Vargas dėl weltarm: Martino Heideggerio svarstymai apie gyvūno esmę
Trouble with weltarm: Heidegger’s considerations concerning the essence of an animal

Summary/Abstract: The article aims to explain the character of Heidegger’s considerations concerning the animal. The main source of analysis is the lecture course of the years 1929–1930 in which Heidegger elaborated the thesis of animal’s world-poverty. The article raises not only a question of what Heidegger had said about the animal but also a question of how he had done this. The article focuses on what is problematic in Heidegger’s discourse, what Heidegger himself has seen as problematic, and what remains ambiguous in his considerations. The analysis starts with Heidegger’s thesis Tier ist weltarm and explains what is the true content of this thesis, why Heidegger distances himself from the positive content, and what does it mean that this thesis is not so much an affirmation of animal’s attribute as a Wesensaussage. The article explains the meaning of animal’s Armut that does not mean poverty in the usual sense. Regarding the essence of life, the article raises the question about an attempt to get rid of the mechanistic notion of the organism. The possibilities of understanding animals and the limits of Mitgehen are analyzed as well. Finally, the essential distinctions which constitute the difference between the animal and the human – weltarm and weltbildend, benehmen and vernehmen, offen and offenbar – are examined. The author states that, despite Heidegger’s efforts, the unsolved ambiguities remain in his discourse. On the one hand, Heidegger is very cautious about speaking of animal selfhood, perception, and behavior. He draws an indefeasible limit and admits that all human propositions about the animal are conditional. On the other hand, Heidegger makes quite definite assertions about the animal when he defines what is essential to humans. It is the fundamental Als-Struktur that enables us to conceive beings as beings. The animal is defined negatively as a being lacking the features that are reserved only for humans. By depriving animals of human characteristics, Heidegger restores the content of weltarm that he wanted to suspend. So, the initial ambiguity remains because of conditional propositions and certain deprivation.

• Details
• Contents