hegels Phänomenologie des Geistes. Frankfurt a.M. 1988 (1980) (Vorlesung
1930-1931). 206-207.
28 Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe: „Typographie". In: Agacinski. Derrida et al.: Mimesis des ar
ticulations. Paris 1975.
Heidegger underlines very clearly that the stro

living being doesn't come form an exterior will.
facts, products of a human teyvri that imposes a
understood as a simple tAty That's why, in „Vom
as well as in The fundamental Concepts of Metap
very clearly between the natural beings and the
principle of their movement in themselves. But th
animal don't come from the inside, either, as if
of a program - like when one thinks that the
pre-determined possibilities. The strokes that
where the animal hits the exterior world: not an
the presence of its relatively contingent environ
vironment, and simultaneously its environm
Umschlag is this twofold touch or stroke which f
envelop. In other words, the stroke that forms t
as the one Rilke named a „risk" ( Wagnis) and wh
to a danger and bringing oneself into play.29
Since it touches its environment, the animal
mal's Ktvtjotç and the resulting animal way is
point and its retreat back towards itself. The ani
specific Ktvriotç or its coming-to-be is this „way
animal's form is the track drawn by this movem
this movement through which the animal's form
external and an internal surface.
In its movement outwards, the animal touche

damental Concepts of Metaphysics, Heidegger nam
touch the animal its „disinhibitor" (Enthemmung
tor is nevertheless what makes sense to the anim
animal's originarily closed and „inhibited" way
ronment, even if the animal's comportment towa
stupefied „captivation" (Benommenheit) (below, I
the specific sense of the animal's captivation).
Following Jakob von Uexküll, Heidegger cons
tors constitute its environment. The environm
animal might meet various disinhibitors, but the
environment and, as such, the points that form
which the animal moves. An animal's life is its
ronment unfolded by its disinhibitors: its prey a
29
Wozu Dichter? 275-276 (257-258).
68 Susanna Lindberg
ners and its nesting places. The circle of

ownmost finitude or, rather, its limitation
ties but stops on the verge of various realit
each animal has its own living circle, and ev
they cannot communicate.
The disinhibitor also engages a movemen
onto itself and starts the constitution of th
lichkeit). When an animal meets its particul
return and draw its form. This is how the a
by the way it surrounds itself by its disinh
circle: the animal is regulated by what it is
what regulates it. Yet the circle is not vicio
inhibitors and the regulated form of the an
gap during which something happens, and
grows. When the animal moves within a c
simply adapts itself nor does it create its w
quite as freely and definitely as the strokes
but they still permit that a certain hasard o
an absence of such and such possible disin
opment.
The animal lives by taking its place, and it
hibitors open: this is what Heidegger calls
ment". When the animal surrounds itself and draws the outline of its environ
ment, it engages itself in a fight: „living is precisely a fight for this environment"
(Leben ist gerade das Ringen um diesen Umring). A fight implies a pain
(Schmerz), and following an entire romantic tradition Heidegger says: „every
thing that lives is painful [...] everything that lives is capable, that is to say good.
But what is good is painfully good."32 But what is pain? „Pain tears and draws.
It is the tearing. But it doesn't split in parts. It cuts and tears apart, but so that it
simultaneously keeps together and collects everything. [...] Pain is the dif
ference itself."33 In other words, the pain is the opening of the fundamental trait
of a world: in ,Die Sprache' it is a human world, but it acts in an analogical
manner in the animal's case, where the opening of a world „hurts", because it
demands a fight in order to keep the environment open, and because at the
same time it draws the form of the animal: engraves and impresses its figure.

32 Heidegger: Die Sprache im Gedicht. In: Heidegger: Unterwegs zur Sprache. Stuttgart
1993 (1959). 62.
33 Die Sprache. In: Unterwegs zur Sprache. 27.
Only the animal's figure, as well as its environm

a spatial or, rather, in a static sense, as if the t
animal takes its place and acquires its figure abo
that's why the best description of the animal
,Vom Wesen und Begriff der d>t)cnç', calls the
the articulation, the impression, the constitution
understod primarily in a temporal manner. Ryt
ing a path, the track left by the chances and
Rythme is the form understood as a moveme
phy of a living being. And understood in this w
capacity of transformation.
The animal senses
Heidegger's animal is incapable of truth, and ye

is exactly its relation to truth? What does it „se
One might have the impression that the anima
(das Offene) as which oAfpeia happens.35 Als
degger - in particular Michel Haar - have though
Earth of the Geviert and nests in the „crypt" o
other words, the animal would belong to the retr
However, I think that Heidegger's animal never
ing of truth nor does it dwell in it. At most,
crossing it (like a hare running across a field) bu
dimension (like an arrow coming from another
Earth, just like the „peasant" who is its sole gen
In return, man cannot enter into the animal
mains an inhabitable wilderness in comparisio
animal and its environment remain absolutely
cumscribe the animal's peculiar secrecy, Heidegg
the animal face that he finds in Rilke's and Trak
enough to surprise a glimpse of an animal face (
34 Vom Wesen und Begriff der Ovaiç. 265 (337).

35 The opening, das Offene, being the name Heidegger g
p. ex. Parmenides, GA 54.
36 Michel Haar: Le Chant de la terre. 126-127.
37 Face: Anditz, is the word generally used by these
Parmenides. 228. In Unterwegs zur Sprache, Heidegger p
as the préfiguration of the savage's face (Antlitz des Wild
70 Susanna Lindberg
upon the „clearing". Why precisely a face? B

but it sees and seems to pierce the truth'
mal, who „sees the opening with all eyes"
would have a face to look nor eyes to see
animal as such has an active relation to its s
because of its appearance nor because of i
appears to it, and we cannot know what.39
Heidegger practically defines the animal as
the truth' and criticises Rilke violently for
Instead of the truth's opening (das Offene),
certain openness (Offenheit) which is determ
vated (benommen) by its environment:
„The captivation of the animal therefore sig
having every apprehending of something as
thermore: in having this withheld form it, t
Thus animal captivation characterizes the sp
animal relates itself to something else even
it [...] of comporting and relating itself to s
as something present at hand, as a being. An
ity - apprehending as something that to wh
that the animal can find itself so utterly ta
vation shouldn't be interpreted as a kind of
animal as if it were somehow spellbound. Ra
and prescribes an appropriate leeway for its
redirecting of the animal's driven activity i
38 Mit allen Augen sieht die Kreatur das Offen

Elegie), also cited in Parmenides. 227.
39 Because the face is where one sees the reserve of
Bernhard Waldenfels would say, „Das fremde zeigt
Waidenfels: Topographie des Fremden. Studien z
furt a.M. 1997. 42.)
40 „Benommenheit des Tieres besagt also einmal:
nehmens von etwas als etwas, sodann: bei solcher
heit durch... Benommenheit des Tieres kennzeichn
Tier in seinem Sichbeziehen auf anderes die Möglic
lich auch sagen, benommen ist, sich dazu, zu diese
einem Vorhandenen, als einem Seienden, zu verhal
de weil dem Tier diese Möglichkeit, das, worauf es
nommen ist, gerade deshalb kann es in dieser schl
dem anderen. Solche Benommenheit darf nun aber
als eine Verhextheit des Tieres ausgelegt werden
und zeichnet einen eigenen Spielraum des Benehm
The captivation implies at least that the anima

world, and they are neither truthbound open
positions. Furthermore, the animal is the tracin
interpret Heidegger's idea of captivation as a dee
such as it is presented in Aristotle's On the Soul
sensitive soul is the distinctive feature of the an
soul (who only digests) and the human soul (w
acteristic of an animal is sensation [...] the fi
which we all share, is a sense of touch."41 Un
openness characteristic of the senses explains no
the animal but also his vision on the senses - qu
anywhere.42 Of course, it is necessary to precis
The Fundamental Concepts of Metaphysics, Heid
a sense organ and how does a sensation make
doesn't focus on senses in the current restr
smell ...) but rather analyses the organs in gener
the organs as being ways of touching the world a
can consider that he envisages any organ as b
remains to be determined what, then, is the scop
According to Heidegger, the origin of the anim
its drive or capacity. The organs have no indepe
possessed by the animal's capacities (or, as H
doesn't see because it has eyes, but it has eyes
ties don't follow any pre-determined plan bu
two senses of regulating the animal's surroundin
it comes to the animal's surroundings, the ru
rung der Getriebenheit in die jeweiligen Triebe." (Die

361.)
41 Aristotle: On the Soul, II, 2, 413 b. (tr. W. S. Hett. Cambridge/London 1995 (1936)).
42 In his article „Pulsion and perception", Renaud Barbaras severely ciriticises Heidegger
for having excluded the animal from the sphere of the perception (e.g. 15). Now, for Heideg
ger, the perception, Vernehmen, points already at the direction of the reason, Vernunft (cf. e.g.
Sein und Zeit, § 7 B. 34), and most of his analyses on appearing end by treating various guises
of logos (speech, sign, art work, and even the „thing"). He gives another name - captivation,
Benommenheit - to the animal's relation to its environment precisely in order to avoid the pos
tulation of an animal reason. However, unlike Barbaras, I don't think that such an exclusion of
the logos reduces the captivation to a mere point of discharge with no internal difference: the
captivation is not a rigid, quasi-mechanical fixation but an incessant activity of redirecting the
senses.

44 „Das Fähige dagegen untersteht nicht einen Vorschrift, sondern es ist selb
gend und regelnd." (Die Grundbegriffe der Metaphysik. 333.)
72 Susanna Lindberg
hibitors make sense to this animal and event

words, how its environment opens to it. And
the animal to act, they determine the anim
behaviour precisely as a non-reflective reten
mal remains with itself: the captivation is the
This is how the captivation opens a twofo
first the point of contact between the an
how this „point" spreads out as a whole di
the sense is what makes sense to the animal
capacity bends back on itself and, in a certai
modifying itself. Thus the sensation and the
Let us have a closer look on the point of
world. We already know that the animal's cap
way of being: its poverty-in-world which
wards the world. Hence its capacities are d
ing its environment: this is how it is essenti
ment. If the capacities don't follow any pre-
own rule, it is precisely because the animal's
ronment but actively respond to it. Heideg
definitely given surroundings nor does it cre
its drives and the particular character of its
the sense that its sensations are a synthetic a
tween the animal and its environment. Thus
environment is really no „point" but the ent
Heidegger describes the point of contact
ronment as being „stunning", „dizzy", „nu
numb, because it is an immediate contact w
the protecting distance opened in the redupl
sentation and the reflexion, as well as Hei
the captivation is a relation to the environm
openness for... (Offenheit).47 The animal h

46 „Das Benehmen und seine Weisen sind keine
Tier in Bahnen vorlaufen lassen, sondern das Bene
nehmen, und zwar ohne Reflexion. [...] Wir kennzei
[...] diese Eingenommenheit des Tieres in sich, darin
Benommenheit." (Die Grundbegriffe der Metaphysik
47 „Das Tier steht als solches nicht in einer Offen
Nichthaben von Offenbarkeit des Seienden ist als G
eine hingenommenheit durch... Wir müssen sage
nehmen eine Offenheit zeigen für..." (Die Grundbeg
ther open nor closed, and that is therefore no

which nevertheless leaves it sensible to its surro
The animal's sensation is benumbing in the
ence of a being without recognising it as a being
of a reduplication, a confirmation of the fact of
animal senses that it is sensing. Heidegger stres
its environment is not just an opening towards
the animal, and the captivation is precisely th
animal. The return path not only in-forms the
straightly forms the animal itself, in other wo
time the animal's contact with the world and th
mal. In this movement, the animal's sensation m
comes its sense, finally its sense organ.
Man has an opening, that is to say, he relate
truth. The animal has no relation nor opening, i
sich) in contact with an openness. What is th
tion without reflexion, a regard without words
might put it, an intuition without concept: a bl
ger's fierce critique of Rilke also implies a fund
with the latter's understanding of the animal's
Heidegger agrees with Rilke as far as the Creat
entire horizon of being, and not just disparate t
not entirely dispersed but it opens a sort of a h
ness constitutive of an environment. The disagr
acter of the horizon. According to Heidegger
terpretation of being as nature and nature as lif
in the ancient sense of (ptoiç and Çatf).49 Ril
limited whole of everything, the dimension of
relation,50 finally the risky balance of the „pur
world as a co-presence of beings, as the primary
- into which the „Creature looks with all eyes"
in pure light.52
48 Parmenides. 237.
49 „In dem hier gebrauchten Wort Natur schwingt no
ŒixHÇ, das auch der Ço>f| gleichgesetzt wird, was wir
278.)
50 „Das Offene ist das große Ganze alles dessen, was entschränkt ist. Es läßt die in den rei
nen Bezug gewagten Wesen als die Gezogenen ziehen, so das sie vielfältig zueinander, ohne auf
Schranken zu stoßen, weiterziehen." (Wozu Dichter? 284.)
51 Wozu Dichter? 278.
52 Parmenides. 232.
74 Susanna Lindberg
Why does Heidegger turn against this c

which seems so close to his own conception
eted to the world? First, Heidegger considers
world" is the horizon of the animal ration
Rilke's „interior space of the world" would
not a particular environment, like the one de
Heidegger takes - fairly preposterously -
soming flowers") practically in the sense o
notwithstanding the fairness of Heidegger's
concerning the animal. Heidegger's animal
but it is captivated by determinate things co
things are not situated in a general space: th
and are its sole extension.
Secondly, Heidegger observes that Rilke's

cause nothing stops its regard, nothing is
makes it turn back towards itself. For Heideg
regard is not free but riveted to a limited se
that captivates the animal isn't just its libera
cause the animal's environment is its limitati
wards itself. The point of contact is also the
animal back onto its own being. Rilke's ani
and its regard on the world is instantaneous:
Heidegger's animal is, on the contrary, const
„propriety" which means that it senses that
this opens it for its primary temporality
means constituted by its relation to its death
animal in relation to itself: the drawing of th
Such would be Heidegger's conception of t
animal senses are the points at which it is ca
are no simple contact points, which would
instant, where the animal would perish. Inste
dimension of active syntesis, thanks to wh
place and time. The animal's being is conditio
sensible experience understood as the opennes
experience (space and time), and not as a dist
senses. The conditions of the animal's sens
space and time (that Rilke's animal is supp
regard), but the openness of the animal's
tion. Heidegger's animal „takes place" acti
temporal dimension which is its own, par
place and a determinate time, which condition i

a truth's opening but it is a true openness, a ma
animal's openness is its ownmost sensible experi
we have no access because no words correspon
its „secret" that Heidegger wanted to protect: a
other being's sensible experience is what we nev
Living with the animal
Two points of indecision determined Heidegg

first one concerned its relation to the truth, the
community, given that it lives with us but does
says in The Fundamental Concepts of Metaphysic
„Let us consider the case of domestic animal
keep domestic pets in the house with us, they
with them if living means: being in an animal ki
nonetheless. But this being-with is not a co-exis
ist but merely lives. Through this being with an
within our world. We say that the dog is lyin
ning up the stairs, and so on. Yet when we cons
port itself toward the table as table, toward the
goes up the stairs with us. It feeds with us -
eats with us - and yet it doesn't really ,eat'. Nev
along with..., a transposedness, and yet not (ein
doch nicht)."53
Of course, questioning the animal's place in
mean looking for an animal politics or an enviro
are certainly very important, but they dema
don't belong to the scope of Heidegger's underta
Heidegger's „originary ethics" and try to under
that determines our relation to foreign species.54
that determines the human existence in any fin
between finite communities. The „living with" i
existing"; and when a living being „moves wi
without having it". The animality as such is thi
53 Die Grundbegriffe der Metaphysik. 308, tr. slightly

54 Heidegger names the „originary ethics" or „arche-
mus*. 353 (187).
76 Susanna Lindberg
threshold of existing and having a world:

questions the borders of any coexistence as
For Heidegger, the co-existence is deter
whatever be its mode of appearing. It can
gentliche Gerede), the poet's word that ca
word in translation. In each case, the logos o
stitutes man as a capacity to hear and to say
relation to the „as such" that constitutes tru
Quoting Aristotle, Heidegger specifies that t
(pcovf), or noises, which have no sense nor,
a sense (Sinn und Mitteilung).5'' Given that t
ger the very condition of possibility of s
squeal, „speak" to us: call us, touch us, be
calls the animal's „vocal faculty" a „marve
soul's movement, is expressed and present
would even be a moment of transition bet
soul.58 From Heidegger's point of view, the
its sentiments in its voice, yet it could n
sence of the speech is not the auto-expressio
Man doesn't hear what the animal says to
the fables). The situation would be differe
man as a silence. For as Heidegger says in
silence which „calls and names", and such
senseless squealing: it is language itself unde
say, a silence is filled with a promise of sens
language about to burst out. But the „pain"
be any individual pain (nor joy, for that ma
vidual sensation is doomed to remain a sen
fied wave of pain" is the distress provoked b
articulates Being itself:60 only a distress con
mentarily suspend the everyday speech w
55 Die Grandbegriffe der Metaphysik. 360-361.

56 Die Grandbegriffe der Metaphysik. 444.
57 Sein und Zeit. 163.
58 Hegel Enzyklopädie II, § 351 & Zusatz. In: We
59 (And if we associate the „pain" to the form of
an expression of this „form", that is to say, a typi
for instance the song of a lark. It is not simply an
tion either.)
60 Die Sprache. In: Unterwegs zur Sprache. 26-31.
sential word. Such a movement draws man u

wards the animals, for the gods give sense where
Whatever the thinker's tender feelings towards
his path, in the ontological sense the animal s
why man and the animal live in the same world b
words, their relation is not an ethical one in the
ethics". But what if, exceptionnally, man's co-e
depend on Xôyoç but on a more elementary lo
of the animal? Such an approach would resse
where the ethical injunction comes form a face c
actual words and which, maybe, doesn't require a
notwithstanding the fundamental discord be
understanding of the ethical situation, because, o
been stopped by a sad face of an animal. So, in
Metaphysics, he evokes the ancient motif of the s
In a text on Trakl, ,Die Sprache im Gedicht', h
mal face" that stares from a „blue" and holy dim
the motif of a „stone's violent silence" (that p
promising pain, contained on a petrified face, is
due to its burning look on the world: it is the pa
Such a pain of the living being is reciprocal: „bec
pain, the living being can dis-cover and really let
time is present with it".64 Are we entiteld to de
of a kind of a compassion (Mitleid) that would bi
feel pain (and pleasure)? Couldn't such a comm
most unthinkable abyssal fleshly kinship with
community of bodily life be the world that is op
to-face between man and the animal, when the „
present-with" (Mitanwesen) which would be
existing (Mitsein), that man and animal cannot sh
„looks with burning eyes" only when it cease
„savage's face", already a human face, in reality t
that the poet is here supposed to name as his for

62 Die Sprache im Gedicht. In: Unterwegs zur Sprache.
64 „... kraft der Gegenwendigkeit des Schmerzes kann
seiner jeweiligen Art verbergend entbergen, wahr-haft
In: Unterwegs zur Sprache. 62.
78 Susanna Lindberg
the animal is really a man, he has seeing e

with. So to say, the eloquent animal face i
graved on a forefather's tombstone, „a stone
Trakl says.
In sum, the animal never calls us nor does it
fundamentally because the animals cannot
the affects of the animals, but must just ded
sides, according to Heidegger, the animal doe
another animal either: „The one animal is nev
living creature, but is only there for it eith
ther case, only in some form of ,away' (w
trinsically a form of elimination (Beseitigen)"
closed one for another like spheres that can
animal world is equally closed to man, eve
ticular, questionning way of existing - has an
strange world.
In order to describe this reciprocal excl
worlds, Heidegger introduces two words: mit
literally „to go with", and it means „to acc
man can „follow" another man into his wo
him, „listen to his words", go along the w
ing is a fundamental mood of co-existing and
ing a sense. That's of course why man cannot
its own environment: its trail has no trait
„transpose" himself to the animal. This trans
changing places, moving to another, obvio
we can be transposed to the animal's world w
and similarly there is something in the anim
refuses a transposition. „Why can the transp
ing must be forbidden?"67 Following (Mitgeh
existing (Mitsein). But one can follow only
animal's world is merely its environment and
- and vice versa. That's why man can only tr
animal's environment: he can imagine himsel
project himself into the other living being's
mains necessarily a simulation, an imitation,

the other might feel, see and desire.68 The anim

one can only imagine another sensation, one c
is man's sole access to the animal's world, and y
position is necessarily a simulation, a game of th
ily accompanied with a certainty of its own illus
Ffeidegger, this possibility of transposing onese
no sign of a particular richness of imagination,
other living world. Without words, the passage
an illusion. Actually, this implies that a nietzsch
is our only possible relation to the animal's e
where one is moved and touched by another
one simultaneously knows that it is impossible f
has an image, a pure wordless image, an animal
perience: this is the image beyond ^.ôyoç that d
with".
Thus Heidegger presents the relation betwee

not only poor but actually weak. But isn't thi
question form the sole point of view of the tru
know what the animal knows, and what we k
munity with the animal, the „living with", cann
view of the truth, because it defines a sphere o
not be explained with truth but which, on the
apparition of truth?
Let's put it in another way. Heidegger says tha
animal" is „unthinkable". We have seen that it i
it is unspeakable. Precisely, no words pass betwe
our relation to it is just a relation of transposit
image. Yet something does invite man to shar
represent it. What is this unthinkable somethin
Unthinkable and unspeakable things are not
also things that it is forbidden to say: they are
because they are unholy and impure. Heidegger
the danger goes with the salvation and the unho
ing guarantees a decision for the one or for the
68 According to Renaud Barbaras, Merleau-Ponty wou

the species following a similar logic of a generalised mi
text published on the Internet on: www.ac-toulouse.fr/
8 of 10.
69 Brief über den ,Humanismus'. 355 (189).
80 Susanna Lindberg
push on the analysis of the unholiness, and f

consult Bataille and behind him, Hegel himse
For a thinker like Hegel, life is a modality
to persist in being: living is living on... and h
living as having to live resembles the logic of
fights as being the summum of the metap
the implications of an idealist logic of life m
ing of life as poverty-in-world. The living
drive towards its limits, where it touches
sists in its sexual partners, prey and enem
opening towards its world. Now when one in
doesn't interpret it as a simple will to surviv
itself. On the contrary, the exterior world b
bility of the living being, because only it can
order to sustain itself. If Heidegger's animal
has to venture a little bit further into the su
its own living world and break into another.
live on..., the living being must eat other liv
In other words, the cercles of living beings a
never mind if one can sense or feel another, i
being is at stake at the point where a living
sume another. The life and the death of a liv
ings, the plurality of living beings is no more
of life. On this very limit where living being
Hegel speaks of the pain that accompanies ne
its satisfaction causes another pain; and when
being arouses guilt, inflicting pain becomes a
levels, according to Hegel, life is an „existi
describes the drawing of the cercle of life as
ence, but he would never take something a
logical factor. Heidegger's animal doesn't
Dasein sustains his body he butchers the beas
reasons, Levinas's ethical world is possible pre
murder. Hegel, on the contrary, situates the o
sustaining one's life: in the living-with t
existence. Bataille has shown better than any
on the foundation of a primitive community
the cult of the bear. There surely is no way o
G. W. F. Hegel: Wissenschaft der Logik II. In: We
but the origin of the humanity resides in the mo

a taboo: at that moment the animal is no more si
ced. And what can be sacrificed is taboo: sacred
less bliss and shame of eating its flesh, its life.
I think that Hegel and Bataille permit us to seize
with", that Heidegger names but leaves into a ma
is not a simple supplement to a more essentia
existence, but its essential fundament. The origin
forts to regulate his relations to the living wo
plains - about an actual situation which submits n
living being as such to the „technique".71 From
above all that the technical rationality covers the
character: its inaccessible experience, unknowa
ronment: what is „unthinkable" in the sense of b
revealing character. With Hegel or Bataille we see
constitutive relation, that the technical dispositif
hides: the fleshly deed where life destroys life in
bidden act of killing a living being. For Heidegge
ily on the level of simple ontical consideration
guilty of a fleshly act but only in debt of its exi
constitutive part of our being-in-the-world, we m
the question of the animal as easily as the Dasein
71 Wozu Dichter? 289.

Linberg, Heideggers Animal

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Linberg, Heideggers Animal

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Heidegger's animal

Author(s): Susanna Lindberg

Phänomenologische Forschungen • 2004 • © Felix Meiner Verlag 2004 ■ ISSN 0342-8117

why it's better to speak of a „question of th

Heidegger: Sein und Zeit, § 10. 50. Tübingen, 19

whom „we have no other representation of be

3 „[...] das ,Sein' - wir haben keine andere Vorstellu

The animal's way

According to Heidegger, a living being - pri

6 Sein und Zeit, § 10. 50.

remains comparative, and the access to the anim

10 Die Grundbegriffe der Metaphysik. 263.

thing, in other words, lacking the world. An

13 „Dieses eigentliche Armsein im Sinne der Exist

ger, such a distress only makes sense because th

16 Heidegger: Erläuterungen zu Hölderlins Dichtung (

„The animal has a specific relationship t

19 „Das Tier hat als Tier bestimmte Beziehunge

is capable of a teleological action. The animal

21 „Fähigsein - darin liegt dieses ,sich in sich selbst

cisely goes back into itself".25 This interpre

25 „[...] was dergestalt durch die (pûotç bestimmt

Heidegger underlines very clearly that the stro

In its movement outwards, the animal touche

ners and its nesting places. The circle of

30 Die Grundbegriffe der Metaphysik. 371.

Only the animal's figure, as well as its environm

The animal senses

Heidegger's animal is incapable of truth, and ye

34 Vom Wesen und Begriff der Ovaiç. 265 (337).

upon the „clearing". Why precisely a face? B

38 Mit allen Augen sieht die Kreatur das Offen

The captivation implies at least that the anima

rung der Getriebenheit in die jeweiligen Triebe." (Die

43 Die Grundbegriffe der Metaphysik. 319.

hibitors make sense to this animal and event

45 Die Grundbegriffe der Metaphysik. 345.

ther open nor closed, and that is therefore no

Why does Heidegger turn against this c

Secondly, Heidegger observes that Rilke's

place and a determinate time, which condition i

Living with the animal

Two points of indecision determined Heidegg

53 Die Grundbegriffe der Metaphysik. 308, tr. slightly

threshold of existing and having a world:

55 Die Grandbegriffe der Metaphysik. 360-361.

sential word. Such a movement draws man u

61 Die Grundbegriffe der Metaphysik. 396.

the animal is really a man, he has seeing e

66 Die Grundbegriffe der Metaphysik. 364.

the other might feel, see and desire.68 The anim

Thus Heidegger presents the relation betwee

68 According to Renaud Barbaras, Merleau-Ponty wou

push on the analysis of the unholiness, and f

G. W. F. Hegel: Wissenschaft der Logik II. In: We

but the origin of the humanity resides in the mo

71 Wozu Dichter? 289.

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