Thesis (Ph. L.)--Catholic University of America, 2008. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 80-81).

Thesis (Ph. L.)--Catholic University of America, 2008. / Description based on Microfiche version record. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 80-81).

No description available.

This thesis provides an original reading of Heidegger's 1929-30 lecture course The Fundamental Concepts of Metaphysics. Currently, the notoriety of FCM stems from controversy surrounding its description of human beings as 'world-forming,' and of animals as comparatively 'poor in world.' These propositions are interpreted within the secondary literature as a reinforcement of ontotheological and humanistic metaphysics. However, this standard interpretation misses the more complex and subtle significance of this material in the broader context of the lectures. I argue that Heidegger's 'comparative examination' forms part of a wider metaphysical project of interrogating a contemporary 'delusion,' a metaphysical division drawn between 'life' and 'spirit' engendered by an 'anthropological' worldview which pictures man as a composite of those two elements. Heidegger traces the manifestations of this delusion in Kulturphilosophie and biology, before attempting to recover a more genuinely metaphysical attitude, one founded not on anthropocentric 'worldviews' but on a direct, courageous 'confrontation' with ourselves. Heidegger argues that this confrontation must take its orientation from Greek thought, in which man is interpreted as that part of physis that apprehends physis as a whole. For Heidegger, this notion of the human as a kind of 'meta-physical' being enables us to grasp the coextensive essence of the human and of metaphysics. I argue that Heidegger's position can be extended and enriched if we consider it in conjunction with what he presents in the lecture course as one of its great adversaries; for the German tradition of philosophical anthropology, rather than being a straightforward articulation of the life-spirit divide that Heidegger wishes to eschew, actually harmonises with and deepens Heidegger's reflections in FCM concerning the nature of the human as a meta-physical being.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Washington, 1998. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves [188]-198).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of California, San Diego, 2002. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 244-258).

This paper examines the roles "the animal" plays in various broad movements in contemporary critical theoretical work in and around the humanities and social sciences. It brings together elements of theory and practice in imagining discursively-constructed subjects who are not necessarily human. Some vocabulary drawn from the equestrian practices of dressage and Centered Riding© is employed as a means of translating phenomenologically various and immediate embodied expression into written language. Central theorists are Vicki Hearne (Adam's Task: Calling Animals by Name), Barbara Noske (Beyond Boundaries), Cary Wolfe (Animal Rites and Zoontologies: The Question of the Animal, ed.), Donna Haraway (a number of selections), Temple Grandin (Thinking in Pictures and Animals in Translation), and Jacques Derrida ("The Animal that Therefore I Am" and "And Say the Animal Responded," two sections of a 1997 conference lecture entitled "U Animal autobiographique").

Orientador: Ronaldo Rômulo Machado de Almeida / Dissertação (mestrado) - Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Instituto de Filosofia e Ciências Humanas / Made available in DSpace on 2018-08-20T06:06:26Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Ferrigno_MayraVergotti_M.pdf: 3901708 bytes, checksum: 6fe4b8a46e9fa9ebee88b253ea7784ec (MD5) Previous issue date: 2012 / Resumo: A partir de estudo etnográfico em congressos, manifestações públicas e encontros organizados ao redor do tema do vegetarianismo e da luta pelos direitos animais, a dissertação descreve a formação e a dinâmica de um movimento político em território brasileiro, expondo as principais discussões que mobilizam os ativistas na busca da emancipação dos animais na sociedade. Orientada pelo debate antropológico contemporâneo, voltado para observação das relações entre humanos e não-humanos, pode-se analisar uma discussão atual, na qual os atores não-humanos adquirem status de sujeito, o que mobiliza humanos na formação de um novo modo de fazer política e de se relacionar, em variadas esferas da vida social: a mudança de hábitos alimentares (disseminação da dieta vegetariana), o entretenimento (fim do uso de animais em circos, rodeios, touradas), bem como a revisão e a reflexão profundas sobre o modo de produção científica (fim dos testes em animais em pesquisas biomédicas e início de uma visão, dentro das ciências humanas, que encare seres não-humanos como atores sociais) / Abstract: Starting from an ethnographic study at conferences, public events and meetings organized around the theme of the vegetarianism and the struggle for animal rights, the manuscript describes the formation and dynamics of a political movement in Brazilian territory, exposing the main discussions that mobilize activists in pursuit of the emancipation of the animals in society. Guided by contemporary anthropological debate, aimed at observing the relationship between humans and nonhumans, can analyze a current discussion, in which nonhumans acquire status of subject, which mobilizes humans to the formation of a new way of doing politics and the relationship in various spheres of social life: changing eating habits (spread of vegetarian diet), entertainment (ending the use of animals in circuses, rodeos, bullfights), as well as review and reflection about scientific production (end of animal testing in biomedical researches and the beginning of a vision within the Human sciences, which sees non-human beings as social actors) / Mestrado / Antropologia Social / Mestre em Antropologia Social

This thesis demonstrates the ways that nonhuman characters in the literature of Elizabeth Bishop and Gerald Vizenor subvert anthropocentrism, thereby contributing to an ongoing reconsideration of political and ethical approaches to species discourse. Jacques Derrida's work on the philosophical questions regarding nonhuman animals is combined with Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak's postcolonial perspective on "subaltern speaking" and representation, while Gerald Vizenor's theory of "survivance" provides the theoretical grounding for approaching literary representations of animals within this project. The authors in this study challenge false hierarchical species divisions by constructing fictional spaces that imagine the perspectives of nonhuman beings, consider the importance interspecies relationships, and recontextualize the voices and communication of nonhumans. In providing these counter-narratives, these authors establish a relationship with readers that invites them to reconsider the ramifications of their own ideology of species, reminding them that theory and practice must coexist. / by Tiffany J. Frost. / Thesis (M.A.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2013. / Includes bibliography. / Mode of access: World Wide Web. / System requirements: Adobe Reader.

In recent years, there has been an undeniable shift in how we think about nonhuman animals. A growing philosophical literature on animal rights has encouraged a deep consideration of the moral status of animals, while scientific research has simultaneously confirmed the fact that many animals have complex cognitive, emotional, and social capacities that strongly mirror our own. Although there is still disagreement about what all this implies in terms of our responsibilities to animals, the idea that animals can experience physical or emotional pain or pleasure is the starting point and not the conclusion of the present inquiry. Many species of animals are sentient beings who possess a viewpoint from which they experience and act in the world around them - and hence may be said to be agential. My dissertation explores what it means for us to extend, conceptually and morally, agency to animals. I address this "extension of agency" predominantly from an aesthetic perspective, although in doing so I in no way intend to limit the range of related philosophical concerns. On the contrary; to extend agency to animals, I argue, calls for a revised understanding of our habitual spectatorial stances--how we look at animals. To grasp these stances, I investigate how animals have been looked at in literary works of art. Does the literature show our spectatorship to extend agency to animals or do we objectify them so as to deny their capacities as agents altogether? My dissertation focuses on excerpts from three significant works of literature--works by Nathanael West, Ernest Hemingway, and Leo Tolstoy--each of which stages a specifically athletic engagement involving animals, in this way bringing focus to the issue of our spectatorship. Each excerpt serves as philosophically illuminating material and as an exemplary case regarding humanity's willingness or refusal to extend agency to animals. I am particularly interested in the role of animals in human-engineered sports, and in how extending agency to animals in sports changes or ought to change the way we watch sports that involve animals. Within the philosophy of sport, the accepted approach has been to liken animals to sporting equipment or tools, and thus to make no substantive distinction between animal and non-animal sports. This, I argue, reflects a refusal to extend agency to animals, which has led also to an oversimplification and mischaracterization of sports involving animals in the first place. Nathanael West's The Day of the Locust takes up cockfighting, Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises centers around bullfighting, and Tolstoy's Anna Karenina includes a memorable, emotionally stirring, steeplechase episode. In addition to investigating what I refer to as the "extension of agency" to animals in these literary works, I revise some of the basic assumptions that have recently guided the burgeoning subfield of the philosophy of sports. I argue that we must acknowledge that there exists a fundamental difference between the modes of spectatorship that accompany sports that only involve humans, and those that involve animals. For to extend agency is to extend the moral domain to that or those who are "other" than ourselves. Once animals are introduced into a sport, they imbue the sport with all the aesthetic complexities that come with looking at an animal outside of sport: the unique exotic beauty of the animal body and its fitness to function, but also its vitality, wild autonomy, expressiveness, and reciprocity of gaze. This means that our interactions with animals, even in the case of organized sport or performance, are not purely aesthetic in a formal artistic sense; they are also expressive and communicative. The concept of the formal aesthetic that many employ when talking about art - the formal qualities that we attribute to the arts - is not sufficient to accommodate sports that involve animals and a spectatorship of animals. Animals are expressive, and this expressiveness is fundamental to correctly understanding our spectatorship of them. Animals are far more than our equipment. The aesthetic of animal sports must, I conclude, accordingly incorporate expressiveness and empathy, such that we see animals in fellowship with us as participants in sports. Extending agency to animals is the core concept of a morally inflected aesthetic of inter-subjectivity.